T1-MMT-P3-p2 Weekend sketchbook

Increasing, improving and extending my sketchbook work has been one of my focus points for this assignment. This had a big boost on the weekend when my friend and fellow OCA student Claire came over for a day of mark making. You can see Claire’s work and read her account of the day at https://tactualtextiles.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/mark-making-with-paints-and-tools/.

The plan was to go big and go wild. We both started with some paper Claire had found at http://reversegarbage.org.au/. The printing on one side and coated (waterproofed?) reverse suggested it was roll ends from jiffy bags or similar. We worked on the blank but coated side which gave some interesting interactions especially when I attempted a watercolour wash which turned into a watercolour speckle.

sketch_20150926a

sketch_20150926a detail

More often than not I work on A3 paper. This piece is 102 x 76cm – more than 6 times the surface area. It felt so freeing, making big sweeps with the shoulder. It’s mostly acrylic paint, but also water colour and printing inks. I remember palette knife sweeps, fruit net bag rolling and stamping, scraping with a serrated knife, dabbing with paper towel, pouring watercolour, a jittery-bump movement like going over corrugated dirt road… It was an exciting ride.

Next up was 100 gsm cartridge paper. White cartridge paper is my go-to base, but not at this size – 84 x 72 cm.

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Claire and I were swapping paints, tools and ideas, and it was amazing to see our work side by side and how different the results were. I have a definite tendency to chaos and mess! This has acrylic paint and screen printing inks plus some red oxide (from the hardware store for colouring concrete, but didn’t make it into a plaster sample). There was printing from a bracken leaf (conveniently grows at the garage door), various sizes of bubble wrap, paper towel, cork, sewing reel, peg bag side, drainer “thing”, jar tops – anything circular within reach. Also some lovely circular swirls using Claire’s new patent-pending technique involving a pipecleaner and considerable dexterity.

The final piece for the day arose from frugal determination to waste not a smear of paint.

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My favourite corrugated cardboard, tiny at 48 x 27 cm.

Obviously none of the above are resolved works. They are the physical leavings of a fun and freeing process. I think there’s also a huge amount of detail that could be explored with L-shape frame finders. Lots of texture, lots of movement, lots of ideas, lots of space.

The next day I continued, this time responding to some casting samples. First sample p3-51, plaster and resin in a juice jug.

sketch_20150927a

83 x 64 cm white cartridge paper. Water-resistant crayon and watercolour wash.

Cramming (too?) many ideas into one sketch this is a blind, continuous line drawing, overlaid in two or three layers. I then tried to make sense of all the lines with a “clarifying” wash of black watercolour. Lots of energy in the lines and I felt I had good focus and observation of the sample. The result isn’t informative as a picture but I’m pleased with the sense of pushing myself.

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The drawing part is 66 x 64 cm white cartridge paper, not filling the page particularly well, once again based on sample p3-51.

This uses charcoal for the plaster areas and grey oil pastel for the resin. There’s something very odd going on with the proportions, especially in the centre. My main focus was the lines and planes formed by the jug, and I think the curves of the handle went well. The big spike of resin contrasts effectively with the smooth mass of plaster. Once again I was happy with my maintenance of concentration and keeping my eyes at least as much on the sample as the page. I think this shows good progress for me, although I actually prefer the first version – so much more lively and expressive.

Next some work with sample p3-47, the cast of ribbed knitting. I actually started this a couple of days earlier, using the 3D pen and “drawing” in plastic filament.

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The photograph above shows both sides of the drawing, which is roughly 13 x 5 cm.

Lots of energy, and it was good to work in a palette of mainly neutrals which is a change for me. This is based on just one small section of the repeated pattern. Given the knit is so regular I wanted to understand the structure more.

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The base is 54 x 33 cm, brown paper that I crumpled and painted with gesso a few weeks back.

I started lower right using conte crayons. The not particularly complicated pattern was eluding me and the drawing was clumsy, so I stopped and concentrated on a simple graphic map. Seen on the left, this is a different kind of clumsy but at least the pattern repeat emerges.

Top right I changed to two pastel pencils held together to make a very loose and simplified interpretation of some of the patterning. This is the most successful section of this page.

Moving forward in time, I returned to sample p3-47, this time using tissue paper as the base.

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A direct rubbing of the sample using a large wax crayon. Little pattern emerges.

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Another direct rubbing, using oil pastel. Some of the pattern can be identified, especially the original woven band area, but the knit section is still indistinct. It’s amazing that something so clear on the cast is so lost when only the top layer of the surface is recorded.

I decided to move to ink on the tissue.

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Above is a messy trial of tools – corrugated cardboard, the end of a clothes peg, the side of some styrofoam packaging and a bamboo pen.

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A more considered stylised version. I like the curves of cardboard very much. The herringbone columns were drawn with the bamboo pen and have a pleasing variability. The simple uprights used the corner of the styrofoam, giving the broken effect I was looking for. I think there are some useful ideas in this.

Liking the marks, I tried combining them in different ways.

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All three of the marks are included here. The combination is balanced, but there is movement across the sheet with the waves of corrugated cardboard.

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A less interesting version using cardboard and styrofoam.

My original intention using tissue paper was to layer pieces up in interesting combinations. Unfortunately none of the combinations interested me. Wanting to take them forward somehow, I finished by experimenting with the photo of sketch_20150927g, using a series of distortion filters in gimp.

sketch_20150927g emboss

sketch_20150927g weave

sketch_20150927g polar coord

sketch_20150927g ripple

sketch_20150927g iwarp

sketch_20150927g illusion

sketch_20150927g fractal

Some of the above look quite textile-y in nature, and it was good to explore some corners of the software.

T1-MMT-P3-p2 Weekend sketchbook
Textiles 1 – Mixed Media for Textiles
Part 3: Molding and casting
Project 2: Casting the internal space of a vessel
Weekend sketchbook