Assignment 5 – Textile Solutions

So here I am, starting on my final assignment. I’ve gone over and over the ideas that I have for this next exercise, and I’ve settled on one to run with. I was very inspired by my last assignment on sketchbooks and wanted to develop the myriad of ideas that arose from that exercise.

During the past 12 months, we’ve all being living in a very different way due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s caused me to re-evaluate my place in the world, forced me to focus on my own locality and to spend many hours reflecting on what’s important to me. I also want to say here that I have been extremely fortunate for this crisis to have come at the stage of my life it has done. I have retired from work (well almost!), I have no mortgage or rent to worry about, I don’t worry about how I can afford to put food on my table or heat my home and I don’t have school age children who need home schooling. I am very grateful that I don’t have those things to worry about.

Throughout the last year I have explored my local area like never before. I always knew my local area very well, but my usual default was to go much further afield and explore distant places – both here in the UK and beyond. The pandemic has forced us into lockdowns and suddenly my local area, particularly my local countryside, has become so important and a vital source of comfort and support. My daily walks have taken me to places I knew so well, or so I thought, but I have always learnt more, both about my surroundings and about myself. In my last assignment I tried to create a ‘map’ of sorts which told a story about some of my experiences, starting with the actual earth in my own back garden. This idea grew to include textiles and materials I have collected both locally and from our trip around the world. Whilst I was working on that project, completely by chance I read a review about a book by textile artist, Anne Kelley, called “Textile Travels”. This appealed to me immensely and I immediately ordered it, but it didn’t arrive until after I had submitted the assignment.

I now have the book! It has now become my inspiration for this next project and has helped me to build my own ideas in relation to the “maps” concept I wanted to use for this next piece. Dorothy Caldwell inspired me so much with my last assignment, and I feel that Anne Kelly will help me to develop my ideas.

In her book, Anne Kelly shows her map project (pictured above) which she developed whilst on a teaching trip in the South West of England. As soon as I saw this idea, I knew that this is where I wanted to focus my piece. I love the idea of marking the map with memories to capture the essence of the place, as she experienced it, on her trip there.

So my idea is to take a map of my local area, and embellish it with things that ‘speak’ to me about my place in the world. I also have an old Bartholomew map of Warwickshire (the county in which I live) which was my father’s (he loved maps!) which depicted the area before the motorways, and I really wanted to use that, but as of this moment, I cannot bring myself to ‘do’ anything to it. I need to practise first …..

My plan is to use collage, both paper and fabric, stitching, gluing and stamping (block printing) onto fabric and paper and then applying it to the map. I want to depict images, using these techniques, which mean something to me about the area. I want to try and capture what the places mean to me. I have lots of ideas and pictures in my mind about what I want to achieve, but where to start when I don’t want to ‘attack’ the map just yet?

So to warm me up a bit, I got my printing blocks out which I had bought on my trip to India in March 2020 (we literally flew home on one of the last planes to leave before lockdown!), and had never used. Although that’s not quite true as I used one in my last assignment – the simple swirl, which I used with gouache paint. But I have lots of different ones, so I first started by using my new watercolour pencils (new to me anyway – a gift from a neighbour who was clearing out her art materials – another link to my immediate locality) and as if doing a brass rubbing, I went over my block of a tree with the pencil. I then wetted the block with a paintbrush and stamped it onto a piece of cartridge paper. What resulted was a lovely, very muted “ghostlike” image of a tree. I loved it! Then I painted with watercolour paint directly onto the block and stamped it on the paper, which gave a distinctly different image of the same block, and then carried on stamping a second and third time where the image became increasingly fainter, but still not like the first image with the pencil. I did the same two techniques (pencil and paint) with a small flower block. I then took two different blocks and painted different colours, using the watercolour paints, onto different areas of the block. This took a bit of time and when I had finished the last colour, the first colour was completely dry on the block, so I wetted the whole block with water and then stamped it on the page. I really liked the effect that this gave with the subtle colours coming through and less “harsh”. My intention is to print with the blocks onto fabric and then maybe stitch around the images in some form.

You can just see the “ghost tree” in this image

I then printed out some maps of my local area directly onto a special type of paper that I then transferred onto some robust canvas fabric using an iron. The first thing which became apparent was that the image was reversed and the maps were back to front! I cannot think how to change this at the moment – perhaps I need to change the settings on the printer? But then I thought …. actually, it’s fine the way it is; it sort of sums up everything this last year has been, we’ve literally been stuck looking inwards, as is the map.

I drew on my earlier collage exercises and pieces and decided to use the first map – which was of the footpaths I use almost daily, and also shows my street. As I said earlier, my head was bursting with ideas – now to get them down on the canvas. I wanted to start with the very fundamentals of what my life has become over the past 10 months. So I sketched out a walking boot, using charcoal on cartridge paper, and then coloured it in with my watercolour pencils, cut it out and stuck it down with PVA glue right in the middle of the map. There is a red line which surrounds the boot on the map and this depicts a footpath which I use almost daily to walk my dog. I then used a scrap piece of fabric to run along the bottom of the canvas – to depict the flora of the countryside which I am walking in.

