A Creative Approach — Project 1 Marking marks — Stage 3 — Exercise 2 — Using marks to create surface textures
This exercise involved recreating the textured surfaces of objects.
This first page has a drawing trying to replicate the texture of patio tiles, and another showing the branches and remaining leaves of a tree that had lost its leaves during winter — as viewed from the patio whilst looking across the garden. I painted the watercolour wash over the ink drawing in the evening, and thought I was using a brownish grey colour but when I checked in the light of day the next day, I'd actually used a purple colour. Oops. So the colours are not 100% accurate but hopefully the feel of the texture shows through:
tonight I was reading through class notes again and just realised I have more to do for assignment one than I thought. I'd totally missed a whole section - project 2. I was thinking project 1 = assignment 1 :(
"As a means to combat symptoms of loneliness experienced by children staying long periods of time in hospital, the Augmented Quilt opens up an additional line of communication between the child and their loved ones. Each animal illustration on the quilt can be linked to a friend or family member, who can in turn leave digital messages for the child to read using a smart device. This highly personal form of communication is more meaningful to the child than anything a facebook message alone is capable of. Simultaneously the intimate tactile nature of the quilt also serves as a physical source of comfort which, when combined with the personal messages, provides a greater sense of security to the child in what is a potentially distressing time."
tonight I watched videos on Zandra Rhodes' tutorial page on her website. the first video about Sketchbooks was great. I liked how she speaks on photographs vs drawing in sketchbooks: "to me, i never get to know something unless I've drawn it & suffered it"
there's also some great videos on screenprinting and making the prints for some of her fabrics. it's interesting that she uses layout paper for her sketchbooks too - I might have to try that for the pens
Tutorial 1 Zandra Rhodes: Using sketchbooks from UCA Learning Technologists on Vimeo.also I started reading through "Indigo - The Colour that Changed the World" by Catherine Legrand, after finding it at Potts Point bookstore yesterday. I've almost bought this book a few times online, but hadn't quite pressed submit on the order. it's a visual feast - interesting to learn more about indigo following the shibori class I did a few weeks ago.
and, a non-art-textiles related article to read is, "In Conversation with Adam Curtis, Part I" by (one of my favourite curators) Hans Ulrich Obrist - they do speak about art in the article
today I went to the Art Gallery of NSW and saw "The Sydney Moderns" exhibition. I loved the "colour music" works of Roy de Maistre - I think these would translate well to textiles. like weaving sounds and colour. he did a lot of work based on synaesthesia. I was at the gallery with my sister and 10 month old niece, who was very excited - singing and dancing in the gallery - so we walked quickly through the exhibition so as not to disturb others viewing the works. I hope to go back and see it again and spend some more time looking at the paintings. De Maistre also did some paintings based on the colour wheel.
I've been reading and browsing through the book, "Drawn to stitch - Line, drawing and mark-making in textile art" by Gwen Hedley. she has some great examples and suggestions for mark-making, which I hope to try. the first part of the book talks about how to describe lines and mark-making. adding the info here so I remember to use it when describing some of my explorations - so far I've only uploaded the pictures, not written much about them.
from pages 9-11. "Drawn to stitch - Line, drawing and mark-making in textile art" by Gwen Hedley
Line
think about characteristics and qualities of lines
are the lines:
- straight, curved, varied?
- geometric or contoured?
- man-made or organic?
- continuous or broken?
- jagged or even?
- dotted, dashed or both?
- thick, thin or varied?
- raised or recessed?
surface colour
are the colours:
- pure or blended?
- muted or grey and dusty?
- bright or subdued?
- solid or broken?
- are the edges soft or hard?
- are there layers of colour? if so, what is the colour order?
textural qualities
is the surface texture:
- smooth or rough?
- varied?
- shiny or dull and matte?
- flat or knobbly?
- complete or eroded?
- rigid, gritty, or sleek?
- opaque, transparent or translucent?
I've started reading a book by Victoria Finlay called "Colour: A Natural History of the Palette" where she travels and describes how some colours in art have been lost, beginning with a memory of her father telling her how the blue used in the stained glass windows in Chartres is no longer available. (some other sites now say it hasn't been lost). I found an audio interview with Finlay on the ABC website.
yesterday I saw an article called "The Colorful Stories of 5 Obsolete Art Pigments" which describes five pigments which have disappeared from art: Maya Blue, Tyrian Purple, White Lead, Lapis Lazuli, Dragon’s Blood with an update of another three: Mummy Brown, Indian Yellow, Scheele’s Green. the article is continued in another article, "More Vibrant Tales of Obsolete Pigments".
A Creative Approach — Project 1 Marking marks — Stage 2 — Exercise 4
This exercise involved making marks with many other types of materials.
