Left Overs

Playing as I do, I took small left over cropped pieces from larger abstracted photgraphic images and rolled acrylic paint over them selectively with a narrow paint roller (brayer). As I was finishing, I rolled the remains of the colour onto strips of an old white cotton bedsheet from my mother's house - this was all about using up left overs, after all! I then experimented.

I stitched a small square from the pile of painted croppings onto the cotton sheeting and added some other rows of stitching to add extra texture. It was interesting how much the parallel stripes of rolled ink suggested the high rise buildings from which the small photographic image had come. They seemed to have come full-circle.

Then, I assembled small croppings from the abstracted photographs. 

In this, it was interesting how strongly the black elements in the photos came through the ink creating depth and a quite different and less static effect which I may explore further.

It's always encouraging when idle experiments and 'what ifs' generate thoughts for what may come next.

Making marks

I found this card in my stash of images yesterday afternoon when I was searching for intriguing images by other artists to include in my current sketchbook.

It is called The Quilt, which seemed appropriate, and is an original wood engraving by Fiona Hope. Further examples of her work and that by other members of the Society of Wood Engravers are to be found here. I think I bought the card when I was in Scotland and paid several visits to the studios of artists in Aberdeenshire who were exhibiting in North East Open Studios a few years ago - but that may not be the case as I'm not organised enough to annotate my cards when I buy them!

The card has a decidedly textile feel to it and I was fascinated by the range of marks so I set about recreating them with a black Uniball Signo roller ballpen on white paper (thereby inverting the images). I dotted, cross hatched and created thick and thin vertical and diagonal lines and arcs within a hand-drawn grid.

An excellent, idle occupation for a rather chilly afternoon in Coronavirus lockdown.