Visiting Shows for Supplies & Inspiration

Monigami experiment

I will be visiting 'Sewing for Pleasure' just under two weeks time for a fresh stock of supplies relating to me latest projects, partially connected with this year's 'Warwickshire Open Studios' and my own exhibition in my caravan. New directions, new techniques, new projects, and much to do. I've described it on one of my other blogs: 'Dilemmas & Delights' (with numerous links) but will be posting quite a few step-by-step techniques in the coming weeks.

Marvellous Craft Show

Richard Box demonstrating at the Creative Craft Show

I've just returned from the marvellous Creative Craft Show at the Three Counties Showground in Malvern. I haven't yet had time - or any daylight - in which to photograph some of the supplies I bought - beautiful yarn, beads and fabric - but as the Show is on for the next two days (Fri 1st March & Sat 2nd), I thought you might like to know about it. I've written a long post with lots of pics and online links on my Travel blog, so please link to that for more details.

Word Whispers and demos

napkin images waxed onto dictionary pages / maps and mounted onto
an old curtain prior to stitching and backing; words to be added.

On Thursday evening, I am demonstrating at a meeting of our local Embroiderer's Guild: Paper, Fabric & Stitch' and I have been preparing some samples and planning how I can in a short space of time show all the various phases of creating fabric ziz-zag books based on old maps, recycled books and napkins, waxed or fused into position. I've almost finished the 'Florlegium' that I began during my Caravan Open Studio in July ( not had time to touch it since then and it has taken longer because I forgot what I had planned to do! I need to show how different the napkins look when fused rather than waxed and so am planning another sample entitled 'From Plot to Plate' and a 'Wild Herbal' as well. Maybe I won't have them finished; indeed I won't because that is the purpose of the evening, to demo the steps from idea, through auditioning, positioning, discarding and then putting it all together. Apart from the stitching for my sewing machine is too heavy to shift from my workroom.

Using a different technique

Fused images can be applied direct to paper surfaces (maps, painted bags, book pages etc) or to fabric, and sometimes I apply to muslin or cheesecloth, and then re-fuse to a fabric background. This page has a  napkin image of a foxglove fused to muslin and then cut and fused onto the map, with my hand-written text alongside. It is part of a 'Nature Trail' booklet that I made for a magazine feature a couple of years ago.

Random 'word whispers' for three projects

All my work utilises text as well as napkin images. Some was already written, or at least fitted my theme; the rest I wrote 'to order', and I want to demo how quick and easy that is to do, once you have the images and the idea. This pic (click to enlarge it) shows some of the words for three projects, typed and ready to print onto 'cool peel'. That's the next stage for my samples, so here goes with iron and edge-stitching once the words are 'cool'.

Some of my samples will deliberately be left unfinished: a) because I won't have time to complete all I want to demo, and b) because I think it is useful to show how an effect gas been achieved and guild members can pull them apart and ask about the actual processes.

Now I have to prepare some pages and select some napkins and collect together sufficient pairs of scissors and glue brushes so that they can all have some fun! Or I hope they will, as I am only one of four 'demonstrators' and my topic may not appeal. And I am praying that the roads are not so icy that I cannot get up the hill and out of the village!

Quilted Garden Notebook Pages

Posted in my last entry, but included again so you will not needed to swap between posts;
double-click on the image to read it at a larger size.

In my last post I talked about new directions I am taking in 2013, and included the image of my sketchbook thinking for my new 'Quilt Garden' fabric and paper book. Since then, in between trying to recover from ongoing fragility and keeping up with my magazine commissions, I have been progressing this, and developing the ideas. The 'word whisper' are all typed though their will be more as the month moves forward, but everything for the first 'spread' is ready to posit and stitch.

Meanwhile, I have written-up and illustrated in my accompanying 'Creative Projects & Processes' notebook, which details what I have actually done rather than what I plan to do. 

Between the sketchbook and notebook, it will be a record of the project. Again, click on the images to read each page at a larger size. 

And I apologise for the quality of the pics; they were photographed propped on the bed rather than scanned; for I produced the pages whilst sick in bed. Otherwise, if I keep up this up for a day and then back-to-bed sequence, I won't achieve anything.

A little wine-sketch story

Although I have posted some of my wine-sketches already on this blog, I haven't actually created any of late, for wine was off the menu during the weeks I was under the weather and on double antibiotics. But this little sketch rather fits my mood today (back in bed and lap-tapping away). Cross but skittish. It was drawn on a post-it note because I had nothing else to hand, and the story written last week was scribbled on the back of a shopping list, in Morrisons Supeermarket cafe.

