AliaK [filter]

A Creative Approach — Project 1 Marking marks — Stage 4 — Working from your sketchbooks — review

Review questions

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:

A Creative Approach — Project 1 Marking marks — Stage 3 — Exercise 1 — Using marks to create surface textures

This exercise involved using marks to create surface textures — working from visual sources.

For these exercises I used pages from a magazine - "belle" magazine, june/july 2013

This first one is trying to replicate the textured rug, using graphite and charcoal pencils:

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 :(

in other news, I came across this article / project tonight which I thought might fit with my theme of code/encryption (perhaps not glitch). Anti-loneliness augmented quilt comforts children in hospital. from Joshua Barnes' site:

"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

[embed]https://vimeo.com/58172850[/embed]

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'

A Creative Approach — Project 1 Marking marks — Stage 2 — Exercise 3

This exercise involved repeating exercise 1 using a wider range of materials — paints, coloured pencils, crayons, sticks, brushes, sponges, etc.

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 2 — Making marks in an expressive way

This exercise involved using different pencils to show 3 areas of tones — dark, medium, light.

I used a mixture of graphix and graphite pencils of different grades.

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.

fast:

slow:

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".