Paper and Threads

A Review of Art Experiences and Learning During 2015: A Progress Report

Posted by Shirley at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We are planning a Fall trip to Spain, and I like to repurpose/recycle an old book with a theme for our vacations.  I found an old $2.00 book on an outdoor cart at The Strand in New York City - named Spanish Drawings.  I carefully cut the stitches to separate the old signatures and folios and selected two of them for my end papers.  I also included the original title page for the first page in my book.  The rest of the pages are Fabriano Artistico 140 lb Soft Press Watercolor Paper.  I created a 4 part tutorial for a book of this kind before a trip to Italy in 2012 and here is the link:

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Shirley at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I started to dye fabric for quilting in the 1990s, and my big projects were the dye painted, quilted, 6 foot square chuppahs that I made for our 3 children's weddings.  We live in a Manhattan apartment and it took me quite awhile to figure out how to develop a surface design studio without a dedicated space.  I loved mixing the primary color dyes to match the color requests from the brides, and definitely loved painting and shading the silk.  While making the chuppahs in 1999, 2oo3, and 2005, my interest in watercolor painting on paper began and I love moving back and forth from paper to fabric. 

Here are the 3 chuppahs:

I couldn't find watercolor sketchbooks that I liked and began to make my own, initially with traditional bookcloth, and then with fabric that I dyed.  These are the earliest ones I made. 

And this shows the progression up to early in 2015. 

I even make an annual Remains of the Day book, inspired by Mary Ann Moss, using scraps of my fabrics.  Here is the one for 2015. 

I also just started making pockets for my pencil, eraser, and pen that I can attach to my current sketchbook and it was made with scraps. 

We traveled most of June, so I decided that July was going to be a "surface design" month to dye fabric to replenish my stash.   My studio is very small, and not appropriate for wet projects.  Here is a photo of the 6 X 9' space while I was pulling out lots of surface design supplies.  You can see a color wheel made from mixing the primary color dyes on the back wall.

Today is my final day of dying fabric, except for washing out 8 more bookcloth pieces tomorrow morning.  And this is my stash for the month.  I completed 20 samples on which I worked out specific techniques, and made 32 pieces that can be used for bookcloth, bookcovers, pen pockets etc.

My favorite project of the month was my dye painted images of my imaginary friends Axel and Alice.  If you follow this blog, you may remember that Axel was born from my imagination during a 100 day project, and in conjunction with a homework assignment from Sketchbook Skool Semester 4.  My grandson Zach is my co-creator and he recently decided that Axel and Alice came from the moon and have heads of that shape because they were born during a crescent moon.  I decided that Martians are green and Moon people must be blue.  I loved creating these two 12 X 6" fabric paintings of them during one of my sessions. 

Posted by Shirley at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I started to make my own watercolor sketchbooks by first learning how to repurpose $1-2 "soon to be discarded" books.  The original page block can be removed and a new watercolor page block inserted into books that are the size, and even perhaps a theme that you like. 

In 2008 I posted a tutorial of one of my first repurposed books.  In 2012 I posted a 4 part tutorial which is more detailed, and photographed each step as I repurposed a book called Italian Dreams for a 2012 vacation in Venice.  I recommend using the 2nd tutorial if you want to learn how to make these watercolor sketchbooks.

http://www.paperandthreads.com/2012/02/watercolor_sketchbook_tutorial.php

Each year I repurpose a themed book for our summer beach visits and for our vacation.  I found an 8 X 8" book for $2 on the carts outside The Strand bookstore in Manhattan.  It has a 1/2" spine and I can fit 3 signatures, each with two watercolor paper folios and one folio from the original book.  I can paint on both sides of each page, so I will have 24 watercolor pages to use and several text pages from the original folios to collage over. 

I cut out the original page block  and carefully cut the binding threads so I could remove some of the original pages to use as endpapers and to mix with my 140 lb watercolor folios.   

These are the front and back endpapers, which hold the new watercolor page block in the cover. 

This is an original folio that I nested inside one of the signatures. 

I also found a similar size book called Spanish Paintings for $2, and will make it into watercolor sketchbook for a Fall vacation in Spain. 

Please leave a comment if you have any questions. 

Posted by Shirley at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I took Mary Ann Moss' Remains of the Day online class in late 2010 and decided to use the book as a "scrapbook" for my Art Adventures with friends in New York City.  This is one of my archivist tendencies that I love - and fear!  Since then, this is what happened.

My new book for 2015 was just completed and here is the book - still skinny.  I have many fabric scraps that  I dyed while working out surface design methods.  I chose a red and gold piece of fabric and then pulled all scraps that coordinated with it to make this cover.  I finished the cover on Tuesday and Wednesday night selected a variety of folios for the pages.  There are two signatures, each with 12 folios that are bound through the spine using a 5 hole pamphlet stitch.  All of the topstitching on the cover was done with YLI Kaleidoscope metallic thread.

I add photos, drawings/paintings, business cards, art exhibit press releases, etc to the books, anything that documents how I spend my days with friends on art adventures.  This is the book from 2014 - stuffed full of ephemera.

Here are a few pages - with flaps and pockets to hold everything I want to save and document. 

The pocket contains some photos from the day on the Lower East Side, including the Tenement Museum.  Gwen Diehn, the cold person in the middle, was visiting us from NC.

Our group went to Christie's Auction Previews for Modern Asian Art week:

A Field Trip to the Katonah Museum of Art to see the Jasper Johns/John Lund exhibit and this was my composite painting of many of Jasper Johns repeated symbols.

Opening Day of the Matisse Studio at MoMA.  I think you can tell that we are happy to be there.

A rainy day in Chelsea seeing the amazing Picasso exhibits at Pace and Gagosian,  Benedicte is on the left and Pat on the right.  Teri, who is still working joins us when she can. 

I am very fortunate to have art friends who love coming into the City from the burbs so we can both see wonderful art and make some art ourselves.  Yesterday Pat and I sketched at Criminal Court (in  Arraignments) with the NYC Urban Sketchers, then met Benedicte and Judy for Toulouse-Lautrec Figure Drawing at MoMA, followed by a bus ride downtown to see 2 exhibits at the NYU Grey Art Gallery and finally our annual dinner, including Teri who worked all day yesterday, to celebrate another year of our friendships. 

Posted by Shirley at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)