I found a small remnant of the best red leather this week. It was just enough to make two new pouches, perfect for make-up, pencils are any other essentials you need to carry with you. This is really beautiful leather in a red lipstick colour lined with red and orange dotted batik. A treat for the hand and the eye. In the on-line store for you.
I got some wonderful leather this week and I couldn’t wait to work with it. I have an order for a Delta bag like this one in a dark brown. This is a rich mahogany colour in a lovely texture which should age well. I’ve lined the pocket with another wonderful piece in cognac. (You will see more bags in that in the coming days.) I’ll post more pictures of this Delta as it develops. It’s a little smaller than the original, designed to sling over your shoulder on your bike, but still big enough to carry a lap top. It will have the same handles and cross body strap as the original and a double bottom for additional strength. More pictures later this week…
“Never worry about making mistakes. All the marks you make, even the ones you aren’t happy with, contribute to the overall drawing. Think of it as a tapesty of lines. Sketching is also a learning curve. It’s always interesting to revisit old drawings and see how much your work has changed, modulated and improved during the time that you’ve been sketching.”
This is a quotation from Simone Ridyard’s marvellous new book, Archisketcher. Urban sketching is a rapidly filling field; there are almost too many books to choose from. But this one is a great one. The text is well-organized and carefully explained and the concepts are illustrated with excellent examples from a variety of the best urban sketchers.
But back to the quotation. I take heart from the thinking about mistakes, and being a fibre artist, I love the idea of a sketch being a tapestry of lines.
We were in Kingston yesterday and I had an hour to sketch. I sat in the open window of a café with a good view of the tower of the City Hall. This is one of my favourite buildings and I have sketched it before. Yesterday afternoon there was a big storm coming. I just finished the sketch as the drops began to fall. I’ve been experimenting with skies and yesterday’s sky was full of grays and purples. A run back and a blob are a few of the mistakes in this quick sketch but just looking at it now I am reminded of the stolen hour before the storm and the great fun it was to sketch such a magnificent building.
I have had a chance to spend time hooking my big rug this summer. I affectionately refer to it as Annie because of its Annie Dillard quotation which fills each end border. If you check here or here you will see I have been hooking this rug for a good long time. This summer I finished the 65 houses and have made some headway on the green section of the rug. The design decisions are pretty well finished now and it is just getting down to hooking it. The green sections will morph back into blue in the centre. I say the design is finished but I’m now toying with the idea of hooking arrows into the ground among the circles, just to point the way as it were. And I’ll say publicly here that I plan to have it finished for next year’s annual. There, I’ve set the challenge.
We are back home after a few weeks at the cottage and I hope to also start on the bags which have been ordered. I’ve been away from the sewing machine all summer. In the works is a new Delta bag and a man’s messenger bag as well as a couple of others. I’ll post as soon as I have something to show.
I am excited to tell you about the upcoming rug show in Belleville Ontario at Gallery 121. There will be a collection of the beautiful hand hooked mats and chair seats done by the women of Matangwe Kenya. Each piece reflects the world of rural Western Kenya and highlights the women’s unique sense of colour and design. Above is a chair seat depicting the mud huts, acacia tress and rolling hills. Below several more examples of the charmingly simple designs and stunning use of colour. The left thumbnail is the back of a chair seat–wax printed cotton from the Bondo market and the Matangwe label based a drawing by one of the school children. All the pieces are hooked with found recycled cottons from the Bondo market and wool strips and old t-shirts donated by Ontario hookers. And it is all done without hooking frames or cutters. Marvellous!
The opening reception is Saturday September 19, 2-4 pm. The show runs from Tuesday September 15 until Saturday October 24, Tuesday to Saturday 10:00 until 4:00 pm. I hope you will be able to come to see this
On Sunday, I sat in my car on a deserted street and did a quick sketch facing north. It was an hour out of this week’s too busy schedule. I am trying for a looser scribbly line and quick impression. As I sketched I listened to Radio Lab –it’s sad that the best programming on CBC is no longer Canadian–and did this quick sketch. I find that an amazing way to recalibrate. It’s like a good bike ride or a good massage–a kind of mental realignment.
Montreal is a wonderfully liveable city in the summer months, the area where we were staying, especially so. This is the Jean Talon neighbourhood and there are several areas in the streets like this one below to sit and visit or play a game of x’s and o’s! I sat on this bench to do two sketches. The first sketch looks east to the corner where the very friendly Café Larue sits. The second looks across the road to the Church of Ste.-Cécile–since I was looking up, up into the sun, I only managed to sketch one of the two spires. We were only in Montreal for 3 1/2 days and there was so much more to sketch even in this neighbourhood alone. But I had to stop as we didn’t want to miss the Rodin exhibit at the Musée des Beaux Arts.
We took the subway to McGill University and walked along Sherbrooke to the gallery. On our way we were charmed by this delightful sculpture done in 2012 by Cédric Loth. You can barely see it in this photo–look under his leg– but he is so intent on his computer, trademarked with a pear (!) that he doesn’t notice a squirrel eating his bag lunch. We carried on along Sherbrooke and spent the afternoon with Rodin. His massive Thinker makes an interesting counterpoint to Loth’s student.
Today I took a trip to Westmount to one of my favourite art stores, Avenue des Arts. I treated myself to two new brushes, both Holbein. The one of the left is a scroggy and lots of fun for foliage. I tried it out immediately at a café patio just across the street. It had been raining in the morning but the sun came out full blast while I was doing this sketch. The sketch below that one was done while standing across the street, also Rue Victoria, from these quirky charming row house–five in all, I think. I did the ink on site and then finished the painting later. I love the Westmount area with its early 20th century homes with their distinctly quebecois architecture. And everything is so green this summer in central Canada–we are very lucky.
We are in Montreal for a few days. Our son is away cycling and he left us the keys to his apartment. It’s in a great neighbourhood and I hope to sketch some of it tomorrow. But on our first day we headed to the Old Port and I sat on my stool on Rue St. Paul and did a sketch facing each way. I finished the ink on site and then added the paint once I got back to the house. I’m still working on foliage and, of course, perspective. But here they are.
I made three colour therapy pouches today out of some of my favourite remnants. It is very enjoyable putting colours together and remembering where the leather came from. I save every last bit of my favourite pieces. The red is from a leather blazer that I bought in Florence. It is beautiful leather–and the turquoise is the very last piece left from some great bags I made a few years ago. These pouches are all lined in a bright batik and close with coloured zippers. They will be in the shop tomorrow.
