A2: Proj4 Stage 2 – exercise 4
for this exercise, I drew my ink bottle in various materials
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A2: Proj4 Stage 2 – exercise 3
A2: Proj4 Stage 2 – exercise 3
I selected the circular image for this exercise and painted it using watercolours, drew it with watercolour pencils, and use pastels, and made a collage of it.
weaving in cloth
first attempt at weaving in cloth. there’s quite a few ‘mistakes’ where I flip flopped (let’s call it “flipped a bit” in engineering terms) but it adds to the charm and makes it unique (& if it were a gene, then now there’s a new mutation?)
I like the looser weave when I first started too – I almost kept it like that but decided to finish it to see what it’d look like. I did manage to pull the fabric and create a hole in the corner though. I tried to get variable spaced warps but then this slowed the weaving down a lot as I made more mistakes and had to work out where I was more often. I used different thickness & colour threads to create some more variation.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/aliak_com/sets/72157645331553742 has more pics
I’m going to have to try more of these – it was great fun. this is inspired by jude hill’s “considering weave” class
another idea i’d had since seeing a 3d weaving machine online this week was to put posts (pins in pincushion or toothpicks?) and try weave up too to create contours, maybe like a crater edge in the earth. not sure if it’d work yet. will have to think more and see how this guy’s machine is doing it http://www.dezeen.com/2014/06/23/oluwaseyi-sosanya-invents-3d-weaving-ma… it sort of reminds me of those french knitting tools (pegs with nails on the top) except you don’t twist the yarn and it builds the piece in multiple dimensions / directions.
mind map beginnings
inspired by jude’s opening post, I started a mind map to begin my “considering weave” class workbook.
I’ve been working on my fabric loom tonight – the invisible basting is done, next up loading the warp & weft. I looked up one of jude’s videos from the hearts class to remind me how to do it – a great resource!
A2: Proj4 Stage 2 – exercise 2
a drawing showing all aspects of the marked off area used together
once again I liked the ‘ghost print’ on the page underneath
watercolour transfers – Carla Sonheim class
this weekend I’ve been trying to catch up on my printing for assignment 2 ACA. but was “distracted” by doing some online classes of Carla Sonheim’s. one was a gelli plate printing class, so I’m waiting for my gelli plate to arrive. will try similar on other makeshift plates during the week (am home with my materials for a couple of weeks). the other one was a watercolour transfer class. these are some of the watercolour painted tshirt transfer papers so far. the work is still in progress…waiting for it to dry properly then add some other media, then do/test the prints onto paper & fabric. the watercolours react nicely to the coating on the paper. I hadn’t tried this before. Carla does some amazing work – I’ve been really inspired and hope that one will turn out as nice as hers (one day). I’ve signed up for her ‘imaginary creatures’ class that’s running this week also and have started reading her books (the kindle ones). the book speaks about footpath/cracks animals. I took some photos of water splotches on the footpath near home and I can really see some imaginary animals in them so hoping I can turn them into little prints for my niece & cousins kids. maybe a little zine of them. not sure yet. (I’ve taken pics like this in the path, often of the outline that a stray hair makes on the bathroom floor – my hair is long and straight but tends to make curvy shapes as it falls out). I can really relate to her opening section of the imaginary animals (blobimals) book where she mentions she loves animals. and came late to making / studying art in her life (she was 30, I am older, but similar circumstances).
this one looks a little “busy” – I’ll see how it is once I have to cut it up
this one looks like a piglet to me:
& this one – I’m happy with the lightness of/amount of water in the watercolour – usually I think I’m too heavy handed with watercolour so I’m practicing to water it down more. getting there.
we had do make some abstract shapes using patterns and a couple of ‘landscape’ type images.
tracings in brushes
I read about the “brushes” ipad app so I’ve been trying it out this weekend. it allows you to draw in layers. so far I’ve been roughly tracing photos from my photos collection to practice and get a feel for drawing lines and objects & people. I know we should do more freehand drawing, but i get quite disheartened that mine don’t look like the original, that I don’t feel like doing any more. with the tracings, i can see the image coming through and it’s teaching me to see the shapes better, and to select which lines and shapes and shadings to include and which to leave out. i think this is half the battle of drawing – deciding what to include and what to discard that still gets your message across. I’m using my finger to draw with and still getting the hang of the app’s brushes too, so even though I’m tracing, it’s still not looking exactly like the original. but hopefully it’s training my hand eye co-ordination a bit (more than not drawing at all). here’s the first attempts.
the marks of Piranesi
yesterday, we went to the Piranesi exhibition at the State Library of Victoria. his work was amazing! such fine detail in his etchings and prints. there were around 100 works on display, but i found that I was transfixed by the close-up detail of his mark making in the works. when he was younger, the prints were lighter and later in his life he ran his own printmaking business and developed darker, denser prints of imaginative buildings, street scenes and maps. the exhibition included his visions of Rome etchings. most of the buildings did not actually exist outside his mind and works — they are imaginary buildings and cities. he showed amazing skill with depth of vision, fine detail in the clouds and architectural designs and showing darkness and light in the images. Giovanni Battista Piranesi lived from 1720-1778. a statement reported by one of his early biographers, via his Met Museum article shows his love for imaginary architecture:
“I need to produce great ideas, and I believe that if I were commissioned to design a new universe, I would be mad enough to undertake it.”
I tried drawing some of the marks in my notebook but found the pen i was using didn’t give me enough variation in the lightness and darkness of the lines.
I bought a copy of the book to look more closely at his lines and marks later. I’m afraid i didn’t notice all of the individual pictures from far away – I was too busy concentrating on a few of them close up. his mark making style was similar for most of his earlier and later works, but the large map that was printed onto the foyer outside the exhibition is of a more modern, draftsman drawing style.
the article in the paper about the exhibition mentioned that most of Piranesi’s works are held by libraries, rather than galleries. this is an interesting comment – perhaps due to his printing background, his works are highly regarded by printed works specialists. architects also study his works.
A2: Proj4 Stage 2 – exercise 1
A2: Proj4 Stage 2 – exercise 1
Drawings showing different aspects of the marked off area of some images — surface textures, colours, the main shapes. Using a variety of marks and materials and techniques.
original images:
my work on the exercises. I used different materials to try capture the textures, colours and shapes of the original images.
summer (winter) drawing project
some students are trying the “summer drawing project” from the distant stitch group on the OCA textile group page. I’ll try some of it too to see how it goes — even though it’s winter here for me 🙂 (which usually means more fibre projects as it’s nicer to knit in the colder months)
week1 — exploring “What type of mark do you make most naturally?”
repeating geometric shapes seems to be my most natural mark making. the first page was done using conte pencils and the remainder using a fine (0,3) ink pen. we had to fill the page with marks. so I tried repeating the shapes to see the effect. I could definitely turn these pages into stitches. though I think lace would be suited for the circles—I might have to learn how to make lace next 😉