Sketchbook #1

The Sketchbook hasn't been going all that well. I am not good at drawing, but I am now trying to put all the mark making into practice, so the later additions are looking - not too bad! Trying not to worry too much about getting it right, just trying to get something on the page. I do believe that "hands on" is the only way to learn something - it's no good just reading the books.


This is my small (A5) sketchbook, that is for carrying around with me. 

Dried Orange Slices - graphite pencil and two coloured pencils. I like the top drawing on the right, I think this could be adapted to textiles.

Daffodils - I used the technique at the bottom for something else I was doing so did an extra one in my sketchbook, then tried looking at the daffodil heads closely. They looked a bit flat so I added some watery paint. I like the effect at the bottom of the page, this would translate very easily into stitch.

Sheep - I copied this idea from a book about wire sculpture. Sculpting in Wire by Cathy Miles.

Patterns & Feathers - Last week I went out into the garden and just drew patterns. I found two feathers so drew those as well, might try these in stitch. I think the little sketches are useful for inspiration as well - just not great drawings.

Bark & Rhubarb - Went a bit further afield, and draw some unusual bark, a felled tree and some forced rhubarb. All black gel pen and watercolours. Again not great drawings, but good source of inspiration.

Straight Stitch & Chain Stitch - After doing the first stitching exercise, I went round the garden looking for ideas for using straight stitch and chain stitch - found quite a few examples. Tried to draw them with the stitches in mind. They all look a bit thin, might need a bit of a colour wash?

Dried Poppy Skeleton - Found this poppy head skeleton in the garden, tried really hard to draw what I saw and not what I thought was there - not very good at fine detail though, prefer scribbling.

Dahlia - This was a left over from one of the exercises in project 1, but I like the image and I liked the effect of the pencil drawing, so saved them into my sketchbook.

Peppers - Snowed in today (an unexpected day off work!) so had a go at drawing a group of peppers. Decided to look at them as cuboid shapes and sketched those in first. This got the peppers in a better perspective, so will definitely be trying this again. This is a sketch just using biro.

Tried them again using the same kind technique, but used fineliner felt pens.

Tried the fineliner felt pens and went over the top with a biro. I liked this better before I went around the outside edge with the biro.

On a roll now, so did a big close-up with the block paints, then went over it with biro. I really like this drawing. A bit of success at last and good inspiration for stitching.

Mug - Liked the technique so much, decided to try it out on a drawing of my mug. It went a bit wonky at the top, but on the whole I quite like this.

Peppers - Couldn't quite stop drawing the pepper. Had another go with the biro and the block paints. Quite like this one as well.

Couldn't leave the peppers until I had had a go with my favourite technique - which is the scratchy pen, ink and coloured pencil. Again I am quite happy with this drawing, and again good inspiration. Finally I remembered I had wanted to try the coloured pencil in lines, so I just did a small portion of the pepper to try it out. I think this has worked well. I have really enjoyed this drawing session, lets hope the next ones goes as well.