Progress report, and Australian women artists of early 20th century

24 Tuesday Apr 2012

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Now that I have the scrapbook, and decided on the format of the pages, I can start on the final drawings. There will be about 8 subject title pages, each of which will have a border, similar to these. I am drawing them by hand, within a grid, and colouring with watercolour pencils. It’s fairly slow work, I have so far finished one, and half done two more. Actually I haven’t finished, I have only drawn and coloured. My plan now is to scan the drawing, and print it out, it will be quite a bit smaller in the final version. Having seen how it looks, I will probably go over the watercolour pencil with water to bring out the colours, then over that with a fine black pen to divide up the colours, and give it the look slightly of leadlighting. I want to scan the drawing before I do that, in case it doesn’t look good. I might also go over one of the prints with the black pen, in case I decide to do just that step and miss out the water.
I’ve also started on the drawings for the subject pages. Each will have a pencil and probably coloured drawing of the subject, for example the ‘House and Home’ page has a drawing of a house, the ‘Recipe’ page has a still life of mixing bowl, jug, flour cannister etc. I took a photo of a vase of flowers to use for the ‘Garden’ page. I’m still keen on the Margaret Preston look for the drawings, although the look I am after is actually paintings rather than drawings, so I’m not sure how that is going to work. Co-incidentally a few days ago the Google doodle was about Grace Cossington-Smith, a contemporary of Preston’s, and also of Thea Proctor. The National Gallery of Victoria has quite a few works by all three artists, just go to  www.ngv.vic.gov.au, on the Explore tab, you can browse artists by name. I looked under C for Cossington Smith, but found her under S for Smith. She is less well represented than the others.
I have a feelling it would be possible to spend hours on that site, it’s a good substitute for going to the gallery, given that the gallery is several hours away even by plane, and even if I went I suppose not all the pictures would be on display at any given time.
I need to firm up on the other subjects, and decide on suitable drawings.
I also bought some calligraphy pens, not actual fountain pens, but fibre tip type pens with chisel points. I shall use them to write the quotations, and possibly some other stuff. I do have a calligraphy set somewhere, but currently I can’t find it so these are a good substitute. Will set aside some time for a little practice before I start for real.
Planning to get up early tomorrow morning and go to the dawn service for ANZAC day. Not the main one in the city, too much hassle to get there, and find somewhere to park, so I’ll stick with a smaller suburban one. I’ve never been before, but often thought I ought to give it a go. Material for a blog post tomorrow, and for 750 words.

Exciting Source for Embroidery Designs

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

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I found a wonderful source of antique embroidery patterns and books on the net, all scanned and available under a creative commons licence. It’s here. There is heaps of stuff there, and it would take an age to look through it all, but by dint of looking at published dates I was able fairly quickly to come up with two or three possibilities for the cover of my commonplace book. Yesterday I went shopping and spent ages looking at possibilities for the book itself, and finally bought one. It’s a scrapbook, only a small one at 8 inches square. The bigger ones are 12 inches square, and I debated long and hard, but the big one is too llimiting in terms of paper and printing. You’d need to use A3 paper and cut it down, and there just isn’t the variety that you can get in A4. With a smaller book I’ll have many more options for printing on coloured paper, it will be easier to scan and print my drawings to a suitable size, and altogether I think better.
I’m going to do a cross stitch design for the front cover, there are at least two if not three possible designs on the site which I have downloaded. A couple are only in black and white, one of which is a bunch of flowers which would be quite easy to colour, the other is a pair of peacocks, which I can see in just black and white, or possibly red and white. Any colour and white I guess, except that black and red are traditional, although not necessarily very art deco. Then there is a very geometric design in a few colours, an oval shape, but I could find a border to put round it. At the moment I am leaning towards the bunch of flowers, if for no other reason than it has a slightly wood cut look to it, and I’m also trying to get a Margaret Preston feel in some of the other drawings.
Now that I have the book I have no excuse not to push ahead with the drawings, before I run out of time. I think I’ll start with the title page, if I’m going to put embroidery on the front cover then the design I had for the cover can go on the title page instead. That’s the logo made up of the letters of ‘book’, and the word commonplace drawn in a suitable font. Do I stick with a certain palette of colours throughout the book? I think it would be better to do so, in which case I might need to stick to one medium for the drawings. I can probably do acrylic, need to buy some more white if so since I have none, and that limits mixing of colours and tints. I’m leaning towards a purple/plum/pink palette, with some greens as well, and purplish browns. Perhaps also some peachy colour, although not orange. More an ecru, no, darker. Not sure what it is called, don’t even really have it in my mind yet. I guess all this deliberation is part of the concept development, and must be documented somewhere for assessment. I should also try out the water colour pencils, but I don’t think they will give the look I am after. I need to experiment a bit with mixing colours for them.
Here are the embroidery designs I am considering, all downloaded from the site above. What a wonderful resource it is. It would be terrific if there were a similar resource for sewing and dressmaking patterns, but I don’t know of one.

