A family member found Iri5 on flickr and I have been oohing and aahing over her work …
meanwhile my own resolution to draw something in ink every day has been a challenge I have not lived up to.
Domino knitting is intriguing and I have a design in mind which I think is original — but it is definitely Kaffe Fasset inspired and I’ve read all his books, both knitting and quilting, so it’s quite possibly in one of his books already. Will post scans of my work so far but am not quite ready yet.
One theme emerging from my drawings is a preference for manufactured objects with natural things such as plants or landscapes. Today I was at the cafe and decided on a planter about ten feet away, the only hiccup was as people came to the door they would obscure the view! I struggled to draw front to back and not have the back of the planter showing through the plants.
Another drawing at the cafe, done in the early afternoon so light changing was less of an issue. Let’s just say it’s a good thing they have cultured marble table tops and not white tablecloths. I’m frustrated because I still don’t have enough control of the lines the pen is making to convey shading and highlighting or textures of surfaces. This thing was a bugger to draw, in fact it has panels attached to its legs so that on each side you are looking at two panels that meet at an angle. To show them you would have to work front to back, and for me to draw a structure like this, I have to build it as a structure. It took 15 minutes to draw this, so although I could have gone on drawing the cobblestone pattern around the poured concrete circle, I decided to call it a day. Actually the cobblestone pattern (which I suspect is also made of tinted concrete in a mould of some sort) would make a nice quilt pattern, either pieced fabrics in similar shades or actually quilting the lines into the finished top.
This is a Lutradur bowl made as an inspirational prototype for Laine Canivet’s workshop at next summer’s Quilting in the Trees retreat. I fused two layers together with Steam A Seam 2, stitched extra layers to form the base, then used Wonderfil Accent rayon in coral to embellish, along with other neutral variegated threads. I enjoy the translucency of Lutradur, and that it doesn’t fray! For other ideas involving heat and paint, see here.
This afternoon I resumed the cafe life. This time I sat in the glassed in porch looking north and selected some elements of the landscape to convey gloomy clouds hanging over a misty landscape with modern street lights in front. 
Reading that description, it sounds like an oil painting perhaps by Thomas Kincade or those paintings of Paris in the rain (are they all painted by the same person or is there a whole atelier full of artists pouting when the sun comes out???? “encore du soleil, quelle misere!”)
I did better with the ink and ruling pen, using a piece of scratch paper to start the ink flowing, so no nasty blobs, and it dried much faster. This is a very edited landscape and I could probably sit in the same spot, pick out different elements, and make a completely different looking scene.
Since it was not practical to go to a cafe today I stuck with Pigma pen on paper and tried to draw a tissue popping out of a box. At some time I will try again in pencil, which is outside of the scope of this challenge, but I want to improve my shading. This turned out to be much more of a challenge to draw from life than I anticipated, and I deliberately ignored the artwork on the box, largely because with pen I would have no way to draw the artwork and show the long side of the box as being in shade.
Went to the Ogden Point Cafe this morning. It’s remarkable how fast the light changes early in the day. Still frustrated by the smudging and by the way the pen won’t always start writing when I want it to, even fully loaded. By the time I left the ship in the sketch had disappeared. My hometown Brighton is on the English Channel and if you see a ship in the morning you’ll still be able to see it in the afternoon, just farther east or west. Tried to convey the texture of the water which varies because of the shoals beneath the surface. At least I was able to sip on my coffee as I worked!
My first foray into drawing at a cafe, using ink and a pen and drawing deliberately as opposed to doodling while waiting for a friend to arrive.
Lessons learned:
If you draw a coffee mug, you can’t drink from it until the drawing is completed
bring a wet wipe to clean off the pen
allow drying time before you can leave
Find I’m noticing reflections a lot more than before. At the top of the gleaming white mug I could clearly see a reflection of my notebook.
after missing a couple of days in the challenge preoccupied with Spoonflower designing and ordering I got back into it and experimented more with the ruling pen. Everything I’ve done is in the Flickr group under “wordnerd411.”
This morning I finally got the pen beak open to the width that suits me and the acrylic ink, mid way through this doodle:
The “good bits” are from after and the crummy bits are from before.
Then I decided to use the pen in my sketchbook, practice stars and writing, and although it would be nice if this were on cloth, I’m actually quite pleased with it:
The step backward is that I had the house to myself, did the drawing, washed everything and put it away and went on my merry way making more assembled fabric and listening to jazz. Family members came home and “You’ve been using that stuff again!” Like, I’ve never heard that line before!
Although to me the acrylic ink has only a trace smell, it apparently hangs around the house and is bothersome.
So now I can either use ink on paper at a cafe (using cloth would be difficult because of stablizing) OR use a Pigma pen on cloth at home OR try Setacolor on cloth at home and see whether the odour is detectable. Setacolor is basically acrylic and to me has a smell but not a smell that bothers me. We’ll see, I like the thought of being someone who sits in a cafe sketching but things have a way of not turning out like they do in my imagination.
Today’s feels more like an illustration. I used the ruling pen but tried not to get any large blotches where I didn’t want them. This was somewhat inspired by illustrations in a children’s book, Freight Train by Donald Crews published in 1978 by Greenwillow Books, but I will have to look at the illustrations to be more confident about showing more than just the smokestack! When the drawing was finished I realized it could be mistaken for a hat.
Today I was aiming for shaded effects and more control over the pen. When it has thoroughly dried I might post a page from my sketchbook. I really have to think hard about shading because my brain thinks more in terms of outlines, shapes of things, and of course quilting reinforces that.
I used way less ink on the pen at any one time and that is making it better. But I find it scratchy and not flowing. In contrast, here is a doodle I did on kraft paper the other night. It’s about 12 by 14 inches so this is part of it, since the whole piece won’t fit on my scanner. Will try more with brushes in Melly’s challenge I think!
Last night while watching Bride and Prejudice, which was fine entertainment, I got around to beading my Dragonfly mola, using mostly hand made beads.
Of course as soon as I stitched on the wire beads I knew I needed black silamide, but since it’s a small piece I kept going to see how it would turn out. Now I’ve been to Bead World so it will not take long to redo those three beads.
And no trip to Bead World would be complete without a) extra inspirational shopping
b) boasting about Geode, my large beaded art quilt, currently on display at Satin Moon!
