Summer School

I thought I would share some of the work I did with Sarah Burgess at this year's summer school, particularly as it was focused on 'line'.

We had to bring some pictures/photographs of landscapes that we particularly liked and among mine was this one of the Athabasca trail in Canada.  The First Nation Canadians walked this trail along the river from their summer camps to their winter camps and it is a very atmospheric place, although the photographs don't do it justice.

We then had to make a stitch print from which we did lots of mono printing. Unfortunately the window frame has cast a shadow over my work.

I particularly liked these prints and thought that they followed the path a river might make.

I worked on these pieces using wire to follow the pattern.  I thought that they might represent pathways throughout ones life.  The 3d piece is the feeling of going round in a circle, the yellow one with the split wires is where you have to choose a pathway and represents the road not taken.  The orange one has a dark beginning where your life is out of control but you make the change and the pathway becomes smoother and brighter.  The black one is life itself from small tight changes in childhood to bigger more varied changes during middle life and gradually smoothing out in later life.

The next day we printed onto long strips of fabric using different printing equipment if we wanted to.  These are my favourite pieces and ones which I hope to work on later.

These were some more of the first days work that I particularly liked and have worked into.

Module 3 chapter 9

Extending the page.

I was sitting at my daughters one evening with nothing to do so I decided to make a start on this chapter.  I had been reading a very tatty copy of 'Testament of Youth' which I had got from a charity stall and as it wasn't in any state to pass on again, I tore out three pages and with some scrounged sewing thread from my daughter I joined them together.  Of course, you can't read them now as they don't follow on but I quite liked the effect and it is something to remember for the future.

In view of the content of the book the flowers are meant to be poppies and the black lines are barbed wire.

As I only have one page left in my sketchbook, I decided to make one long piece of work which I will add into the book when I have finished all the writing and notes I want to do.

The first half reads as follows:
Staples in a zig zag pattern.
Running stitch in cotton pearle.
French knots in cotton pearle
Plain machine stitching
Punched holes fastened with bows of cotton pearle
Safety pins
Machine stitched pattern

The second half starts with:
Large single stitches in cotton pearle
A plain seam done in back stitch with cotton pearle
Large cross stitches in cotton pearle
Fine wire with beads threaded on
Three strands of mixed threads stitched through punched holes
Small cross stitches in a polyester thread

All joined together I thought this made an interesting piece.

I don't have much in the way of metal fastenings or trimmings so I hope the use of stitching is OK.
The papers I have used vary from magazine to hand made, kitchen towel, paper bags, wrapping paper, newspaper and pleated tissue paper to make it strong enough to hold the stitches.
You have to be careful when joining pages together to make sure that it is right for both sides of the page, which is where I start for the next chapter.

Module 3 Chapter 8

String Prints

We have a large number of maps of varying sorts in the house, partly because I used to subscribe to National Geographic who include maps in their magazines on a regular basis.

The 'Cartographies' is from a museum in Palma, Majorca where there was a fantastic exhibition of old maps. The one to the left of it is called the 'Bawden' map of Scarborough.  It has recently been restored and is on display in the library.

The photography of Yann Arthus Bertrand is fantastic.  I had to choose the first picture of the Hiram Bingham Road at Machu Pichu as I think I have been up and down that road in a coach!

I have used both an ordnance survey map and a street map to make my drawings.

By doing this, you can see clearly how the streets are straighter and in a more rigid format than the country roads in Cumbria.

These are my string prints.  The one on the left is from the map and the one on the right is my own design.

Next are my rubbings done on the blocks.

This is wax crayon with a wash of Koh i Noor on computer paper.  All the prints had washes of Koh i Noor. I have used both stamps here

This is Markel stick on hand made paper.  The paper soaked up the paint and although the Markel stick shows through, it doesn't have the same look as a resist.

 This was two colours of Markel stick without a wash. Overprinted with both stamps.

Both these are Markel stick, one on recyled envelope and the other on brown paper.  I like the brown paper one.  The colour wash ran down the paper and stopped at the edge of the resist.

Printing with the blocks.

Block one on its own and seperated prints.

Block one overlapped.

Block one overlapped and printed randomly. I particularly like the top one.

Block one and block 2 printed together

I think this is block one and two overprinted.  I keep forgetting to write on the back what I have done.

This again is both blocks printed randomly.

I was quite suprised how good the prints were.  The first block taken from the map really made a good repeat pattern.  When time permits I might take this exercise further and try it on fabric, especially some of the new man made ones that can be distressed easily.

Chapter 7 Drawing the Landscape

I looked online for drawings by Van Gogh and chose these two.

I like dthe smaller one best but wasn't sure if it was a bit too small to work with, so I settled for copying the larger picture.

I then decided to have a go at the smaller picture and was quite pleased with the way it came out.

I looked at the internet again for pictures by Hockney and Van Gogh.  I love David Hockney's pictures of the wolds.  I travel along these roads quite frequently and it is just like driving through one of his pictures.  I love the texture of Van Gogh's paintings, you just want to touch them.  I have also added two pictures by local artists who I think use line very well.  Ian Mitchell views of the Yorkshire coast are all done on the computer and are lovely and simple in their design.  Rebecca Vincent does Monotype and this one again reminds me of the wolds.  The trees are another Hockney which he has adjusted on the computer.

