Monthly Archives: February 2012

Planning a Commonplace Book

21 Tuesday Feb 2012

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My vision of my assignment piece for TAFE is starting to come into focus. As mentioned in a previous post, we have to make a book, based ondrawings which the lecturer expects that we already have. Most of the students do, I’m sure, but I don’t, so I pretty much have to start from scratch.
After considering a cloth book of the kind babies have, either one made for babies or for adults, and a project book of embroidery designs, I’m now leaning towards a commonplace book.
Commonplace books were a little like journals, in that people wrote in them things they want to remember, but instead of dates, appointments etc., or what they did today, they would copy out parts of whatever they were currently reading and wanted to remember. Housewives might write down recipes, household tips etc., and scholars would put down whatever struck them about their current study. The idea goes back to the 15th century maybe, and I think is having a res-urgence with the practice of blogging. When I googled the term I came across this blog called commonplacebook.com, which is a perfect example. Another reason to be impressed by this blog is the fact that it has archives going back to 1998, there’s persistance and dedication for you.
I’ve an idea in my head for my book. Originally a commonplace book would have been just blank, for the user to write in, and since I’m supposed to be showcasing my drawing that isn’t going to work. So I’m going to divide it into sections, with an illustrated front page for ech section, probably with an illuminated capital letter at the start of the section heading, then a simple line drawing for each. There will be decoration on the front cover and the front and end papers of the book, and probably also a title page inside. I’m planning that the blank pages will have hand drawn lines on them for writing on, and also hand drawn numbers with maybe a little decorative motif on each. My head has been buzzing with ideas, at the moment I’m leaning towards Art Deco style, and I’ve been immersing myself in books from the library and images online of Art Deco themes. I’m particularly drawn to the fonts, and also decorated lettering for the front of the book and the title page. All of these will have to be hand drawn, but I’ll probably scan them and print them onto the pages of the book so they will be more permanent. This probably involves laser printing, or commercial photo printing, I have to research the possibilities.
My head has been so busy with this that I’ve probably been neglecting other things I should have been doing, such as writing. Writing group meets in 10 days, at the beginning of March, and I’ve only half written my article. I researched online, and found a magazine which I think might publish it, and since it was very reasonably priced I’ve subscribed, to get an idea of what sort of writing they publish. I haven’t received the first copy yet, but it’s too early to expect that really since it’s coming from the US. I’ve written most of the article, just need to fine tune, and possibly find some images. I really need to get it finished this week though. Plenty to do as always!

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Art Project – Oh, the possibilities!

10 Friday Feb 2012

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The first class of the drawing course I enrolled in was on Tuesday. It’s not pure drawing, but how to select and apply techniques and media to represent a concept. It’s part of a qualification in Applied Environmental Arts, so I assume that the intention of the unit is to teach students to create proposals in response to a brief and similar things. It is what I would like to be able to do, to get the ideas for projects out of my head and onto paper in some form, but I think I may also have to go to other classes just to learn how to draw. All the other students already are drawing, and there was a worrried look on the lecturer’s face when I said I didn’t actually draw!
Still, in my mind if you are learning to select and apply techniques and media, implicit in that is the word ‘appropriate’. In fact I’m surprised it isn’t in the title, it seems to be almost everywhere. In my case appropriate means simple, probably just line drawings, since I’m going to struggle to do anything else, and that is what I shall select. Problem solved! Seriously though, there is a one day workshop coming up titled ‘Learn to Draw in a Day’, and I’m thinking I should enrol in that too.
The project we have to do for this semester to pass the unit is really interesting and thought provoking. We have to produce a book of some sort, the lecturer’s idea being that the other students all have lots of drawings which they have done just for their own interest and enjoyment, and he wants them to bring them together with a theme, story or something, and produce a book. In my case of course I have no drawings, but I do have quite a few scraps of embroidery hidden away which I have done at various times, and I think I might use that as a starting point. I could hardly sleep on Tuesday as my mind was just buzzing away, and I have a few ideas already. I went to the library to borrow some books to research in, one topic being bookbinding as I thought a hand-made and hand stitched book might be one possibility. I could even really go overboard and make paper, I’ve done that before.
I also thought about producing a cloth book, like babies have. Whilst looking up printing on fabric I came across this site, which is absolutely amazing. Called Spoonflower, you can upload your own images and have them printed onto fabric which is then sent to you. It’s reasonably priced considering, and imagine the possibilities! Even if I don’t end up using it for this project, I’m sure I could think of a use for it in future. Possibly it might be something Red Hats could use.
I transferred all my old photos onto my new laptop at the weekend, so here is a fairly old picture. It’s Bilbergia nutans, I think commonly called Queens Tears. I’ve always loved the combination of colours in this, the pink, lime green, yellow and bright blue are unusual in the plant world. The flowers aren’t huge, only about 4 to 5cms long each, so you have to look closely to appreciate them. In our climate the plant is as tough as old boots, and needs virtually no care whatever, which is always a plus!

On clouds, photography, and truth or falsehood

08 Wednesday Feb 2012

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Photo editing. In a previous post I included a photo I had recently taken of some storm clouds. I wasn’t particularly happy with the picture, as is often the case the picture didn’t really show the scene as I remembered it. A couple of people commented on it, and one said it just needed a bit of editing. This for some reason is something I never think of doing. That’s not strictly true, I had already cropped it to get rid of some powerlines, which counts as editing. I also sometimes use the red-eye removal feature in my camera software. But I never think of changing the colour, lightening or darkening a shot, or anything like that. I really don’t know why. I have basic software for doing so, and in fact I have Photoshop, which I have used a bit, but is so powerful that I feel it’s a bit like using a pneumatic drill when you want to put up a poster.
However, I looked at the photo again, and did do some manipulation. I’m not yet up to speed with all the terminology, and particularly the logic thereof. Why does it keep talking about curves, when what changes is not the lines, straight or curved, but the tones, highlights etc? Still, here below is the original shot:

and here is the re-vised version
I don’t really know how I did it, I just played around until the trees in the foreground were lighter, and tried not to lose the definition in the clouds, they have that lovely billowing look round the edges.
This exercise got me thinking. It used to be said that ‘the camera never lies’, and that may have been true, but is certainly not with the technology there is today. At least, the camera maybe a little bit truthful, but the computer and it’s software can be as false and perfidious as you like. In this situation, the picture I took with the camera, which was reasonably truthful, did not really match my remembrance of the shot, which was presumably therefore not entirely accurate. It is certainly the case that the human brain is selective in remembering elements of a scene, gives more prominence to some than to others, and this is surely often the reason why photos are not as good as you think they should be. All I have done is change the photo to be more like I think I remember the scene, so who is to say which is truth and which is falsehood?
I saw some other beautiful clouds recently while driving, and whilst I was trying to figure out a safe way of getting off the highway I was on and stopping to take pictures, I realised I didn’t have my camera with me anyway. Must try and remember to carry it more often! I’m annoyed at myself really, because I don’t recall ever having seen clouds quite like them. They were a bit like this one here but lots of them scattered evenly all over most of the sky, as if somebody had taken a brush full of white paint to it. I’ve done a quick Google and I can’t find a picture of anything similar.