The August Creative Challenge Gallery – Week Two
See the images and comments for the second week of the August Creative Challenge below. If you would like to upload images, please go to the main page for the August Creative Challenge and click on the appropriate link. We hope you will join us for this fun challenge and share your work!
Andrea Butler
August 10, 2016 @ 1:14 pm
I had really liked printing with the leaves when creating my pop-up potato print, enjoying the immediacy and directness of the process. The leaves were flat and fairly straightforward to print from, so today I decided to experiment a bit further exploring how I might print with other objects: a stone, shells, a delicate seed-head, bark and a chunk of wood (not pictured).
What became immediately apparent was that you couldn’t rush this sort of thing – not a good creative choice for a busy day! I printed in short sessions on tissue paper but was glad I persevered as I found it an absorbing and beautifully tactile experience.
Andrea Butler
August 10, 2016 @ 1:15 pm
Piece of wood, shell and seed pod:
Andrea Butler
August 10, 2016 @ 1:16 pm
Shells, stone and bark:
Andrea Butler
August 10, 2016 @ 1:17 pm
Shells, a stone and a small piece of bark:
Andrea Butler
August 10, 2016 @ 1:17 pm
Mark making with a shell:
Andrea Butler
August 10, 2016 @ 1:18 pm
A seed:
Andrea Butler
August 10, 2016 @ 1:18 pm
Objects for printing:
Andrea Butler
August 10, 2016 @ 5:15 pm
Day 10: an idea for a small textured sketchbook. I cut up an old map along the lines of longitude and latitude and sewed it back together, washed it over with white paint and then folded it into a sketchbook. Finally, I sewed white wire to the spine to create a drawn mark in space along the edge of the sketchbook.
Andrea Butler
August 10, 2016 @ 5:15 pm
The front cover:
Andrea Butler
August 10, 2016 @ 5:15 pm
Pages:
Andrea Butler
August 10, 2016 @ 5:16 pm
Pages 2:
Andrea Butler
August 10, 2016 @ 5:17 pm
Pages 3:
Andrea Butler
August 10, 2016 @ 5:17 pm
Back cover:
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 10, 2016 @ 11:20 pm
Day 10 of the August Creative Challenge /join-us-for-an-august-creative…/
A bit of fun with drawing, collage pieces and eraser printmaking today. This is how I normally work in my daily visual diary (which I’m still keeping up with, alongside this creative challenge!). I am pleased with the fact that the snake in the cup provides a link to the previous page, so there is a sense of a narrative (which I love to have in my work). I didn’t know I was going to have a snake in a cup until I did it! Re my figure, I originally had a different head pasted onto this page, taken from a film brochure, and this had been done as part of prepping the sketchbook for the creative challenge, however today I ended up tearing part of the head off (sounds a bit violent :)), leaving behind a ragged edge, an effect which I like. I reworked the face completely with oil pastels and pencil. I find that some pencils are better than others at working into the oil pastels, and my favourite pencils are my old Karismacolour graphite pencils, which I still have from my art college days. Apparently these pencils were discontinued several years ago, and are now selling for quite high prices on Ebay!
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 10, 2016 @ 11:21 pm
detail of eraser printed snake in collage cup
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 10, 2016 @ 11:23 pm
detail of head with ragged edge from tearing off piece previously stuck down, and face reworked with oil pastels and pencil
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 10, 2016 @ 11:24 pm
detail showing snake in cup providing link to previous page with the eraser printed snakes and woven ladder
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 10, 2016 @ 11:26 pm
Accordion with Day 10
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 10, 2016 @ 11:27 pm
detail of accordion with Day 10, from different angle
Andrea Butler
August 11, 2016 @ 5:37 pm
Day 11: I collected some very short sticks on my walk – for no other reason than I liked their smallness. Once I looked for them they were everywhere and I thought about bundling them up and dipping them in something to leave a mark. This thought led on to me making a collection of small scale drawing tools.
