31st March 2009

Design Sheet A

I enjoyed working on this sheet, especially distorting my original shape to fit a circle, triangle or diamond.

Design Sheet A (continued)

I enjoyed working with a different variation of my colour scheme here. I also found the unexpected negative shapes interesting.

Design Sheet A (continued: repeat pattern with distorted shape)

Again, the negative shapes that appeared intrigued me.

Design Sheet A (continued)

I had another try at a pattern with a distorted version of my original shape. this is a very regular pattern, but it doesn't look it because the shape is assymmetric. I think if repeated over a larger area a regular pattern might appear.

Design Sheet B

(i) Scale

I enjoyed playing around with different sizes of shapes. I initially used bluetack so that I could try different ideas till I found one I liked.

Design Sheet B

(i) Scale (continued)
I hadn't thought to try cutting up a shape and using just part of it until Sian suggested it. I was surprised by the shape that I got and enjoyed using it to play about with different sizes of images.

Design Sheet B

(ii) Edge to edge repeat pattern and

(iii) Border and corner

I was lucky with my border design that the corner happened easily and naturally without any ingenuity needed on my part. I love the richness of pattern on this page.

Design Sheet B

(iv) Linking border

I think this looks quite pretty and I like how the colours work together. However, I couldn't control the glue, sticky fingers and the complicated interlinked shapes, so the corner has turned out more of a curve than I intended! It looks like flowers in a garden, so maybe the irregularity suits that.

Design Sheet B

(v) Linking two different shapes

Here I combined a new cross shape with my original shape, cut into 4 and just hooked in each corner. I think it looks vaguely Chinese.

Design Sheet B

(vi) New shape from old

This was quite interesting to do, and produced very rich patterns. I was a bit pushed for time when working on this, so played around with photocopies for some of them, drawing the shape randomly on the back of a photocopy. I rather liked the irregular ones at the bottom of the page that I got this way.

Design Sheet C

(i) Complex counterchange

This was my first try at this. I tried a really simple cross first.

Design Sheet C

(i) Complex counterchange

(ii) Divide and separate

Choose new design unit

(iv) Pattern with new design unit - symmetrical

This was a really interesting part to work on.



Design Sheet C: Patterns with new design unit

(iii) overlap

(iv) symmetrical

(v) edge to edge repeat

(vi) interlocking

I was really surprised how different all the results looked from the original shape!

I find pattern fascinating and have really enjoyed working on this chapter. Having dyed the papers using the colour on each side on the colour wheel as well as the two main colours has given such a wide range of variations of colour that choosing the colours for each design sheet has been most enjoyable and not nearly as restrictive as I had thought it might be. It is such a delight to do something creative that is just for me, and a perfect antidote to a stressful day at work!

Sunday 15th March 2009

Here are some pages from my scrapbook, looking at crosses:

digital photos
drawings of crosses
wax crayon rubbings washed with water based paint and ink

masking tape resists sponged with ink

wax crayon drawings sponged with water based ink

Here is my colour wheel

Some of my printed papers. Papers are A4 size. (I had only a small rubber to cut to make a printing block. I'll try some more printed papers once I have a larger printing block. I think a variety of sizes of image would be more interesting.) I choose the colour scheme of lime/violet, so also used green, lemon yellow, purple and red.

Some collaged crosses
More collages crosses, this time with some overlaps. Some of the paper I dyed was tracing paper. It keeps its strength and translucency and I like its crispness.
I had fun playing about with some of my digital photos with Photoshop. I printed one image on tracing paper according to instructions in Maggie Grey's "From Image to Stitch". It has worked really well and I can layer it later.Here are some more of my digitally altered photos:

I was cutting up a pepper when I realised the pith made a cross shape. Here are some of the images I got playing around with the photos on Photoshop:

Sorry, got this one in twice by mistake and can't find out how to delete it!!

At the moment I'm still working on the collages, with symmetry/assymmetry, counterchange, repeat patterns and distortion. Haven't photographed it yet, but no more time today. Will post it another time.

Getting started - Module 1

Friday 13th March 2009

I've been working on Module 1 for a few weeks now and at last found the courage to set up a blog. I've been enjoying the work. It is nice to do something just for me. The first difficulty I found was that of materials. I had some things, but all very old (some of the paint was so hard I couldn't squeeze it out of the tube) and incomplete. I had a lovely time shopping for materials and I'm now fully equipped. That led to the second difficulty: where to work, where to store everything and trying to keep it all in some sort of order. A re-organisation of the study was needed. I still will have to get some storage. At the moment I'm working on an old dining table and all my materials stored in boxes and bags sitting around on the floor.

Everything has been put on hold for the past couple of weeks. My elderly and much loved aunt was rushed to hospital, which meant a 60 odd mile round trip to visit her. Since work was pretty busy too, I had no time to spare. Fortunately, she made a good recovery and is now home - weak and wobbly, but definitely on the mend. Next I went down with one of the most memorable colds I've ever had: runny nose, sneezing, sore throat, sore ears, swollen glands, cough, the lot. I lost the best part of a week and didn't even think of City and Guilds.

However, now Auntie Dodie is fine, I'm fine, the study is (sort of) tidy and I'm raring to go again.

Here's what I've done so far:

I went around the house and garden, taking digital photos of all the crosses I could see. I've put some of them together left.

I played about with some of them on Photoshop.

I looked on Google Images for pictures of crosses, some of which I printed off. I also drew some crosses from an encyclopaedia and put them in a sketchbook along with the printed images from Google.

Here are some pages from my sketch book:

Well, now it is late and it takes so long to get the pictures in the right place. My head is starting to thump and my shoulders are stiff with being on the computer so long, so I'll stop now and post the rest tomorrow.

Friday 13th March 2009
Well, here goes, my first attempt at a blog. I feel I am a bit long in the tooth to cope with this new (to me) technology, but it seems easy enough so far. There is so much I don't understand about it though, especially Sian's instructions to insert the last item first!! Still, I suppose it will become apparent eventually. This blog is to record my work and thoughts on the City and Guilds Level 3 Certificate, which I have just started with Distant Stitch. I did the old Part 1 City and Guilds in Creative Embroidery 20 years ago and am now picking up the threads again (both literally and figuratively).