Sketchbook: Take a Letter M2 Chpt 4

Introduction

This was a very enjoyable chapter and it lead me into some interesting places which I'll definitely aim to pursue further. Although it may look as though I have not completed as much work for this chapter as some others, I found colouring the letter patterns very time consuming and enjoyable, so I easily spent as long doing this as I did with the previous chapters. In terms of colour I worked with Caran D'ache water colour crayons and water colour paints.

Initially I looked at lots of fonts to find some that were decorative to use but not overly elaborate. I noted that the font used in the chapter was 'Vivaldi' and I did use that for the later activitities, but concentrated on 'Viner hand Italic' for the body of the repeated patterns based in squares/rectangles etc.

Making templates for squares

Activity 1 Creating patterns using a letter template or pattern

Letters facing the same way

Starting with a lower case 'd'

Viner upper case A and N

2 Flipping the letter template from side to side

Using N and D. Sorry I forgot to photograph the tracing for the N

3. Flipping the letter from top to bottom

Using upper case A and K

4. Rotating the letter through 360 degrees

lowercase q and h, and actually ad hoc rotation for these two I realise

Upper case N

Sorry no prep picture, but quarter rotation each time.

5. Doing my own thing

I couldn't resist the urge to fill the background of the letter and the letter itself a little differently

Extra Activity

This activity became the focus of the chapter for me so I have put notes, images etc at the end of this blog, otherwise the flow of the post will by hi-jacked.

Activity 2 Rotational Patterns using a letter template

I used both Viner 'A' and Vivaldi 'R' and 'B' for this Activity. I wasn't sure I made anything of value in this activity or I wasn't enormously pleased with any of the rotations.

And no prep image for this 'B'

Activity 3 circular rotation

This activity produced a wonderful result. I was really surprised once I had finished the first image that it had such a strong look of those bowls with islamic calligraphy on the interior. I'll definitely have another go at these.

First circular attempt

Second rotational drawing

Third rotational drawing

Extra Activity.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. I loved Rosalie's work and was excited to have a go myself. I started out doing this a little differently then returned more to her style before going off in another direction again. Of all the activities I've done so far, this is one that would definitely make it to the textile stage.

First tries (A)

(B)

Going back to Rosalie Gascoyne

Making my own templates to cut up, using firstly a pipette to write script then a wide poster calligraphy nib and ink.

The result - shame about the horrid colours, which are much stronger and brighter in the original.

Then I cut up an earlier piece I'd made using brusho powder and writing with a pipette and wove this - and was delighted with the result. Can see me revisiting this idea again

Finally, as I said earlier, I found the repeating rhythms in this chapter inspired me to think about textiles and textiles with script- which is a first for me. So I couldn't resist the urge to get my machine out and have a go. And I will really come back to this again.