Andrea Butler
August 11, 2016 @ 5:38 pm
Drawing tools for mark making:
Andrea Butler
August 11, 2016 @ 5:39 pm
Four small drawing tools:
Andrea Butler
August 11, 2016 @ 5:39 pm
Tools for mark making including a double-ended tool:
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 11, 2016 @ 11:09 pm
Day 11 of the August Creative Challenge /join-us-for-an-august-creative…/
Ever since I created my figure with the stitched lino print skirt on Day 4 (had to recheck which day it was!), I’ve been wanting to do another stitched outfit but with a different material, to explore and experiment the possibilities. I was also attracted to Andrea Butler’s recent post about the AccessArt Village /draw-your-home-collage-stitch-…/, particularly the inspirational photos showing Andrea threading scraps of fabric onto the needle and sewing these on to create added texture and interest. As the stitched skirt on Day 4 is light toned against a dark background, I wanted to create the opposite for today. I cut out a model from a fashion mail order catalogue, altered her face, hat and upper body clothing using oil pastels, going for dark colours (I find matt paper easiest to work on with oil pastels as glossy paper is too slippery). I raided my daughter’s craft box and found some lovely black felt, quite stiff surprisingly, but it was bought cheaply. I pasted the figure onto the accordion page, and then started manipulating and folding the black felt into the shape I wanted. I pinned the folds into place, though I was concerned about how thick and bulky these were. Would a needle get through these folds and the paper underneath? I envisaged my sewing machine dramatically breaking down as a result :). I held my breath and got on with it, and what a relief! It was actually surprisingly easy, considering the number of thick layers the folds had generated, and soon I was on my way, sewing in all directions, incorporating a variety of stitched patterns. Thinking of Andrea Butler’s textural stitched scraps, I also randomly added torn pieces of orange acetate paper and thick matt paper from the same fashion catalogue. I just shoved these pieces under the needle as I went along, not knowing how it would look or whether it would work :). I also added stitched and collage detail to the hat. I’m really happy with the overall result, and I very much enjoyed this experiment, so might do this again for a different image on another day. Stitched drawing is very therapeutic!
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 11, 2016 @ 11:10 pm
Head and shoulders detail
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 11, 2016 @ 11:10 pm
Head/hat detail
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 11, 2016 @ 11:12 pm
Stitched skirt with added pieces to create texture and interest
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 11, 2016 @ 11:13 pm
The waist detail
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 11, 2016 @ 11:14 pm
Detail of folds and varied stitches
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 11, 2016 @ 11:15 pm
Another area showing folds and varied stitches
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 11, 2016 @ 11:16 pm
Bottom of skirt detail
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 11, 2016 @ 11:17 pm
Accordion with Day 11
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 11, 2016 @ 11:17 pm
detail of accordion
Andrea Butler
August 12, 2016 @ 4:44 pm
Day 12: Out and about today – a couple of sketchbook pages of felt tip drawings from 16th and 17th century pottery.
Andrea Butler
August 12, 2016 @ 4:46 pm
Sketchbook page:
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 13, 2016 @ 12:08 am
Day 12 of the August Creative Challenge /join-us-for-an-august-creative…/
Today was a bit of a mad day, including loitering with too much intent in IKEA with the family and buying things we hadn’t gone in for :). Having got home later than I wanted, and with only half an hour before I had to get ready again to go out to an exhibition preview, I had to come up with something quick for my image for today. This is the result (the orange wool was added after I got back from the exhibition). Apologies if the photos seem a little dark, I took them at around 9pm, after I got back home!
The background is shredded cardboard, which was part of the protective packaging for some art materials I had ordered. I decided to attach it to the accordion page with stitched mark-making. Again I was a little nervous as to how my poor-suffering sewing machine might react to being asked to stitch over very thick cardboard with paper underneath. It was actually fine, for a while, and then my machine jammed. I managed to sort out the machine, so there was no harm done, but perhaps machine stitching over thick cardboard is not to be recommended :). I had done enough stitching to secure the shredded cardboard to the page, so I was happy with that. It worked out well in the end as the unsecured areas of the cardboard are nicely loose and textural. I inserted my lino print rabbit (one of my older prints which didn’t meet the grade for selling as the print is patchy in place), and secured the rabbit with my stapler. I did some additional stitched drawing over a torn scrap of paper from a magazine, and slipped it in place behind the rabbit, again with a staple or two. The orange wool was a later addition, as I felt it needed a bit of colour, and I wound the wool several times round the page. The orange wool links nicely to earlier images with orange elements.