I then cut out images from pieces of fabric which I have in my fabric collection – of a sheep, a bee, a butterfly and a brightly coloured campervan, from which I had made facemasks from for my friend. The campervan I placed on the road part of the map. This was to depict my own campervan, which we have barely used over the last few months, but which forms a large part of my imagination! The sheep are ever present on my walks, and I regularly use fleece from their backs (kindly given to me by the farmer) to spin and knit with. The butterfly and the bee – they also feature frequently on my walks (although perhaps not so much at this time of year, February/March). I had the idea, building on my last assignment, of creating images which all meant something to me, and depict pertinent objects, such as the boot, the sheep etc.. But as I look at this first piece, I’m not sure it works as well as I had imagined. But I will persevere with it; as I write this, the glue is still wet on the canvas, but I want to stitch a border around the edge and also the stitch across the whole piece, as I have seen in Anne Kelly’s work.

In total I have three maps of my local area which I have printed onto transfer paper and then ironed onto canvas.

The second map actually depicted the road where I live on the left-hand side of the image (it should be the right side but hey ho) and to the right is the one of the walks I do regularly, in fact I have to walk along at least part of this footpath to access any further afield walks. I decided to use some different techniques on this one; I used a shoelace and stitched it down all around the edge of the map, with the two ends of the lace meeting where my house is. I wanted to get the lace down quickly as once it was down I could do more things to the map, but once I started I found the process of stitching the brown shoelace to the fabric very soothing and calming. It was like I was walking a route, even though the lace doesn’t depict any particular route, just a generalisation, it is symbolic with boots and walking.

Then I returned to my tree block as I wanted to incorporate this in some way in this piece. I initially thought of using watercolour paints and stamping it directly onto the map, but because of the texture of it, it’s a flexible plasticky type texture, I didn’t think it would work very well, and I didn’t try it as I didn’t want to ‘ruin’ it. So I used green paint and stamped it onto a piece of cartridge paper. This worked OK, but then I had the idea to stamp it directly onto some old curtain lining fabric I had and this worked much better.

The tree image is very powerful to me; many years ago (around 1981) my father planted an acorn in a tub in the garden, and it grew very well. 10 years later, in 1991 the year my first son was born, he planted it in a row of trees in the park close to his home (there was a gap alongside the fence where a tree had died) and over the years we, as a family, have watched it grow into the beautiful English Oak tree it now is. It’s poignancy to me is even greater now as when my mother died in 1999, we buried her ashes beneath it and when my father died in 2001, we did the same for him. I now live in my old family home – where the tree started its life – and I pass it daily on my walks. Over the past year, I have spent a lot of time reflecting (haven’t we all!) and things like this, the connection of people and places, have become increasingly more important to me.

I digress ….. I decided to stitch the tree down onto a piece of knitting I had done (a sample swatch for some project or other) as it was sort of a shape of a leaf, and then stitched it down where the lace met, which covers the street where I live. This image is quite raised from the canvas, and I’m not sure how I will stitch over it, as is my plan. Then using small scraps of fabric I cut out rough ‘leaves’ and arranged them around the lace , sticking them down with a glue stick – keeping with the tree theme. I had thought of just putting the leaves down randomly, ie mixing different fabric leaves together, but I felt that they looked better in fabric ‘pairs’. I then decided to sketch an acorn, as I had done with the boot in the first piece, using the same techniques – the outline in charcoal and then coloured in using the watercolour pencils. The acorn symbolising where everything begins, literally taking us back to the beginning, starting again.

I thought about using very lightweight fusible interfacing over the entire piece before stitching it down but decided against this as it might have melted the transfer. I want to stitch the piece all over, using my sewing machine. Just not sure exactly how I’m going to achieve that at the moment.

I tried laminating using the technique which Anne Kelly describes in her book, of a mixture of 50/50 PVA glue and water on tissue paper. I initially tried to soak the tissue paper (reclaimed from the packing in the box of a pair of walking boots my husband ordered!) in the solution and placed it on a test piece, but the tissue kept tearing and the images underneath became somewhat lost. Once it was dry, I stitched over the top, using a similar stitch to the one Anne Kelly uses, and I liked the effect this gave, but felt that it lost the definition of the underlying image. I’m not sure about this laminating technique for this project …..

For the final piece in this work, I decided to use a map of my town on a slightly smaller scale, and then put images of all the things that have become important to me, or that I have been involved with during the last year. I found some beautiful illustrations of vegetables and flowers which were on an envelope from a seed company and cut them out with a border of the white envelope around each one. Again, I used my new watercolour pencils (which I love!) and shaded the white in with a shade of green and stuck them on the part of the map where my house is.

Last Spring, during the first lockdown, we planted many different vegetables amongst the flowers in our back garden and the pea pod in particular, linked in with my last assignment. Along the top of the map, I’ve strung a row of bunting, which I found on some fabric I had used for a bag project some years ago. The bunting depicts the way my street has come together over the last year and has become a great socially connected community, which is something which was not there before we were all forced to stay home. We set up a WhatsApp group and since the first lockdown, we have held street parties (when we have been allowed of course – and all socially distanced), competitions for the children and supported the more vulnerable residents of the street. In fact one of the new residents who moved into the street during the second lockdown, was advised by the estate agent that it was a very community minded street and that cinched their decision to buy! The bunting depicts this for me.

I had some beautiful wrapping paper in which someone had kindly sent me a gift, which had abstract images of birds on. This reminded me of the walks we have had where we have gone much further afield (mainly last summer before the mud set in) but all on foot from our house. I stuck this down on the map in the top right-hand corner and in the bottom right-hand corner I put some images of water plants on a piece of scrap fabric I had in my stash; taken together on the right-hand side of this piece hints at the places we went to beyond the confines of this map.

