fiberhart

Sketchbooking with WAQ

We met at Sydney's home today, and she was all set up for us to experiment with sketchbooking as described by Linda and Laura Kemshall, both in their book and on one of their segments on Quilting Arts TV.

We'd watched a DVD at Kathleen's earlier this year with Beaney and Littlejohn, where one of them described making sketchbooks from large atlases or other books you can get cheap at second hand stores, then gluing 3-4 pages together and gessoing them. The effect was neat. Sydney had already found a cool atlas, and started gluing pages together- not a quick process, from her experience. She'd also found some smaller board books for toddlers. We sanded them and gessoed the pages- speeding the process up with a hair dryer. No need to glue pages together with a board book!

Laura Kemshall showed how to do monoprints in a sketchbook using transparencies and acrylic paint. I tried it, and loved the effect. The gesso gives wonderful texture.



After monoprinting with red paint, I stamped it with the black. Then I used the transparency with the black paint on it to monoprint the page on the left.



Up close, you can see the delicious texture from the gesso.



There were other ideas, some using printed pictures. I think I am going to try printing out a photo I've taken using my laser printer,then adding color with paints, crayons, or Shiva paintstiks. And, I had an 'aha' moment. I have put off buying acrylic paints due to the expense. I just couldn't justify it when I knew I would only use them for sketchbooks, I will never be a painter like Ms. Mel. And I don't want to use my fabric paint on paper. Sydney, however, had acrylic craft paint that I used- stuff that is inexpensive, and available at Michael's. A solution I can live with! So the only thing I will have to get in the ART store is the gesso!

I have a goal this weekend- to get one of my sunflower batik panels quilted and beaded. Our big surface design group meets next week, and I'd like to have one ready to show the group. We'll see if I'm successful, I'm beginning to learn that I spend more time worrying about the quilting than it actually takes me.