a sketchbook page

i am really interested in scale and how that is perceived by an audience. here are some rough ideas for what could lead to a story. i could make these figures as dolls too, big ones and small ones. make a collection of them.
any thoughts?

me and all the backs of houses

this is an etching that i printed yesterday. this is just a proof, but i am really pleased with how it looks. there is good tone and the houses link together well. i would like to make it a long panorama with plates of just clouds and dotty rain interspersed between these plates. i would use the backs of these plates, because there are really nice foul bites and scratches that would add to a brooding sky. i will show you when i make it.
i feel like i am making little stepping stones of progress. with my work slowly i am reading less and drawing more. (and some knitting in the sun). the sky darkens tonight and i wrote a song about how the clouds are like smudged words in my journal. maybe i will make a drawing like this. i have been listening to the beautiful sounds of ronroco (nonesuch). it is like travelling through the country side and listening to hills roll and undulate. very beautiful and a bit melancholy. it suits my mood today...

the doll's progress and other things

another weekend of making. i can't say i feel that happy about the results, but i have to remember that it is still early days. my friend Antonia suggested that i try making a house of cards out of the fabric postcards. I think this is a marvelous idea. I had kept thinking of how to make them like a house or into square rooms, but it hadn't occurred to me to try it in this way. i would like to make a whole lot of them... so i have a bit of work to do. they are easy to make though so if i make a couple every few days i should have quite a lot in no time.

i finished the doll. i am pleased withher and can see a whole family of dolls being made soon. she is the perfect size, a very holdable size. i would like to draw her as herself and in different contexts.

i have started making a mind map of Calvino's invisible cities to draw ideas from. i want to start making a fabric/drawn book that folds out into a 3-d soft sculpture of the cities. i found in a crafts magazine
(issue 213 july/august 2008) the cut out books of Su Blackwell. there is one that has a little light in the house. this is the kind of thing i would like to do with my cities. Calvino often talks about light, so i think it is an important element to be included in the work.

i finished making a big book of paper scraps that i had accumulated from making drawings and prints over the last few years. it has become my 'invisible cities' book where i have started making some drawings in response to Calvino's images of cities, but also of my own experience of london.

i am making some drawings of 'things'. my first one is 'the kings kitchen'. it started as an observational drawing of the kitchen in the brighton pavillion. i want to make a series of drawings of different subject matter. i will post them up as i make them.

if you have any ideas please comment in the little comment section. x

a dolls head... or... the start of something

these are a doll head that i am making. i have attached tears and animals and a tree branch to threads that are coming from her eye. she is weeping motifs that are a part of her. i have been thinking of this kind of image and thought it would work well in fabric and thread, so here it is, half made. once i buy some stuffing i will be able to finish a body. i am envisaging her holding a little basket or bowl that the objects will be held in. she will be sitting.
so, what lead me to making this... well i was thinking of calvin's 'invisible cities' and how a city is made up of motifs and how many cities are made of similar motifs. when i think of a city i remember the streets, the steeples, the doorways, the canals, the archways, the aqueducts. so i thought about what makes up a person... their memories and things that they hold dear. so i scanned all the images around me and cut out the special parts, like the antelope, the bird, a tree branch and rain drops or the catharsis of tears. it is not meant to be sad, it is more of a portrait with a melancholic touch.
i like the way the doll has naive features, probably influenced by the drawings of old toys that we did in our illustration group today.
my ideas are still all over the place generally, but it feels good to have started making something even if right now it feels slightly indulgent and irrelevant...!