I’ve been trying out my new artgraf water soluable graphite tonight with another drawing of a bee for my theme. I think it’s sometimes called watercolour graphite. I put water in the lid and found my paintbrush and tried it out. I haven’t got the bee shapes right yet but I love the variations in lightness and darkness of the graphite. there’s even a slight shimmer and sparkle to it in this dim light. will see if it’s still there in the morning daylight.
I shouldn’t have tried the background wash though.. 🙁 don’t like it atm
another in (hotel room) biro practicing hatching (with wonky bee shape still)
folding. like origami paper folds memory
memory of clothes and sheets and other home linen as you grow up with it
the article about newborn baby cloth wrapping
memories of clothes, the feel of fabric. comfort. protection
expand later. initial notes
created http://www.haptichuman.com to collect info about these ideas
making squares and rectangles using contemporary smocking from square wave patterns. it’s based on the lozenge pattern. getting the hang of it. I drew the square waves by hand so they’re not perfectly even, so the squares sometimes don’t line up perfectly. but I like the 3D shapes they make. I need to iron/press these too to see the effect. I like the puffy (un-ironed) version also
I saw this cool photo of waveforms placed next to nature waveform patterns, so I wonder if an audio waveform pattern could be used as a smocking guide also. worth a try to see what happens
– make a mind map & taxonomy of craft vs art (fine art?) & map textiles into this
— applied function, purpose
— containers, coverings, adornment, tools (hand), machines
– plato’s forms
– machines – sadie plant article
– craft objects found all around the world from archaeological digs. in the future will they find all of our landfill, rubbish and think it was our art/ craft? how much will dissolve/break down?
– early. biomimicry by humans let us survive and evolve. look at bee flower petal nest
I’ve been making dragonscale (reverse smocking) using Michele Carragher’s instructions (she is the game of thrones’ embroiderer). I finally got it to work, after unpicking the first few attempts (& realising I’ve done it on wrong side of the fabric – right side for regular smocking). I’m using this as part of the fabric manipulation topic in assignment 3 work. I’ll use this page to add more details and summarise it (with other samples) on the assignment page later.
notes for the pattern:
first attempt – I had only drawn the dots, not the triangles and became a bit lost, so these two didn’t work out. I unpicked them and started again.
next time, I drew the triangles as a template onto the fabric also. this helped a lot, and I managed to make it correctly this time
the right side of the fabric – this shows the smocking pattern, but the “dragonscale” uses the other side, so I actually made the whole piece on the wrong side of the fabric. oh well. know for next time.
the wrong side of the fabric – showing the dragonscale. I need to iron/press it to flatten it, though I like the puffy pattern also.
today I went on an etching / print workshop at the ownership project gallery / print room in melbourne. learnt a lot. i made some prints to try different techniques, levels of colour depth, plate cleanup, colours, timings. used one of my bee drawings so I can add them to my theme work. falling in love with printing. you can get some very detailed marks with etching (with practice!)
i’ll add more pics / steps later when on the computer
i’m making notes in my workbook. might post photos here. I’ve read you take more in/remember more when handwriting notes than typing. but if i get time i’ll try type them up too so i can search later.
week1:
explorations in textiles, mark making, drawing, sketchbooks, art school & uni art work