Sketchbook Monday (Sunday)

I usually do these sketchbook posts on a Sunday but I had a lot to do yesterday and never got that far. I have been a bit under the weather as my cold is now two weeks old and my inhaler suddenly ran out onSaturday morning. I had been to the Dr's Friday to order another but I can not pick up the prescription until today. So today has been a bit of a struggle and at one point I needed a TA to come in and help me 0therwise I may have expired right there and then. I shall pick up the new one after work so hopefully I shall be back up to speed tomorrow.

I am going to show you some of the research, photos etc that I am putting together for this project which is to run for a year. I am a member of the Cornwall Embroiderer's Guild so this is going to hopefully go into one of our future exhibitions.One thing I definately do with my sketch books is get rid of the white page by putting a colourwash over it. I usually do this just before I go to bed then it is dry for the next day. With the theme of seeds I decided to go for pale browns, creamy colours, yellows etc. I anticipate this changing as the book progresses. I then began with looking around the word SEED and started using a dictionary, looked in my books upstairs, gardening books, the school library etc and just gathered bits and bobs for most of January. I out them all in a fabric zip up wallet that I found in ASDA months ago.

Finding key words linked to SEEDS gave me the spidergram idea which I decided to do as I began to feel that I would never actually get started. I did leave the very first page blank for the time being. I added to the interest by adding a few small pictures from books and Google. Dandelions came up via this research and I remembered how much I like the feathery appearance just before the wind blows it all over the place, that I had forgotten was that they were seeds and the wind helped to scatter them!!

At last, I had found my starting point.

I then began to search for Dandelion pictures. I found some by accident on a clipart CD I had at work for a computer design software for Textiles garments! There were several Dandelion plants in the garden which had very kindly decided to grow at the right time so I kept an eye on them then got the camera out just at the right time.

I am quite pleased with this photo. It could be better but considering I do not really have the right lense for this type of picture I was lucky to get this.

I then sketched small sections of the Dandelion head and looked at it from different views. This is not finished at all but I will then stitch up little samples using the pictures and sketches as a starting point.

I have a long way to go and as I have said before my sketchbooks usually evolve via my own interests rather than a set theme, so it will be very interesting to see how this goes. I shall try and post about once a week on this, partly so that you can see what I am doing but hopefully it will help me to stick at it too.

Anyway best be off, I hope the week has started well for you so take care for now.

x