I had great intentions of writing about my adventures at college every week, but of course life (and a bout of Covid) got in the way! So now I have a bumper blog post of all the things I’ve getting up to over the last few weeks. Last week was half term, but we are back to school on Wednesday.

Going all the way back to beginning of October we had a session of book binding learning a couple of different techniques and then using them to bind together some of the textured samples we made in previous weeks. It’s quite a nice way to collate pieces, thinking about how you will group things together and why. 

Following on from this the class experimented with inks, using the books as a surface for mark making, as well as creating negative space. I missed this week due to illness so I had a little go at home on my own. I cut down some of the books I made into graduated pages and then inked over the top. I tried to use marks that were suggestive of the swirls and eddies you get in water, continuing the theme I started previously with my concertina book. 

I also did this with the loose pieces of paper I had cut from the books, just laying them over the top of each other and inking over the top to create interesting patterns and negative space.

I took the pieces and collaged them together thinking about how I would overlay them. I particularly liked using the tracing paper, because it gives the sense of layering without losing any of the design, and can sometimes create new designs. I also stitched into these collages. We have worked a lot with drawing materials and paper, so it was good to do some stitching and it made me think about where I would place my stitches to highlight certain parts of the collages, especially as once a hole is made in the paper there’s no going back, unlike with fabric! I used basic stitches to imitate similar marks that I would make when drawing; back stitch, blanket stitch, and feather stitch.

Just before the half term break we did some observational drawing, however we didn’t have to be too strict about being true-to-life. We were looking for patterns and lines and transferring these onto various different papers, using a variety of different drawing materials such as ink, graphite, pencil, and wax resist. We also did some hole-punching, creating patterns by piercing the paper from both the front and back. The object I chose was a shell that had an amazing spotty pattern on as well as the swirl at the top.

At home I then took the little pieces we created in class and sewed them together in different ways to make little bundles, thinking about composition and juxtaposition. It was interesting to see how they all sat together and the use of the different papers added texture and volume to the pieces.

I’m not sure where all this is going at the moment, but I’m interested to see where its heading and in the meantime its quite fun to play around with all these bits that I wouldn’t normally do.