The Journey.....

This week's meeting saw the start of our new project.  One of our group members Ann, suggested this project after seeing it in Kim Thittichai's book, - experimental textiles.  The idea is to tape a piece of long white paper to the table top and starting at one end draw a journey, real or mythical.  The object of the exercise is to make marks on  paper so "proper" drawing is not essential, and if we could not fill some areas of the paper with things we see on our journeys, we can fill in these gaps with any marks.... squiggles, dots lines etc.  The idea then is to use various shaped "windows" to isolate a pleasing section of the drawing to use to develop a printing block for use in later work.

Following Kim's suggestion those taking part each drew a journey, using various sized thickness of black felt-tipped pens.  The drawings have all been photographed in two parts so details can be seen and are not straight as I was balancing on chairs to get enough in the photo! And I hope I have attributed the right names to the right drawings.

 Jenny chose to draw her recollections of a recent trip to Morrocco,

Jill chose her recent trip to Cape Cod

Gwen chose a canal trip

 

Yvonne drew her journey from home to our meeting hall

Cath drew a journey from her house (sorry Cath I don't think I have the full drawing!)

I chose a journey, not of my own, but that of a pine seed to finished pieces of pine furniture!

Carol's journey

We were timed making our drawings to 30 minutes only, then Jenny talked to us about the next stage in the project, involving the use of the "windows" and showed us various shapes she has used in the past, varying from simple squares and circles, to diamonds and triangles to select areas that we liked.  We then spent the remainder of the session, finding sections of our own drawings which appealed to us and traced these onto tracing paper for further duplicating, cutting out, then trying out various arrangements on paper to create pleasing designs.

Two of Cath's selections duplicated and rearranged

Gwen found this selection and duplicated and mirrored it

Two of Jenny's selections duplicated and rearranged

Two of Jill's selections, duplicated and arranged into possible designs for later use

Yvonne found lots of areas with promise

We will be continuing this process of selecting and trialing out shapes from our drawings until we meet again in the New Year, when we will develop the design by creating a printing block.  We will explore various ways of making printing blocks, from using string glued to a background to carving potatoes, and Jenny will also show us how to create screen prints using freezer paper as a resist.  We are all really looking forward to this next session to develop our ideas further.  I hope you enjoy following our progress too.

                                                                                                                                    Rachel