"Which way now?" the little old lady said as 2012 moved towards its end. She did not feel 'old', had never used such an adjective of herself. But suddenly, she no longer felt sprightly. Could still walk fast, and even run, but after even a morning's physical or mental work, she experienced now a depressing lack of energy. Her day, morning, noon, (l'apres midi - needs an accent) and night, or rather evening, which previously had been punctuated by so many tasks overwhelmed her; she felt overburdened. It was all so sudden, she felt lost. What should she do?

pen and wine doodle on the back of a cornflake packet

On New Year's Eve she cleared her creative work-space; just sufficient to be able to reach the sewing machine, her notebooks, her paints and threads, piles of sketchbooks, and she made lists of where these things were stored. Her creative clutter still littered the house; the garden was neglected, but she knew that if she could sit down and CREATE on New Year's Day 2013, she would feel young again. The day was perfect; she should have been clearing the garden!

Double-click the image to be able to read it.

On New Year's Day she started a new project - a fabric book that would take all year to make - a 12" x 12" Quilted Garden. Not just notes, and notes of notes this time, but sorting fabric and embellishments. She wrote the word-whispers that would appear, typed the words ready to transfer onto muslin and prepared the photo images - just for January: a celebration of what she saw in her garden that very morning (was it only yesterday?) All was ready to lay out and stitch, and then - perhaps the moral of this story - nothing goes according to plan, for this morning the little old lady took to her bed again. Was this to be the magical start to 2013 that she had worked towards for so many years?  For 2012 could not have been more awful, and 2013 had new and exciting adventures to pursue.

Weariness of spirit leads to madness

click on the link below to read this

I have pages within my various illustrated journals and sketchbooks in need of attention; many tiny images to colour, but am weary; if I try to paint now, disaster would result. A really nasty cold has me sitting by the fire wrapped in a blanket trying (supposedly to work). Been like this for two days; my dear husband tells me to stay in bed, but if I sleep during the day, I will be awake all night. So instead, I attempt to play; the pen slides onto pieces of scrap paper and the fingers itch to tap the keyboard; nothing too onerous - no long stories or reports requiring research. I play, surrounded by books which fall on the floor; I dream of simper things, and this is what emerges: Dilemmas & Delights. Just an escape from the rigours of every day, whilst still sharing what is in my head and heart. It will expand for is a speedy thing.

Painting with wine

Concentrate on the left-hand bunch

The first time I used wine when colouring my sketches, it was a mistake. One glass of water (for painting), on of wine (for drinking) - and I dipped the brush in the wrong glass! I am usually creating sketches of an evening after work, either on the terrace in the garden, or by the fire; and I don't ALWAYS accompany these sessions by drinking! The second time was sitting in a field of long grass with the most spectacular meadow flowers and I was sketching whilst enjoying a picnic. My sketch kit that day did not include water, so the glass of wine was used of necessity - though I poured a drop into the top of the thermos flask having drunk all our coffee. The effect of wine on sketching pen, and aqua pencils was lovely, and I have continued experiments from time to time. The wine has the effect of sealing pen lines to a certain extent, and I keep one of those miniature wine sample bottles in my work space.

Trial 'painting with wine'

Of late, there has been no need for these experiments, because I usually now draw with a Uni-ball Signo Gel Grip pen; it isn't a permanent marker but if left to dry overnight, it is perfectly waterproof next day and you can paint over the lines with either a watercolour wash, or neat paint and it does not smudge. But yesterday evening, I wanted to capture the feel of the bunch of flowers I bought over a week ago in the Ludlow Food Centre. They were so fresh they had hardly faded, and the hydrangea petals were becoming quite papery with such subtle colouring. I had mislaid my Signo pen and only had a Pentel EnerGel which, although it dries is never waterproof - wet the paper with paint and it smudges badly, turning any applied watercolour to mud. I experimented with a drop of wine immediately over the watercolour - though I used Koh-i-Noor Hardmuth solid colour blocks (more like a dye than watercolour); the effect with a brush was too heavy - the lines almost washed off the paper, and I had to draw over the colour wash.

My finished painting

But I was determined to capture the flowers (similar to the left hand bunch in the top picture) and tried a totally different technique. I used Daler-Rowney Langton Not (Cold Pressed) fine grain 140lb 10in x 7in (254mm x 178mm) and quickly produced what I term a 'scribble drawing'. Then I dipped my fingers in the wine and slid them over the sketch, using the pad of my middle finger to blend the lines a little. I rather liked the way the ink spread over the paper - but the ink badly stained my fingers and had to be scrubbed off! I used a brush to wash on a little Koh-i-Noor colour for the hydrangeas and the blue vase, whilst the flowers were still damp, dipping the brush into the wine. Miraculously, the black lines seemed to be sealed by the finger-rubbing with the first application of wine. The result may be rubbish, but I will never now forget the beauty of the flowers and somehow, by painting them, they will forever remind me of the day I bought them. This is a technique I will pursue I think with landscape sketches.