Just in from the right, I placed another image of a sheep (I have quite a few images of sheep on fabric in my collection!) and using some of my hand spun wool, I placed a strand of it on top of the sheep leading down to a piece of Harris Tweed on which I had sewn two images of cotton reels and a tape measure. These images depict the many hours of sewing I did – both in the early days of the pandemic, where I stitched many, many scrub bags and face masks, but also, I did quite a lot of sewing for myself too; mending, adapting and re-purposing fabric. Instead of hand sewing the cotton reel images onto the tweed, I used the applique setting on my sewing machine.

In the middle of the piece is an image of a bicycle, which has been another feature of this year for me. We have hardly used our car and my bike has been my main source of transport. Just below the bike is an image of a dog, although the image blends into the background and doesn’t stand out quite as much as the other images. This was actually deliberate. I wanted to depict that, always there, in her quiet way, someone who influences everything we do, our beautiful rescue border collie, Lucy – although she looks nothing like the dog in the image! And finally, tucked away in the bottom left-hand corner, is a tiny sketch of a face mask with a splash of pink, which needs no explanation!

And while I still love the idea of laminating the work, as per my inspiration from Anne Kelly, I haven’t got it quite right with my sample test pieces, and don’t feel confident to use it on this final piece. I think it will obliterate or obscure the images on the pieces and it will lose definition. So I decided to stitch round each image on each piece in Kantha stitch, using threads and wool. I inherited my mother’s sewing box and in it I found various mending threads (a mixture of wool and nylon) which were goodness knows how old! I also found some very old, but very strong black thread in the box and used that as well to stitch round the hand sketched, and painted images. Again, this was very much linking the past with the present, anchoring myself to the place where I live using materials which came from my mother who is no longer with me.

The back of the tree piece before backing

But I still felt that the pieces need ‘finishing’.

I needed to think how to do this ….. maybe to put a backing on each piece and to secure the raw edges with the overlocker? If so what colour? Would that be too dominating?

In the end, I decided to ‘back’ each piece individually with offcuts of an old sheet, and then finished the edges by sewing down more pieces of the wool (I had used a different piece of wool around three sides of each piece already) to effectively frame each panel. I then decided to link them all together with pieces of tape, so that they could be hung up on a wall but also folded together like a sketch book and stored away.

As I’m not sure how well the paper images will hold up; I’ve given each of those a coating of diluted PVA glue to help prevent the edges drying out and curling away from the map.

And I am very pleased with the finished result! I think it perfectly sums up the last year for me; my own personal creative development and the importance of my home and my place in the world.

None of this work would have happened if we had not have had a pandemic, and that includes me actually completing this course. By the beginning of the first lockdown, I had been disillusioned with the course. Someone had said to me after I had felt brave enough to say that I was undertaking a course in textiles, “Oh, you don’t want to do that, just do your own thing” or words to that effect. This person held a degree in fine art, and clearly creativity came more easily to them than it did to me, and it had a profoundly negative effect on me. What did I think I was doing? Leave that sort of thing to people who know what they’re doing etc., etc.. As ever the little nagging voice in my head was at work.

Just before lockdown, I’d met a wonderfully inspiring 90-year-old lady, with whom I have walked with regularly over the last year (she is incredible!) and during one of our many conversations, she happened to tell me that when she was in her 50’s she embarked on a degree. This inspired me to return to this course, and I am so glad I had that conversation with her. I have learned much from it; I genuinely feel that my creativity has been ‘awakened’ and I have a myriad of ideas leaping out of my head daily. I am not afraid to give things a go and experiment with new tools and ideas. Leading directly from this last assignment, I have plans in place to complete a much larger ‘map’ project to depict our last holiday where we spent a month travelling all around Scotland in our motorhome. I have the map …….. !

I’ve also still got the map of Warwickshire which belonged to my father, and I will do something with this. After completing this assignment, I feel that rather than ‘spoiling’ it, whatever I do will enhance it’s meaning to me and it will become more than ‘just a map’.

So, I feel it is fitting that this last assignment should be paying some kind of homage to the pandemic; it has been a terrible time in so many ways for so many people, but it has also been a good time; a time where people have come together, especially through art. All around my hometown, people have either been leaving inspiring and comforting words depicted in art, or people have turned to art because they have had the time and space to do so. Many things have been said about the pandemic, but for me personally, it has given me the time, space and motivation to explore my creativity and to allow myself to do so. Had it not been for my friend, I may not have completed it and my creative life would be much the worst for it.

For me I feel I have now begun a creative journey that will be much like travel; I will see, experience and be inspired by so many different things and I look forward to incorporating them all into my new creative life!

Exercise 3 – Materials

Exercise 3 – Materials

I am really looking forward to getting started on this section!

In preparation for doing the exercise, I collected the following types of materials:

Wallpaper (plain)
Unwashed calico
Washed calico
Offcuts from some old denim style curtains
Netting
Fusible interfacing
Bias strips of furnishing fabric
Strips of wadding
Carded wool sliver
Lots of scraps of fabrics – all sorts

The themes I have chosen to follow (at this stage) are:

Embossed and padded
Fibrous and hairy

After a break of over 6 weeks, it has been challenging to get started again on my studies in a practical way. Although I have found myself thinking a lot more about material and textures, especially when in the natural environment, such as beaches and woodland.