Block printing — a wine bottle box + softdrink bottle cap with ink stamp pad:
Layers of coloured water based oil pastel crayons with scratchings using a bamboo pen:
I like this one - the colours peeking through seem quite electric - almost neon. I think it's because of the surrounding black colour making them 'pop'
I've been thinking about what to use for my theme/s - am not sure if they'll fit yet, but here's my initial ideas:
1. encryption/code/glitch - I've read about women who've (over the centuries) added codes to their fabric to send messages to others - encrypted messages in textiles. it fits in with my work too (encrypted digital tv signals/video/audio). and glitch maybe due to something Jack spoke about (how he likes glitch in video but I try to remove it/prevent it at work - so a balance between work & home) & another class I did & the music equipment/making anomolies that turn out to be something beautiful/special/unplanned - the glitches in the code, the mistakes. I've made some (very rough) video art using glitch over the years, so thought it might fit in
2. sound art/experimental music (maybe dance music culture, hip hop too) - not really sure how I'll fit this in yet, but it's another thing I write on, so trying to think of a way to fit it in - it might end up just being a separate project & I use the things in #1. maybe the music part of it - I think a lot of experimental music/sound art could be converted to embroidery - the lines & patterns & feel of the music into colours and lines.
A Creative Approach — Project 1 Marking marks — Stage 2 — Exercise 1 — Making marks in an expressive way
Stage 2 - Exercise 1
Making marks based on the words: fast, slow, hard, sharp, soft, delicate, bumpy, smooth, sensuous, sad, happy using a variety of pencils
The first exercise we had to make marks using the theme words. I did this in my A3 book. For this exercise I used an HB pencil, charcoal, and a watercolour pencil
For the first page, I tried one square for each word:
Then I changed to using one A3 page per word for a few selected words.
this morning I read the articles that had arrived in my inbox and webpages overnight and discovered a talented Sydney based textiles designer called Joanna Fowles via this article in TDF (the design files). Joanna is originally from the UK, though has lived in Australia previously - when she did a year-long TAFE screenprinting course. she then returned to England where she studied textile design at Chelsea College of Art. I love her geometric designs - featuring many large and overlapping dots. she specializes in Shibori dyeing and printing, using the Shibori indigo as well as other colours to create her scarves and fabrics. I notice Fowles also has a design featured in the wonderful "Digital Textile Design" book by Melanie Bowles and Ceri Isaac, which "covers everything students and practitioners of textile design will need to learn about designing and printing digitally".
I had the idea today to write a story about memory windows. I think it was after the second coffee. now I can't think of what to write - the characters. this week I've been on holidays and have been relaxing and reading. the "Exegesis" by Philip K Dick arrived (finally - it seems it might have been delayed due to a missing / between my apartment number and street number on the package's postal address). so I started reading it, but it's straight into the gnostic themes, which I haven't read for a few months so then I started listening to the Aeon Byte podcasts again and buying ebooks from Amazon & Google to read in my chrome cloud reader. one was about Hermes Trismegistus, called The quest for Hermes Trismegistus : from ancient Egypt to the modern world" by Gary Lachman. another is "Sacred Economics" by Charles Eisenstein, who's class I'm taking starting this week on Evolver. "The Gift" by Lewis Hyde - which has a great essay on Ezra Pound as the last chapter. I've been meaning to find out more about Pound for a while, so this was good to read. another is a collection of interviews in a book called "Voices of Gnosticism" by Miguel Conner - who hosts and produces the Aeon Byte podcasts mentioned previously.
today, I listened to a song that Matty Fresh had posted on facebook. very lush - lovely piano sounds & beats. I’ve seen a video interview with him where he showed the process he follows in producing a beat - digging in the crates, sampling the vinyl records, transferring to the computer.
then I had these thoughts about the piano sample taken from the record. the sound has layers of stories and human connections with it. there’s the pianist - all those years of training and practicing the piano which led to them playing that song on the day it was recorded. the composer of the original song. the booking of the sound recording studio - I can imagine the musicians in the room - the pianist at the piano, playing the song. how many times did they play this melody that day. did they get into the zone. the sound recording engineer recording the sounds - how did they adjust & tweak the sounds. was it recorded onto tape. was it a new tape or had it been used before and were there traces of older sounds already on the tape. then it was sent to the vinyl processing plant to be both archived and brought to life during the vinyl production process. were there any imperfections introduced in this process. all these steps took time. did the musician think about their performance again afterwards - wonder if they could have changed something, or if it was perfect as is. then the industry takes over and the record gets released and people buy it. who bought this record - the one that the sample was taken from. how many hands has it passed through, and how many plays did it have on people's home record players, or out & about? what were the people doing when they listened - what were they thinking. did their record players add some imperfections to the sounds by faulty equipment, or overuse? did they play the record over & over so it was almost worn out and the vinyl getting thinner and thinner with each play. at some point their lives changed and the record was sold and ended up in a dusty record bin that Matty Fresh pulled it out of and took home and added to his collection. how many other songs were listened to before this one was chosen - how many times was it played by him to be imprinted on his memory to pull it out later when this song was being created.
