Another question: Do you all keep journals or use sketchbooks in developing your art work?
Taken as I am with the work of Linda and Laura Kemshall, I have been studying their website lately and looking closely at how they use their journals to develop art ideas. I've never been organized about my sketchbooks...they really tend to be a collection of scribbles, which sometimes prove useful in working out ideas.
I was thinking that for our challenges, I'd try to start a journal to work with the selected themes and see how (if?) it helps me as my thoughts devleop and images evolve.
Anyone else interested in doing that?
I figured that for those of us who are interested in giving that a try, we could post that here, too.
What do you think?
I keep a sketchbook, but it is ugly and practical -- not beautiful and inspiring like so many artists make these days. If I spent enough time on my sketchbook making it gorgeous then I'd have no time to make any other art. I do go back and reference my sketchbook quite often, so even if it's not pretty, it does have an important purpose. Of course, my blog is a lot like my sketchbook too -- I keep a lot of my journal-like thoughts there, as well as pictures of my projects.
ReplyDeleteI like the "keeping a sketchbook/journal" idea for these challenges. I may try this out..I even have a brand new, fresh, clean book to start with.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Kristin. I don't really write down much. I rarely make sketches. I work intuitively from what enters my brain. My blog has been a wonderful way for me to chronicle things because I am not a diar-ist or journal-ist. And I don't think I want to be one.
ReplyDeleteMy first quilt is already in my brain. I have taken some photos of dandelions. When all my other commitments are finished, I will put this into fabric. So there you go. Maybe my comments and postings here will be my journal!!
I keep a word 'life'journal but have been neglecting it since I started spending more time on quilting amd less on writing. OK ALL my time of quilting! When I started quilting I started a seperate set of journals (a good excuse to buy nice notebooks!) because I saw a definate starting point and an opportunity to record right from the beginning. However, it is not that visual really. I record my spending (scary!) and acqusitions of books, use it for those scribbled calculations of how much border fabric to buy etc. and a record of what I started and when I finished it. I do stick in inspirational pictures from time to time and may do a line sketch of a quilt plan. But I am not an artists and haven't really been bothered with making little water colurs sketches and all that. I do record ideas but again they tend to be verbal like you Diane - a lits of associations or of techniques I want to use. For example my last recorded inspiration was to write down all the words of Under African Skies by Paul Simon - I, however, know what that quilt might look like in my head!
ReplyDeleteHowever part of the C&G is pushing me towards journals that are more visual and I had already considered using these projects as a reason to have a go in a seperate notebook. So I am game to do it with you. the just might look a bit erm - verbal if I post them!!!
Oh I just love "Under African Skies."
ReplyDeleteI have sketch books and I find I use them most often when I've started a piece of art and don't know where to go next. I draw out the basic composition and then test out different elements in the sketch book. I also makes lots of lists -- like the elements I want to incorporate in a piece and then I make arrows to show when they might go.
Yeah, my sketches are for my own use and not really for public viewing. They would not mean much to anyone else I suspect. I started making some little sketches of the shapes of dandelion leaves, for example, then I scanned and traced them into Illustrator. There I can move them around and duplicate, etc. I do a lot of the "sketchbook" work in Illustrator these days.
ReplyDeleteI guess I could keep a "digital sketchbook." Hmmmm--never thought of it that way before.