For my own painting I had chosen the tiny picture of a Tuscan landscape with cypress trees and farmhouse.  However, when I came to do the painting I had put the picture away in a safe place and couldn't find it so had to chose another one.  I was half way through painting that one when I found the first one.

I chose the larger picture as I particularly liked the colours.

I am not very good at painting pictures but I referred back to module 1 about painting the outlines straight onto the paper and not using pencil.  I made a small mark in the centre of the page to position the buildings.  I am reasonably pleased with my effort but I am not sure Van Gogh would approve.

Module 3 Chapter 6

Torn Papers

I started this chapter by making a small pile of torn papers using different types of paper, newspaper, brown paper, pre-painted paper, tissue paper and kitchen towel.

I then pasted these onto three pages of my sketchbook.

The first page I covered with a wash of watered down ink.  The second page I covered with a pearlescent ink that I hadn't watered down.  I was quite surprised to see the pattern on the tissue paper still showed through.  This would have been better thinned down.

For the third page I took your advice and tried writing ink.  The top of the page is undiluted and then I did the rest of the page with water added.  I really like this page, it has a mystery to it.

I made two viewfinders although I have used them before I could only find a very small frame one, I suspect I have accidentally cut the others up to make printing stamps.  I then chose some photographs and magazine pictures of landscapes.

I chose a lovely view of Lake Garda to trace.

I then made a collage of it using mostly magazine papers.  I should have put the blue water under the buildings when I glued them down, then the white patch at the side would have disappeared and the perspective on the buildings would have been right.  I had all the pieces laid out at the side of my paper and I picked them up in the wrong order.

I then did a series of three pictures in which I changed the colours.  The piece on the right isn't quite the right size, it should have more buildings on it, or maybe the one in the middle should have fewer.  I wondered if I was put off by the size of my paper being smaller on the last piece - a good excuse.  I could also have varied the height of the buildings a bit more. I then tidied them up and put them in my sketchbook.

This was an interesting chapter, I haven't done much collage like this before and I was reasonably pleased with how they turned out.  They are a bit 'impressionistic' which takes me into the next chapter quite nicely.

Module 3 Chapter 5

Spaces make lines

Firstly I did some black squares which I cut into shapes and arranged to make a lines.  The first one shows a narrow line which gets wider then narrows again.  The second  makes a continuous zig zag line but at one of the points you have a choice of route, either continuing on the zig zag or finishing your journey.  The second set are circles, the first ones split to make a regular wavy line and the second set has differing shapes and widths to make an irregular line.

The third set are irregular shapes, again cut firstly to make a regular line and secondly to make an irregular line.  The next sets are coloured shapes.  Firstly colour on a black background and secondly coloured shapes on a coloured background.

Both the foreground and background of this piece are photographs of embroidered pieces cut out from an old magazine.  I liked these little stitched houses or beach huts and nine of them fitted nicely onto my page.  I cut each row of three differently to create different patterns and the middle row is stuck in upside down.  The houses aren't all exactly the same size and shape so this made little differences to each row.  I liked this piece when it was finished, I wasn't too sure while I was doing it.  It shows what you could do with pieces of work that don't work out as you would like.  You can give them a new lease of life by cutting them up and rearranging them.

Andy Goldsworthy.
Some of his work is amazing and I suspect on quite a huge scale.  I have picked these three pieces from what I found on the internet.  I loved the autumn leaves, very inspirational for embroidery.  I hope I remember I have got this picture as some later date.  The other two are sand prints, which living by the sea, I can relate to.

I started my extra activity with a bit of fun.  This line in my lawn has been made by next doors cats as they cross the grass to get out to the front of the houses.  It has been bisected by some shadows of canes.  Are they the new Andy Goldsworthy?

I thought it would be nice to take my daughter to areas of the coast and moors that she hasn't seen before or at least, not for a long time.  We set out Easter Monday up the coast to go and make lines in the sand with shells and seaweed.  As you can see from this picture, it was thick fog on the coast and a bit cold for playing on the sands.

I hope my subsequent pictures are OK as I have used lines that I have seen around me rather than making them myself.  So the next picture has been made by dogs on the beach.

The next has been made by tractor tyres in the sand and is reminiscent of one of Andy Goldsworthy's pictures I chose.  My photography isn't very good I'm afraid.

Here are some stacked lobster pots.  This was at Staithes.  There is a lovely pub right on the beach and the entrance door that faces the beach has a sign on saying 'In very high seas, please use other door'.  I wonder how many customers have ended up with salt water in their beer!

Ten minutes in land and the weather was beautiful.  This is on Blakey Ridge and the patterns are created by strip heather burning for the management of the grouse on the moors.

We had a lovely day out and both of us enjoyed using our eyes a lot more than we might have done and certainly more than those overtaking us at 60 miles an hour through this magnificent scenery.