I started by researching some of the artists who use material manipulation in their work, although it could be argued that all textile artists use material manipulation, as there is always some form of ‘change’ which any material undergoes in order to become something else. There are a myriad of artists and techniques ‘out there’ and after spending a few days looking at lots and lots of different artists work, I started to experience my usual overwhelming feelings of not being good enough and what on earth was I thinking by enrolling on this course. So I stopped looking at other people’s work and returned my attention to focus on what I know and love …..

I have always loved the natural world, natural colours and natural fabrics. I particularly love wool and am fascinated with the myriad of things that it can be used for and what can be done to it to create fabrics and material. It was only when I began to think in more detail about materials and what we can do to them to create different things, that I came to realise how truly remarkable wool is. Take felting and needle-felting for example; this technique can be used to create wearable garments as well as wearable art, but it can also be used sculpturally to create stand-alone pieces of art. So versatile. Felted wool is used as insulation in houses, packaging for delicate items and those which need to be kept either cool or hot, due to its insulating properties. And one use which is probably not at the forefront of our minds when thinking about felted wool, is it’s use as a coffin for burials because it is totally biodegradable. What a wonderful material it is! And it is totally renewable – the sheep who provide this material, need to be shorn each year. It is a crying shame that we, as a society, don’t do more with it and it is often seen as a waste product by farmers due to its lack of monetary value. As someone who eats a plant based diet, I do struggle with the animal exploitation element of wool production, but, as with all elements of farming which involve animals, it can be done well with the welfare of the animal at the centre. Maybe one day …….

But I digress, the task in hand is to examine materials and how they can be manipulated, so here goes.

Stage 1 – Material Tests

I began by looking at the individual pieces of material I had collected and putting them through various tests:

Technique – Tearing & slashing

	Fabric	Outcome
	Wadding	Tearing along the edge and in the middle of the sample
	Fusible interfacing	Tearing as above
	Netting	Tearing as above
	Unwashed calico	Folding (concertina) then slashing. This fabric would not tear without a small cut made first (see below)
	Wallpaper	Tearing along the edge and in the middle
	Carded wool sliver	Tearing lengthways along the fibre. The sample would not tear widthways across the fibre
	Furnishing fabric	Would not tear, in any direction, without a small cut first. (I know from experience that fabric will tear along the weft if a small cut is made). So I scrunched the fabric into a ball and then slashed it with scissors.

Images from left to right: wool sliver – torn; furnishing fabric, scrunched and slashed; wallpaper – torn and pulled; washed calico – torn

Technique – Knotting & Plaiting

	Fabric	Outcome
	Wadding	Plaited well, became pliable and sculptural. Knotting just disintegrated it!
	Fusible interfacing	The heavier weight sample behaved in a similar way to the wallpaper when plaited; knotting I had to twist it first in order to do so. The lighter weight one behaved in a similar way to the calico.
	Netting	Plaiting was not discernible, and visually you couldn’t see the difference with knotting and plaiting
	Unwashed Calico	Plaiting had to be loose to see the technique, otherwise it just looked like knotting, but reminded me of ‘rags’ to knot into little girls hair to curl it!
	Wallpaper	Became very sculptural with plaiting – knotting didn’t work at all!
	Carded Wool Sliver	Very satisfying to both plait and knot. Became very sculptural with knotting.
	Furnishing fabric	As per the unwashed calico

Wallpaper – plaited (held together with paper clips)

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Part 2 – Sample Development

I must admit that I’m finding this hard now. I’m finding it difficult to come up with new ideas as to what to do with the material I have chosen to see what ‘new’ fabric/material I can produce. I feel it has all been done before and what I’m doing is very predictable as to the outcome, and I’m just regurgitating old and established ideas. I am very interested in Shibori techniques for example, and smocking, but again, this is all very old stuff, and although it’s enjoyable working with the material, coming up with new ideas is difficult.

Then an idea came to me ….. I found a spool of macrame ‘twine’ and had the idea to plait it with two strips of the wool sliver and then to try to felt it to see how it would behave …… maybe I am loosening up a bit in my approach after all!

The result was less than inspiring! Maybe I didn’t felt it enough, but the end result was not much different from the original, a little more compact due to the felting, but not that much different really. So I’m now going to coil it up and see if I can sew it on my sewing machine, going from something very soft and pliable, to a more compact firm structure.

….. And I was very pleased with the results – I sewed straight across the middle of the sample, in segments like a pizza, and the end result was certainly more firm, but not too firm. I think the combination of the felted wool, with the ‘core’ of the much stronger cotton macrame twine, has created a soft but stable structure.

I then had a go at just coiling up the sliver of wool on it’s own and sewing it as I had done with the macrame. The result was very pleasing with a lovely soft, but securely constructed and firm. It felt just as sturdy as the macrame twine plaited sample.

The next one I did was to take the sliver of wool and twist it before coiling and sewing it as before. Again, a very pleasing result.

So I continued on this theme; I then knotted the sliver and coiled and sewed it. I liked the result of this, but not as much as the others as it was not as easy to create the ‘round’ result. So looking at them all together:

Clockwise from top left : sliver and macrame felted ‘rope’, coiled sliver, twisted coiled sliver and knotted coiled sliver

Sample Development (continued) …..

