The Sketchbook Project

I've mentioned before how important my sketchbook, and the practice of keeping a sketchbook, is to me. For this past Christmas, my son gave me a #SketchbookProject sketchbook. It was a project I have watched others participate in for some time, and it was on my 'someday' list. Well, with the gift, 'Someday' came! The sketchbook was filled and sent in shortly after the first of the year. It is finally up online, to be viewed! You can access it here.  Then you can also see other sketchbooks! If you are in the Brooklyn, NY area, you can also go and check my sketchbook out to see it 'in person.'

I think my scans of the sketches are quite a bit better than the ones they have put up, but then, I only had one sketchbook to scan, and they are trying to get thousands uploaded! You can see some of my scans here  and a flip-through of the whole book here. As I filled the sketchbook, I also posted every sketch on both my Instagram and Sktchy pages, and they are still there.

Just letting you know, as I promised I would!

Studio Tuesday 2; Graffiti Garden tapestry....

Although it may not look like much to you, I have made what I consider to be impressive progress on the new tapestry! My goal is to weave 1.5" per week up the warp, and I have almost completed that for this week! The warp is about 30" wide, as the resulting tapestry will be.  I do need to weave a bit extra this week, as my grandson will be here next week, and I fully intend to spend as much time doing what he wants to do as possible, and I'm pretty sure his choice will not be to watch me slowly weaving a tapestry!

I will be pulling a lot of yarns from my bins, as this is to be a very colorful tapestry. To keep track of colors and color blends I'm using, so they can be repeated throughout the tapestry, I weave a tiny bit of each new butterfly onto my small Hockett-style loom. As the tapestry progresses and disappears around the lower beam, this record of color and yarns used will be very important to me.

And here is another sketchbook page. It was inspired by a photo on the #Sktchy app; a lovely wall of graffiti flowers!

The sun is not yet down... a bit more weaving time for me on this Studio Tuesday!

Graffiti Garden, from the very start....

I have had a new tapestry design working it's way out of my head for awhile. In the process of making it visible, it has gone though a number of changes, not only in how it will look, but in the concept itself. The image that finally made it's way visible started with the pastel sketch above. It will resemble the sketch, but even that has undergone a number of changes. It seemed a good starting point to share, however.

After working on the design, I needed to warp the loom. The photos above represent three days of work this week; sleying the warp threads, tying them on and tensioning them, and weaving a header (to evenly spread the warp threads) and a hem.

Yesterday, I enlarged the cartoon. So today, I am ready to begin. Beginning is always a daunting thing for me. Once I begin, I'm fine. I realize then that I know what I'm doing: the hands know how to pass the weft through the warp, the eyes know how to choose colors. But until I actually get to that point, I wonder how on earth the design I've imagined will become a real thing: a tapestry.

I am planning to post updates on my progress (which will be slow) weekly. My goal is to weave a couple of inches/week. Believe it or not, for this design, that is a very challenging goal! I am determined to reclaim Studio Tuesdays as total work days, so that should help, barring complications and interruptions in my personal life (always ongoing...)

In the meantime, I'll share a page from my sketchbook of one of my favorite summer pastimes!