Loving my Handmade Concertina Sketchbooks ....

About this time of year my focus returns to my sketchbooks and thoughts of the next evolution of my art .... and a new sketchbook!

Purchased sketchbooks have their limitations....

• size/format of pages

• weight of paper especially for wet media - availability and price

• painting only one spread at a time

So this year I've decided to make my own concertina sketchbooks. Found some 300gsm paper (on sale!) and have cut it into 19cm (7.5 ins) strips and I can join as many of these as I like! This gives me a 19 x 37cm (7.5 x14ins) spread and so many options.

My first was a smaller version, exploring ​one of the techniques we learned in drawing class, as we made our fabulous collaborative work for the show at the Shoalhaven Regional Gallery.

This is the final version of the collaborative work from our DRAW23 exhibition on the wall... it was over 2m square!

When it came to thinking about a new colour palette and the next evolution of the Songs of The Garden series - I joined 3 strips together for this long book and just kept playing ... lots of fun, no waiting for the paint to dry but not easy to photograph!

For the next one …

​I decided to try throwing some colour and drawing onto the art paper before making the concertina book and seeing what happens .....

I'll keep you posted!

Thank you for taking the time to read … your interest and support is greatly appreciated!

You are very welcome to forward this email to anyone you think might be interested.

If you have any comments just reply to this email, I love to hear from you ....

Till next time .... CC

Always

Sketchbook Play

Wanted to get 2018 off to a flying start so I enrolled in a short online workshop with one of my favorite textile artists  ... Dionne Swift.

Over 5 days with circles as the theme I've been making backgrounds, cutting, pasting, drawing, stamping and building up layers.  I've dug out my paintstiks, inktense pencils, water colors, charcoal, producing lots of pages and making lots of mess ... but what fun!

There is terrific energy in this class with emails and videos from Dionne each day.  It is so good to be encouraged to try things out without thinking about the end result.  What is so valuable is the the process, that takes you from the initial 'visual brainstorming, to building layers and then to the final stage of putting it all together in a sketchbook which flows with the development of ideas and imagery.  If I've peaked your interest here is a link to Dionne's website and online classes  http://www.dionneswift.co.uk/shop/workshops-online/

I'm contemplating the next class with Dionne!

Thanks for reading  CC

The Question of Sketchbooks!

I love the idea of keeping sketchbooks and I know how valuable they can be, I have a stack of them ... some started with a class ... some began with the idea of following a particular theme or subject ... some are  a rough collection of ideas or experiments ... some I've worked on with the aim of creating art on the page ....   

The common theme here is that I've started all these sketchbooks but after a flurry of interest they seem to languish on the shelf despite all my good intentions !!  Even so they prove to be a useful resource for ideas and inspiration!  What if I could be more consistent .....

I do keep a written journal to help me stay focused on my goals with monthly and weekly plans in the style of a bullet journal and I've been running with that over the last years or so but I hadn't found a way of integrating the use of a sketchbook .....

I've been reading with interest Lisa Call's series of posts on her Make Big Art site about the ways different artists use their sketchbooks ..... I can highly recommend Lisa's blog and this series.... here is the link if you'd like to read more .....

https://www.makebigart.com/artists-and-their-sketchbooks-heather-pregger/

In a recent post,  Heather Pregger talks about her approach of reviewing and recording her progress at the end of each day (or studio session) ... including progress with current work, experiments, critiques etc

.... here was a way of integrating a sketchbook into the art work of the day .... definitely something I could do!! 

So I've started doing just that ... it's working fine so far and I'm sure the way I use it will evolve over time ... the most important thing is to make sure it becomes a regular and ongoing part of my art work!  Wish me luck ....

Thanks for reading .....CC