I then decided to return to the slashing and tearing techniques I used before. I had an old sheet which I had earmarked for my sewing projects, specifically to use as toile material, and I decided to use some of this for this part of the project.

I used a large piece of fabric and enclosed all the scraps of fabric that I had used earlier – plus a few more and the wool sliver. My idea was to layer up the fabric inside the larger piece of fabric and to sew shapes (in this case I went with the brief of stripes and spots) and then cut through the fabric layers to reveal glimpses of all the different fabrics within the ‘sandwich’. This idea came to me to do this whilst I was making an advent calendar for my granddaughter! The idea of creating little pockets of ‘surprise’ appealed to me, as I had absolutely no idea how this slashing and sewing project would turn out.

Layering the scraps of fabric inside the ‘sandwich’

I delved into my scrap bag (I never throw away any scraps from my dressmaking) and decided to put more layers of different types of fabrics, including pure cottons, jersey, stretch fabric, lining material, cord, plastic string bags from onions, garlic etc., and just kept layering them up. I then folded the top fabric over the stock of scraps and, using my sewing machine, I sewed up the edges. I then sewed two rows of stiches straight up the middle and cut the piece in half to create two separate pieces.

I then sewed channels in one of the pieces, to create a stripe effect and random circle (or at least oval) shapes on the other, following the brief of spots and stripes. I then cut through all the layers of fabric, but not the backing, along the channels to reveal the scraps.

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The results:

I was pleased with the fabric ‘wad’ before I made the cuts. It felt really solid, but flexible and the ridges were well pronounced. I was also pleased with the result after I had made the cuts/slashes and ‘fanned’ the scraps out. I also, unintentionally, cut right through the fabric on one of the ridges and I was pleased with the result of that too. In fact I felt I could have added more layers and used a more diverse range of materials. Also, as the top layer was a polyester base, I felt it I had used a more loosely woven fabric as the casing, that might have frayed more too and added to the effect of distress. I tried to tease the scraps out a bit from their restriction so that I could see more of the enclosed fabric. I screwed up each sample and this helped a little with the distressing process. Maybe I need to make my channels a bit wider and scrunch the fabric up to help the exposure process?

The circles though were less impressive. I found I had to cut the fabric on the circles in a cross and then remove the outer layer to expose the scraps within. The effect was nowhere near as good as the lines, but again, they may have been more effective with a larger quantity of scraps inside and a different fabric as the casing.

I always try to imagine a ‘use’ for anything I make – maybe this technique could be used for rag rugs or matting? Or maybe things don’t have to have a ‘use’ they can just be what they are?

Summary

Although I have enjoyed this Materials exercise, I really don’t think I’ve achieved as much as I would have hoped to have done following on from the collage exercise. I really suprised myself with how much I enjoyed Collage, and was really looking forward to experimenting with materials. However, I feel I have just drawn myself back into techniques and materials I know well, such as wool and fabric, albeit trying to manipulate them in ways I have not done before, such as the plaiting/coiling and layering/slashing techniques. I looked at lots of different images of material manipulation on Pinterest and Instagram, and became completely overwhelmed, as I often do. During my research I came across a very interesting article, written by Joe Pitcher of TextileArtist.org, which highlights that too many techniques can be overwhelming and stifling to creativity. The full article is here: https://www.textileartist.org/textile-technique-addict (retrieved 19.10.20).

Of course, I appreciate that this course is designed to unlock your creativity by challenging you to explore new techniques and introducing new ideas to try things out, but the above article really resonated with me and I actually felt relieved that to feel overwhelmed is quite a common emotion amongst textile artists! I think that I would benefit from being in closer contact with other creatives, rather than just on-line, but of course this is not possible at this moment in these Covid times. But I do feel very isolated and although I know I can reach out to my fellow course members, this too is an overwhelming thought as I seem to spend a lot of time on-line in all areas of my life, and the thought of increasing that time in forging new connections is not something I relish.

I will now turn my attention to the next part of the course …… sketchbooks. I think this is something I’m going to really enjoy. At the beginning of this course I bought a number of ready made sketchbooks, and they are all still in pristine, blank condition ….. !

Exercise 2 – Collage

Exercise 2.1

I started off by deciding that I was going to replicate a rather lovely teapot and milk jug I have in my house.

I began by sketching it on a plain piece of paper, so I could get the perspective of what to cut out. I didn’t trust myself to ‘draw’ with my scissors at first.

After I sketched it out, I then decided on a two colour theme for the pot using black paper and an envelope which had contained a greeting card which was white with black spots. I then attempted to cut out the paper to correlate with the sketch. I soon found out that this did not work, and it was much easier to cut the paper by eye and feel, rather than follow a pattern. I was very pleased with the result of the teapot as I wanted it to be a bit quirky, rather than a replica of the original item.

The jug was inspired by a plain white jug I have. So I cut it out of piece of plain green paper which was originally a paper bag. I cut it out freehand in one piece and added bits of white paper to define the rim and the handle. I found a picture of a plain white jug in a magazine, so I added that to the middle of the green jug, and then cut out two photos of some white daffodils and placed them in the jug on ‘stalks’ of old wrapping paper.

The cup and saucer were made in a similar way to the teapot, using old wrapping paper, with contrasting paper to define the inside of the cup and the saucer. I wanted to create the feeling of flowing liquid from the teapot to the cup and used another old envelope which had a pattern on the inside to recreate that image.

