Showing posts with label art journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art journal. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Art Journal going great!

I  recently had a birthday ending in "0" and  the house was full of beautiful flowers from my friends, including these orchids. I can see this  becoming an art quilt.

A quilt design, this would be raw edge applique on the orange and green background.

The view from the back deck including  corgi Pixie and my husband's foot!

A bunch of roses also for my birthday, these were  exquisite deep yellow with red petal edges.

My rules of art journal drawing
1. relax. Don't stress about it. Take a cup of tea into your  drawing area.
Have a special place where you can leave all your supplies out.
2.  start in  or near the centre of the page, with the focal point of the scene and work outwards until you hit the edge of the paper. The location of each item is worked out by what is adjacent. This works well with flowers and landscapes but not so well with  horses and people where spatial  accuracy is important.

3. Don't judge it at all.
4. Be patient and keep going. Push through the stages where it looks awful ( and  you shouldn't be thinking it's awful as you aren't judging it)

5. As the drawing happens each day, it doesn't matter  if some  don't work out. Doing it daily takes away the preciousness of each work, allowing you to take risks and possibly ruin it by trying something new.
6. draw whatever comes to mind. If you are short of inspiration, look out a window, grab a magazine, pick up some scraps from the sewing room floor and scatter them on the page and join them with lines.  Another good idea is to choose an item and draw it each day for several days using different media, different scale, different angles.

7. After a short while it is easy to sit down and get into the drawing frame of mind (right brain) very quickly.
8. Stop when you've had enough, or filled the page, or   completed the sketch of the item to a point where it has come to a natural conclusion.

Enjoy your drawing!


Tuesday, December 13, 2011

thread drawing and art journal

My work this week was an exciting and challenging interpretation of a face.
First, lay down some fabrics, I used silks. Then  use free motion stitching to outline the  features.
On this second picture you can see the features starting to emerge, outlined in brown thread on the sewing machine. I chose warm colours because the face in the photo I was working from looked rugged and weathered like an arid  landscape..
Then I added some light sheer fabric where there were highlights and some dark sheers for the shadows, plus some more stitching around the eyes.  A work in progress... needs a lot of refinement but I am happy with  the direction so far...


Also I am having a lot of fun in my daily textile art journal with pen and coloured pencil drawings of the view from the deck..( note the dog in the corner!)

Some "zentangle" type drawings of a flower

and the late Amy Winehouse.

I have never enjoyed drawing so much, and look forward to my early morning cuppa and drawing session.  There is no pressure or expectation so just pure fun and playing.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Yo-Yo mat and Christmas decorations!

Since arriving back from Houston  quilt Festival, I have  been trying to finish some UFOs. This yo-yo mat has been going for some time now and is finally complete and on the bathroom floor. Just yo-yos hand sewn onto a pre-quilted background.
also some quick  little Christmas decorations, machine sewn, stuffed and embellished with beads.

My resolutions on arriving back from Houston-
1. Watch lessTV at night. It is amazing how little you miss shows like "Hoarders" and "Selling Houses" and how much you get done, like hand sewing, reading , thinking about garden design, decluttering,    patting the dogs, and talking to my husband.
2.  Do a daily entry in my art journal,  an A4 page of drawing/colouring/cutting and pasting  , anything basically. I make a cup of tea in the early morning and head to the sewing room where I have coloured pencils, glue, fabric scraps and just create something. It does not have to look any good.
a little heart.

Beaded Christmas tree

My yo-yo mat-  showing brown earth colours grading to green grass and then flowers then sky.

yo-yo close up

A souvenir from Houston. 
a beaded star.

two yo yos sewn together, stuffed and embellished with beads.
3. I hope to explore some rug making.