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 13, 2016 @ 12:09 am
different view of image to show textural areas of the image not secured to the accordion page
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 13, 2016 @ 12:10 am
Detail of stitched paper over cardboard
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 13, 2016 @ 12:11 am
Stitched paper secured over cardboard
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 13, 2016 @ 12:12 am
Detail showing woven wool and stitched mark-making
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 13, 2016 @ 12:13 am
Another area with stitched mark-making and woven wool
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 13, 2016 @ 12:14 am
Accordion with Day 12
Andrea Butler
August 13, 2016 @ 4:53 pm
Day 13: A quick mark making session on cartridge and tracing paper using my drawing tools from day 11:
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 14, 2016 @ 8:48 am
Day 13 of the August Creative Challenge /join-us-for-an-august-creative…/
Today was quite a challenging and tiring day at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, as I had to keep running after my escaping toddler :). By contrast, my image for today has more of a tranquil feel (hooray!). I printed two of my eraser print heads onto some greyish paper which had come with a parcel some time ago, and I then pasted these over some collage pieces on the accordion page. Detail was added with oil pastels and smaller cut out circular shapes (both paper and acetate). The blue circular line on the bottom left of the image was actually drawn with one of my daughter’s crayons that I had found lying around, and its use in the image was a last minute act. I wanted a blue to echo the little blue ball shape in the upper circular frame, and the blue crayon was the perfect blue. The other marks you see on the page are prints made with the wheels of a toy car and also smudged fingerprints, these marks having been made at the time of preparing the accordion sketchbook prior to starting the challenge.
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 14, 2016 @ 8:48 am
One of my eraser print heads
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 14, 2016 @ 8:49 am
The other eraser print head at foot of image
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 14, 2016 @ 8:50 am
Accordion with Day 13
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 14, 2016 @ 8:51 am
Another view of accordion
Andrea Butler
August 14, 2016 @ 5:07 pm
Day 14: Drawing with the felt tips a couple of days ago had felt nice and summery, so today I tore a 2 1/2 inch wide strip of paper from the large mark making sheet from the previous day and worked on top of the orange ink marks in similar colours – but drawing with bright threads rather than pens. Afterwards, I folded the paper, just to experiment.
Andrea Butler
August 14, 2016 @ 5:07 pm
Folded drawing:
Andrea Butler
August 14, 2016 @ 5:08 pm
Drawing detail:
Andrea Butler
August 14, 2016 @ 5:08 pm
Reverse of folded drawing:
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 14, 2016 @ 11:29 pm
Day 14: of the August Creative Challenge /join-us-for-an-august-creative…/
Busy day at home today catching up with housework, so had some illustrative fun with today’s image. At the book festival yesterday, my children and I were at a children’s book reading, featuring a scarlet umbrella. I latched onto the idea of an umbrella, made it orange to fit in with my evolved colour scheme for the accordion, and created my own character and narrative. Again I used oil pastels (and graphite pencil) over collaged pieces, and used a pair of scissors (which were to hand), for the scraping. Oil pastels make an ideal surface for scraping as you can easily redo sections if you’re not happy with the scraped results, thus enabling you to be bold with your mark-making. Great fun!
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 14, 2016 @ 11:31 pm
Scraped detail
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 14, 2016 @ 11:32 pm
Oil pastels over collaged pieces with some scraping
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 14, 2016 @ 11:33 pm
detail of head
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 14, 2016 @ 11:33 pm
Accordion with Day 14
Morag Thomson Merriman
August 14, 2016 @ 11:34 pm
Accordion detail