I made each piece on a separate piece of paper before cutting them out and mounting them in their final position. I felt that the scale of the jug was too large in relation to the cup and saucer and the teapot, so I placed it at the front to try to get the perspective of scale.

Looking at it all together, I don’t think that the teapot fits the theme, which although I didn’t have a theme when I started, it does seem that the image conjured with the jug, flowers and teacup is one of summer. The teapot is more geometric and stands out starkly whereas the other two objects are more easy on the eye. Although the jug is also quite stark, the presence of the flowers softens it somewhat. However, maybe it should contain milk and not flowers! The addition of the butterfly, sourced from another piece of old wrapping paper was a last minute thought. Also looking at the paper I had used to mount the images, I realise there’s a reason for using cartridge paper and not the A4 sheets of paper I had stuck together, and the crumpled texture detracts from the finished piece. Although something I’ve come to realise about the beauty of collage, is that you can easily cut images out and restick them down.

However, I became absorbed with the process of cutting out and sticking and enjoyed the challenge of recreating a solid object with this technique.

Exercise 2.2

I didn’t want to make collages to scale as I wouldn’t be able to fit many on the paper. I didn’t have big enough pieces of paper, and I wanted to cut continuously, as per the continuous line drawing I did in the first assignment. I first used a sheet out of a pad of paper I have. The paper itself is quite thick and I found the process to be much more difficult than I expected. I tried to keep my eyes on the teapot and not on my cutting, and it took quite a while – and total concentration – to complete. When I examined the end result, I could see that it wasn’t quite symmetric, but it was actually quite a fair representation of a teapot and I was pleased with the end result. For the next attempt, I used a page from a magazine, so the texture of the paper was very different to the first one. Again it produced it’s own challenges, and was very difficult to manipulate as it was flimsy and whereas with the thicker paper, you could keep your place with your scissors, this paper kept slipping and moving and I had to keep more of a firm hold on it. The result of this one was not as good a the first so far as representation, in fact I think it looks a bit like a trumpeting elephant, but proportionately it looked better and also depicted the roundness of the lines of the teapot better than the first attempt.

The third one was cut out of a piece of used brown wrapping paper. This one was the easiest and quickest one to do! I think I was on a bit of a roll and after using the first two very different textured papers. The end result was the best representation of the teapot, and although not perfect, I feel it is a lovely, quirky image of a ‘proper’ teapot. The brown paper made me think of tea (probably the colour) in an old fashioned sense and I love the jaunty angle of the spout, which seems to make the whole teapot appear very confident and comforting, as if drinking tea from this pot will make everything OK! The contours are also very rounded and flowing and it ‘flowed’ very well from my scissors.

The final image I made was again using paper from a magazine, which I chose for the colourful image. Again, it was difficult to cut concisely, but I was very pleased with the end result as it is in proportion with the teapot subject. I felt that each image I produced went better as I became more confident with the technique and the end result was pleasing. I finished by making a little handle for the lid of each pot out of a piece of coloured card. I chose this to link all the very different images together.

I placed all the different images I made on top of each other to see how different they were before finally sticking them down onto the paper, and this highlighted how very different they all were and how the final two were much more rounded and pleasing to the eye (I regret I didn’t photograph this).

For the second exercise in 2.2, I used the same items as my study objects – the teapot, two jugs, and a cup and saucer. I do not have a huge range of papers to choose from and I decided that I didn’t want to spend money on buying more. I always choose to recycle anything and everything, including the paper I have used in this exercise. For the second exercise in silhouette collage I used a selection of magazine papers (different weights), paper bags, double thickness wrapping paper and tracing paper. I found that I had gained a lot of confidence from the first two exercises and jumped right into this one. I used two different papers than I had used in the first exercise – tracing paper and double thickness packaging paper. The tracing paper was pleasing to use, but the effect was, understandably a bit underwhelming! The packaging paper was the most difficult to manipulate, but I was still very pleased with the end result. The second drawing, on coloured paper, made me think about the colour of the paper I was using to make the silhouette, and I wanted to complement the colours of each, so I choose a solid colour. Again, I don’t have coloured A3 paper, so for this I used a size as near as possible to A4 (it was actually an old ring file divider).

Although I had enjoyed doing the first exercise with collage, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to doing this one, but I have been very pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it. I really like the result of the bold, solid image on the paper, with a nodding acknowledgement of the original article. As with the continuous line drawing I did in the first exercise, I found the process totally absorbing and after the first couple, very satisfying to do.

Exercise 2.3

One thing I had observed from the items I had chosen to depict was that they all have soft, smooth, curved lines, there was no harshness to the items. So for the next exercise, Line, I decided to change my subject matter of one of my drawings to a more angular one – my sewing machine. As it is mainly white in colour, and I wanted to my drawing to be an accurate replication, I decided to use tracing paper as my base, and I could then use white paper which would enable the image to stand out.

I decided to cut the main structure of the sewing machine as a silhouette and then build up the detail by adding other pieces of paper. Cutting out the main body of the machine was enjoyable, and I used the techniques I’d very recently used in the silhouette exercise. The angular lines of the machines were fairly easy to negotiate and I enjoyed the process. I think the end result was at least recognisable as a sewing machine!

