Life Drawing 14th June 2012

Red sketch

Thursday's Life Drawing session was another really good one. We hadn't seen our model for this session for quite a while so it was great to see him again and have a catch up. I had a lot of foreshortening to contend with but I think that it lead to some interesting drawings. I'm teaching a life drawing class for Carlisle and Border Art Society on Monday so I was thinking a lot about what I was going to cover in the session with them which had a big influence on my drawing. I was trying to think about portraying the body as something living, with life and movement rather than just as an object to be captured on the page. This obviously suits my somewhat loose and chaotic style of drawing and for this session I developed something I'd touched on previously-using colour to add a bit more life to the drawings. Overall I was really pleased with my drawings this evening and am looking forward to using a bit more colour in future sessions.

BIG drawing

I managed to cause our model much amusement with this drawing. I was working on a sheet of A1 (I usually work on A2) so the paper was already huge and I said at the start of the 40 minute pose I was going to try and stay on one sheet. After a measly 5 minutes I'd moved on to a second A1 sheet and then had to scurry to the other side of the room to get more A2 paper as I'd run out! However, I think the finished drawing has a feel of being quite monumental and imposing, which the pose was from where I was sat.

Hands and feet

Layered sketches

The drawing on the right (image above) is an outline sketch I did without looking at the page, I really like the free flowing feel of it.

Two heads
I wasn't happy with the first version so I drew a second.

Layered continuous line sketches

Continuous Line

Sketchy

Foot detail

More continuous line

Lovely Lacey Birds

New Dress (needs a press)

I bought this dress in the sale last summer with the intention of customising it but it has sat in my to-do pile for a while. A couple of months ago I used a printing block I'd made to print some birds on it but because I used a dark green they didn't show up too well. Then last weekend I was looking at the lace bird cushion covers I'd made and thought that it would be a good idea to use the same technique on the dress. So I did. I used the printing block as my template to cut out the lace birds and I used fusible adhesive web to attach the lace to the dress. I then secured the birds with free machine embroidery and gave them buttons for eyes. I'm really pleased with this dress now, I got lots of comments when I wore it to work this week and I think it will become one of my favourites.

One bird

Halter-neck  purple jersey with lace birds

Another bird

Five birds

Top bird

Life Drawing 31st May 2012

5 minute charcoal drawing. My favourite drawing from this session, it was the last pose.

Another of the many things going on last week was Life Drawing. It was another good session with Caf as our model, she came up with some great poses including some which must have been quite uncomfortable to hold but were fun to draw!

4 page Pen drawing, 20 minutes

5 minute sketch of same pose

5 minute pose, 2 minute sketch

This started as a bigger drawing but I only liked this bit!

Crazy pose, great to draw

5 minute warm up sketch

Can you guess what it is yet?

Small Puffer fish

Well it's clearly a puffer fish used as a ball during a game of underwater tennis. You'd have to be crazy not to know that! As mentioned previously (see Spheres) I'm involved in several projects connected with certain events occurring this summer in Londinium.

I've been working as a support worker for Prism Arts for a little while now and it's such a great job. The artists and service users are all fantastic and it's just so much fun. Our current project is a studio theatre taster course which will culminate in a street theatre performance in Carlisle when the torch comes to town. Our piece basically centres on the games being somewhat taken over by aliens, both good and bad, and us all being saved by power rangers. It has also resulted in my having a lot of fun with my sewing machine; making alien faces, puppets, fish rackets and an underwater tennis player, and with my felting needles, making the aforementioned puffer fish. I love my job.

Eyes

Tentacles

Large puffer fish

Another large puffer fish

Tentacles or spines?

Banner Making at Rockcliffe

Screen Printed Designs

My major project of last week was being at Rockcliffe C of E Primary School doing two days of banner making with the students. Last year I worked with the school as part of my job at Heathlands and it was such a nice place to work that I asked if they wanted a freelance artist to work with them. Luckily for me they said yes and said they wanted to do a banner for the Olympics. So, I put my thinking cap on and came up with a design. I'm currently somewhat regretting this design as it involves making 5 3D rings which are proving rather more problematic than I anticipated. However, the bit where I was in school working with the students was great fun.

Collagraph Patch

I worked with each different class group and taught each group a different printing technique. Each class group had chosen a colour and continent relating to the Olympic rings and looked at the Olympic values as a starting point for their designs. I got each group to print on their chosen colour fabric in the same colour (e.g. green on green) to keep the finished rings looking professional but I did use puff binder so that the designs would stand out and make the banner more tactile. Each child had a patch of fabric which they printed on and I'm currently sewing them all together to make the rings.I think the children really enjoyed the process and have come up with some great results. There are several things I would change were I to do this project again but that's all part of the experience!

Block Printed Patches

The staff were all really supportive, even though I turned their class rooms into mess pits and I hope to work with the school again. I'm looking forward to running an after school session for parents and members of the community to make the patches for the final ring next week.

Lino Printed Patch

(Almost) finished ring. This is going to be big

Lino Prints stitched together

Cyclist

Strip of patches hanging over my door

Spheres!

Two of the completed spheres

Later this month a torch connected with certain happenings in the capital is passing through Carlisle (not once but twice!) I've managed to get myself entangled, sorry involved, with three different groups taking part in the celebrations. On the day I'll be involved with a street theatre performance with Prism Arts, I'm making a banner with Rockcliffe C of E Primary School (more on both of these in other posts coming soon!) and the other group is my 'day job' The Heathlands Project. For the parade we're putting up a marquee so my colleague Helen Tuck and I have been busy making a covering and decorations for the marquee. I thought instead of Olympic rings I would make spheres using fabric so that if it rains they can just get wet and drip dry afterwards. They will also be re-usable for other events. They're really simple to make, just circles of fabric and a bit of stitching. Stiffer fabrics work better and it takes quite a bit of fabric so I've been scrabbling around trying to find as many pieces as possible in all the relevant colours!

Thinner fabrics bunch up

Stiffer fabrics hold their shape better

Detail

Detail

View from above

Exciting Times

Delicate Stitches stand at Masseuse Smooth

I've had an even busier than normal week this week but it's been full of lots of good things. One of which I shall now tell you about. I've done a couple of craft fairs in Appleby organised by Masseuse Smooth who also have a shop in Penrith and they've asked me if I would like to sell some of my items in their shop. They already stock work by several other makers and I've been thinking for a while about trying to get my work into a 'bricks and mortar' shop rather than just my Folksy shop so it seemed like the ideal opportunity. So, today I took some of my items down and they're now available for sale there. Exciting times indeed! More to come later about other exciting things I've done this week...

Brooches and hair clips

Door stops

Cushions