oval design    bunch of flowers   peacocks

I thought uploading the files would make the picture appear in the post instead of a hyperlink. It usually does, but these files are pdfs which seems to make a difference. Not sure why.

Mid-semester review – the point at which I start re-thinking my design

04 Wednesday Apr 2012

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Mid semester review went OK at TAFE yesterday. Most of the other students have drawings, but not much idea of how they are going to fit a story, or put the book together when it’s done. I, on the other hand, have a very good idea of what I want it to look like, I just have to make it happen. Although, I am now wavering a bit on the style of the thing. For each of the subject title pages I was going to do a drawing, pencil with maybe a watercolour wash. Now I’m leaning more towards a woodcut Margaret Preston type of thing, like these but I’m not sure I can do it. I wasn’t going to do a woodcut as such anyway, but a drawing in that style, but they are very simplified, and I think that takes more ability than I currently have. I really want to have that Art Deco look though, which a pencil and watercolour drawing doesn’t necessarily have. I have two weeks, (mid-semester break apparently now only 2 weeks instead of 3, which means the whole thing is a week shorter) to work on getting the style right. I also have to figure out the cover, which was going to be fabric with a painted design. Peter said he’d like to see some needlework or textile work, and then when I went to the library I got a book out about painting and decorating textiles, so I’ve gone from having a clear idea to starting again. The design I have drawn is too small to applique, I could do canvas work or surface embroidery, which would be more authentic? Needs yet more research, I’m leaning towards canvas work. There is also the issue of wearability, I don’t want it to look tatty after only a short time, although in point of fact it’s not likely to get any wear at all. I’m also thinking again about the format, A4 does not leave much space for content, after allowing a bit down the side for the binding, perhaps I should go with the ready made scrapbook covers in Spotlight which are square. They had some with a cutout in the middle, I could always put a piece of embroidery in there, I think there was a clear plastic bit which would protect it.

This is a problem which I have had before when trying to be creative, getting to a point where I feel I have done the best I can, and then just trusting to that, instead of re-thinking numerous times. In this instance there is a time limitation, I have to leave myself enough time to actually do the work at the end. I have a feeling the critical point is coming soon.

750words – writing regularly

02 Monday Apr 2012

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I’ve started writing on 750words.com, doing at least 750 words everyday, the idea being to get into the habit and accept the discipline of writing regularly. I’d like to think that at least once a week what I write there could just come straight here and be a blog post, but it may not be that easy. Anyway, here is today’s effort. (This isn’t 750 words, I wrote more which wasn’t relevant.)