The next exercise I undertook was ‘drawing’ one of my earlier subjects, a milk jug with rounded edges. I found this much more difficult to negotiate. I found that the curves were difficult to replicate and keep the dimension and the scale of the jug accurate. It took me ages to complete it, and I still don’t feel that it is a true reflection of the jug. Unlike all the other collages I have done, this one didn’t flow and I found it frustrating, even though the jug was a simple, smooth rounded shape that I had enjoyed replicating before when I depicted it as a silhouette. I must admit that I chose the simple item as I thought it would be more enjoyable than the more angular sewing machine, but it turned out not to be the case! I became absorbed in the process of the sewing machine, but mainly frustrated with the jug.

For the final two exercises in 2.3 Line, I decided to attempt to ‘draw’ the jug again, as I really had not enjoyed the process before and my philosophy is to face the things you find difficult. I used coloured paper this time on a white A4 background. I decided to cut pieces, like a jigsaw, along the curved lines of the jug as I was observing them, and then to finally stick them all down once I was happy with it. As before, I found that as I was focussing on one part of the jug, I missed other features, like the inside curved line of the handle against the main body of the jug. I only really noticed this once I had stuck everything down, and I found it quite jarring to the eye to see a very straight line amongst a very rounded object. In fact, there are no straight lines on the jug at all, which I only discovered after studying it over and over again during this collage section.

The final exercise in 2.3 I decided to look at something completely different – and very angular, a 4 pin plug socket extension lead. I found the straight lines easier to cut out, but it was a challenge to get the perspective right so that it looked in proportion. I decided to use a piece of paper which had two main colours and to stick with that. I liked the finished result, with its clean lines and I especially liked the plug sockets as the pattern on the paper I felt depicted sparks, like electricity. Again, once I got going with this exercise I became absorbed and enjoyed the process.

The one thing that I haven’t done is to tear the paper to create the shapes I wanted, I have only used scissors. Maybe because the scope of the exercises veered towards using scissors, and maybe because I haven’t even thought about tearing the paper?!

Exercise 2.4

For this exercise I decided to change tack completely from the objects I had been studying – and also because I had managed to acquire a quantity of magazines! In one of the magazines there was an article about Zandra Rhodes, which had a lovely photograph of her as the centrepiece. This photograph inspired me to create a collage based on her, using mainly pinks, which is the colour synonymous with Zandra. I used her photograph as the main centrepiece and cut out a block silhouette of my dressmakers mannequin and then surrounded it with images representing items relating to creating cloth textile fabrics and fashion. I decided not to reproduce items to scale but to randomly add the images as if they had been scattered across the page. I enjoyed sourcing the images from the magazines, and found myself looking for more items on the theme. If I had have found more, I would have grouped them more closely together, even overlapping to create a montage of sewing paraphernalia.

For the line drawing, again I found it very difficult to achieve a reasonable replica of the images I was trying to represent – this time furniture within the room I was working in. Maybe because I don’t feel that I can draw very well, or I find it particularly hard to manipulate the angles of the image I am trying to copy with my scissors, I’m not sure. I decided that I would try tearing it. I found I enjoyed this much better than using my scissors and felt much more in control of the shape I was trying to achieve. I also found myself more satisfied with the finished result I think because the lines weren’t straight, there was no way it would ever be a precise replica, and the quirky lines were actually very pleasing. I even went back and added another sewing item to the Zandra Rhodes collage and tore the paper to do it! Although at the moment, I haven’t tried to tear the paper other than in a straight line …… next I’ll try curves!

Final Exercise

For my final exercise, I decided to use two themes; the tea theme from my first exploration into collage, and a completely different abstract theme of stripes and spots. My first effort was to do the teapot, again using the brown paper which I had felt really went well with the earlier study. Although it was a block silouhette, I actually used my scissors to cut solid pieces of paper and fitted them together like a jigsaw. To keep to the brief to use spots and stripes, I added spots and stripes to the image to complete it. I was fairly pleased with the end result, at least you could tell it was a teapot!

I then wanted to recreate the teacup, again inspired from the very first efforts I had made with collage. This time, I tore the paper instead of cutting it, but still used the block silhouette technique. Even though this wasn’t to the brief of the exercise, I really wanted to try to use the tearing technique to create the curved edges of the teacup. I was very pleased with both the process of tearing the paper, which I found satisfying, but also with the end result of the image on the paper. The whole image had been created by tearing paper in different thicknesses and curved shape, apart from the flower motif I added at the end, which I had cut out. Even though I had strayed from the theme, I still managed to get some straight(ish) lines to depict the steam rising from the hot tea, and one spot!

I then went back to the original brief and decided on a completely abstract theme of stripes and spots. For the first one I used some paper (actually the inside of an envelope) which had black irregular shaped lines on a very pale pink background. I cut out individual lines using my scissors and placed four across the centre of the paper, which I was using in the landscape orientation. I then used some paper, again an envelope which had irregular black spots, and tore these out individually. And continuing on the monochrome theme, I had some mottled grey paper which again I tore into round shapes. My intention was to show the spots as two individual entities at the bottom of the paper, then moving through the lines and intertwining with each other, and eventually mingling with each other at the top of the picture. I was really pleased with the end result of this collage; it was simple, but visually effective.