The view out of the window – they always say write about what you know!
My office window looks out onto a major highway, the only one going from Western Australia across to the rest of the country. I have no idea how many vehicles go past every day, but it’s a big number. Everything from cars to buses to huge trucks. Sometimes, actually quite often, it’s people on bikes, and I cannot imagine what makes them want to ride on the highway. I would be petrified, apart from all the exhaust fumes they must breathe in. There are several back roads they could take through here instead, and even a walk/bike track which would surely be much more pleasant.
Even though it’s a major highway, there as still plenty of trees in view. Some in front of the office on this side, and on the other side of the road there are only trees to be seen. The houses are hidden behind them, well back from the road. The trees are almost all native, some indigenous to this part of Australia and some not. Actually some of the trees over the road are going quite yellow, so I’m not sure what they are. I don’t ever recall having seen deciduous trees over there before, but maybe there are. Otherwise it’s mostly eucalypts, and small acacias underneath them. There is quite a range of colours, from grey-green through mid to dark greens, the slightly yellow green of the trees I don’t know, to bright green grass on our side where the drains run out. The rest of the grass is dead and brown as it always is at this time of year. The tree trunks range from brown, to grey to cream, some a brownish almost pink colour. The sky at the moment is quite grey and overcast, as if it might rain, but it’s not very likely to by the look of it. Been waiting for it to rain since yesterday morning, but hardly enough yet to drown a flea, let alone lay the dust.
I’m trying to come up with descriptions of things which haven’t been used to death. For example, grass as green as ? Emeralds, been done. Actually thinking about it, green as grass is perhaps more usual. What else is bright green, and could be used as a description? What would everybody, everywhere, recognise as green? Astroturf? Still a variant of grass. Kermit? Better perhaps. Perhaps that one’s too hard.
The sky? Ash grey? I don’t think you hear that one too often. Dove grey, leaden is overdone. Sounds, continuous swoosh of traffic going past, broken by the occasional heavier note of a truck, or the roar of a speeding motorbike. Sometimes a siren, at which everybody looks up to see what type of vehicle, and during summer heaves a sigh of relief if it’s not a fire truck. Again, heaves a sigh of relief, breathes again, how could that be better described. A touch of guilt at feeling thankful that it’s only an ambulance, and somebody else’s problem. Fire has the potential to be devastating in this environment, but an ambulance can mean a devastating event in somebody’s llife.

Choices

21 Wednesday Mar 2012

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The topic we were given for next month’s writing group was ‘Choices, and how they change the story of our lives’. I started off enthusiastically, and wrote a good few hundred words in my head, but when I actually started committing them to paper (screen), it wasn’t so simple. I had lots of thoughts, but finding a common thread to hang them all on was a different matter. Eventually I finished the piece, and have posted it here,

I’m not entirely happy with it, for one thing I think it’s still only a collection of thoughts, but I’ll wait and see what the rest of the group thinks. More time would have been good, but that’s a poor excuse since I started planning it straight away, and have had over two weeks since. Although I’m really keen to get on and start trying to get published, in reality I have to accept that I don’t really have a lot of time, and I might be better to ‘hasten slowly’, and work on improving quality rather than just get stuff out there.

I received the gardening magazine I’d subscribed to from the US, in fact not only the magazine but another collection of articles. I sat down and read them both right through almost immediately, and in spite of my reservations above I do think I might try and submit an article I have written. I submitted it for critiquing at last month’s meeting, and most of the comments were positive. I also think that the style of the magazine suits the style of the article, or the other way round. Watch this space!

I was turning out some stuff recently and came across some bits of embroidery that I had done years ago when my daughters were young. I took some photos, just for the record, and here is one of them. Embroidered flowersAgain, this is the photo straight as it came from the camera, I should try and see if I can improve it a bit. I’d also really like to do some more hand embroidery, having not done much for years, but it’s all about time. I should quit complaining and be more organised, then I’d have time!

On Commonplace Books, and gathering things together

04 Sunday Mar 2012

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I’ve been doing some more looking around the net about commonplace books, and came across this article by Alan Jacobs. He discusses the correlation between commonplace books and today’s blogs, which is something that had already occurred to me, but also makes distinction between two different types of commonplace book. I hadn’t previously focussed on this difference.
I also feel as he does, that it is very easy to cut and paste heaps of text without really reading it. The acid test for this, I suppose, is to close the window with the original, then try and retype it in your own words, then go back to the original and see how close the two are. Only by reading carefully and remembering accurately can you get a good match, and I know I’d often fail that test.
It’s easy to copy and paste lots of stuff on the basis that it might be useful or relevant someday. My feeling is that very often it won’t, or by the time it might have been useful you will have forgotten where you put it, or it will be in a format which you no longer have the software for.
I find that the same applies to pieces of paper. Every so often a piece of paper will cross my desk which doesn’t require any specific immediate action. Somebody gave it to me or sent it to me for some unkown reason, and I left it there because I was unsure what to do with it. Every now and then I decide to tidy my desk, and I realise the piece of paper is still there, I’ve done nothing with it, and it’s not relevant any more. That’s when it goes in the bin, or the recycling.  Often the problem of what to do with a piece of paper is solved by this wait and see method.
Lately I’ve been trying to shorten the process, by looking at the paper when it first arrives and considering whether it comes into this category. If it does I discard it straight away rather than letting it take up space on my desk. So far I haven’t discarded anything which later turned out to be important, or at least if I have I don’t know about it yet.
Another blog I found on the subject was the commonplace book of Roberta Norwich, here. Roberta Norwich is not her real name I gather, but some kind of historian’s in-joke which I’m not in with. The name caught my eye not only because it was a commonplace book, but because I grew up in and around Norwich in England. When I read further through Roberta’s blog I discovered that she and I had gone to the same school, Wymondham College, also in Norfolk. This prompted me to spend some time looking around the College website, and reminiscing about my schooldays. The old place certainly has changed since the late 60s and early 70s when I was there, but I guess we all have. I’m now considering trying to get in touch with any old students who now live in WA and maybe arranging to meet up.
Roberta calls herself an opsimath, which I had to look up. It means ‘one who starts, or continues, to learn late in life’. Something we should all aspire to I believe, and I definitely intend to be one, although my chosen studies so far are nowhere near as academic as Roberta’s.
A somewhat rambling post this, I’m trying to think of a theme to tie it all together. How about this – it’s about commonplace books, which are a gathering together of often unrelated ideas, all relevant to the creator of the book for some reason.
I’ve also been doing research on Art Deco designs for inspiration for my project, and found some wonderful designs by Pierre Legrain. I’m indebted to Alhpachannel for this link to some images of his work, outstandingly beautiful. I’d love to be able to do something on these lines for my cover, but I fear it’s beyond me.

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!

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.

Drawing Class

31 Tuesday Jan 2012

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Well, yesterday I signed up for a drawing class at TAFE. It’s not pure drawing as such, the name of the unit is ‘Select and apply media and techniques to represent and communicate a concept’ or some such phrase. It actually sounds as if it’s just what I need, since I want to be able to draw my ideas for craft and sewing projects. First class is next Tuesday afternoon, and it it every week for the semester, until June.
Looking forward to it, it will be a challenge for sure, since I’ve never done art classes in any shape or form. I did do Art at high school for about three years, but looking back on it now I cannot for the life of me remember what we did, and I’m pretty confident that drawing didn’t figure in it at all. I do remember being extremely bored with Art classes, and getting out of them as soon as I could to do cookery instead, which I must say has stood me in much better stead over the years! I still regularly make some of the recipes from school, in particular lemon meringue pie which is in frequent demand at family occasions.
I went to the art supply shop after enrolling, although I don’t know what supplies are required, but just bought a small box of pencils and a visual diary. I was astounded by the prices of some materials, I knew they were expensive but not that much! Conjures up images of penniless artists struggling to find money for pastels and paint and canvas. A lot of famous ones did of course, and presumably the less famous ones these days still do, until they get discovered.
No picture from me this time, I need to get all the old ones off my old laptop and onto this one. Instead a blog I found with some lovely pictures from Melbourne – http://victoriaaphotography.wordpress.com