I decided to carry on with this same theme to create another similarly styled collage, but this time tearing instead of cutting the lines and cutting instead of tearing the spots. I tore strips of brown paper to create the lines and the same grey paper I had used in the earlier one for half of the spots and some completely black paper for the other half. Again I used the paper in landscape orientation and wanted to show the spots moving through the paper, but this time, starting with the black at the bottom moving into the grey at the top of the page. For both of the collages I started with sticking the lines down first, almost like they were the basis of the pictures, the ground rules so to speak. The spots became more fluid and took on a life of their own and flowed around the page, before I settled on the final design and stuck them down. I really enjoyed doing both of these collages; I became totally absorbed in the process and felt the message that they gave to me was that everything is connected and nothing is fixed, nothing stays the same, all things are constantly moving and changing, merging into other things and becoming something different.

My final piece was another spots and stripe, this time using one colour of paper on a white background. I tore strips for the lines and used a hole puncher to create the spots. I also used the pieces from which I’d cut the holes from, as I thought they looked very effective and gave a slightly different variation on the theme. This piece can be viewed from any angle and it reminds me of an underwater scene, where the lines could be either foliage or fish, and the spots bubbles of oxygen. I really liked the effect of just using one colour on the white paper.

Summary

Prior to undertaking this exercise on collage, I must admit I had not thought a great deal about it and thought that it was for children in nursery school. I have memories of my own children bringing home collage work with lentils and pasta! But I have thoroughly enjoyed many aspects of this exercise. I enjoyed ghe research on the three artists I chose to study and found their work fascinating – particularly Matisse as I had never previously thought of him as a collage artist.

I really enjoyed getting ‘stuck’ in to the practical exercises and particularly enjoyed the block silhouette collages where I used my scissors in a continuous motion whilst closely observing an object. I also enjoyed the quirky results I achieved with the teapots. I found the line drawing much more difficult and frustrating, particularly with the curved objects (jug) which I didn’t enjoy as much as the more angular objects (sewing machine and extension lead).

Looking at the pieces I have created, I believe I could have been more creative with the background colour of the paper. Although I have already said that I didn’t want to spend too much money and I wanted to utilise what I already had, it is only now, in retrospect, that I realise what I could have used. For example, I could have painted the white paper – I do have a pristine box of watercolour paints which have never been used – as that would have given me much more of a contrast to just using white most of the time – I did use some coloured card I had for two small collages. But apart from that, I certainly felt I was becoming more willing to try different things as I progressed through the exercises. I can see that I will use collages going forward, particularly to develop ideas for projects. I also really love that you can create something beautiful out of things that may be considered as rubbish. Again this reflects my ethos of reusing and recycling which pretty much forms the basis of so many areas of my life!

I spent a great deal of time looking at collage on Pinterest and Instagram and realise that there is huge scope to develop this area of my coursework. However, and this is generally speaking, when looking at different artists and images on social media platforms, I tend to get completely overwhelmed and find it difficult to find a contemporary artist I particularly like – there are so many! But what I do is I look at what others achieve and then tend to focus on my own (poor!) efforts in comparison and get ‘lost in the scroll’, which is very demoralising. I understand that sites such as Instagram and Pinterest can be very inspiring places, and we are actively encouraged to use them, but I have spent a lot of time over the years ‘looking’ and not actually ‘doing’, which was my main motivation for undertaking this course. I have decided therefore not to spend too much time looking at these platforms as I want to focus on the processes and learning the techniques in this course so that I can become more confident and develop my own style.

I have had a very long time away from my studies, due to difficult circumstances, and I feel that this exercise has been a bit like starting from scratch again. As in the first exercise in this course – mark making – I still feel fairly constrained in my work, although I do feel as if I’m making progress!

ASSIGNMENT 1

Final Drawing Selection …..

I decided to use/revisit the charcoals (pencils) as I didn’t enjoy using this medium before. I used. much lighter stroke this time and enjoyed the experience more. I decided to draw items that I had already used rather than introduce a new item, as I wanted to see if my drawing skills had improved. They hadn’t! I also used a graphite 2B block instead of a 2B pencil, and as before, I enjoyed the feeling of a more chunky implement, although again, my abilities had not improved!

I feel my observation skills have improved through undertaking these exercises, and my confidence to have a go at drawing has also improved. It’s helped me to see that there is never just one way of doing anything either. I also realise that I really prefer using conventional tools, and I have come to enjoy using the charcoal too. I’ve learnt that by holding the tool at different points creates very different effects. It’s almost like you don’t really need too many tools to get vastly different results, which suits my ethos of using what’s available and not collecting too much ‘stuff’.

Drawing and sketching are not activities I have ever done, and these exercises have given me more confidence to sketch. I now intend to carry a small sketchbook around with me and have a go at sketching other things when I’m out and about and see something which inspires me. Although I haven’t actually done this yet!

Final Exercise …..

Sketching with graphite blocks and charcoal pencils are my most favoured tools to use. I like the way they glide across the paper and the very different effects you can get by varying the pressure and stroke. I feel more confident now, although I still feel I can’t draw! But …. I’m pleased that I can at least recognise the items I have drawn. It’s interesting that I’ve completely changed my mind about charcoal!

This exercise has taught me two things: Firstly, persevere with something you don’t initially like and, secondly, to really look at the items to draw. I’ve found myself looking at other things more closely now – not just the items I’ve used in this exercise, but other everyday objects. If you get really ‘deep’ it shows that you need to look closely, without preconceived ideas, to really understand something – be that physically or mentally!