Dreamscapes

Creative day 6 already:)

Today, after a good nights sleep, I felt much more up to tackling yesterday's rainbow challenge - as this mini knit is now being called!  As a bonus, the sun came out adding the feel good factor so I indulged in sitting in the garden knitting and writing my own version of the pattern. As this pretty much took most of the afternoon and is a pretty boring process to photograph, I thought I'd show you an afternoon's colour sketching I've been working on instead and save the rainbow bag for later on this week. Sound ok to you?  Cool :)

The idea behind this sketch was freeform drawing to music. I wanted to loosen up and not be so precious and considered in my way of working and see what happened. So no structure of composition beforehand, no choice of colours even, just whatever the music evoked in me. In fact, I even decided just to see what music was on the radio and pick something that took my mood.

I happened upon a Russian ballet, a nice long piece, I think it was Stravinsky. I love how these pieces visually tell a story - they flow and swirl, and move you along in their wake. I started drawing organic, soft, swirly shapes, soft colour fields in pastel, building up a tenuous dreamscape with suggestions of dancing figures, flowing with the melody. As the mood changed so did the colours, as a theme became more prominant, I accented it's presence. I smudged and reworked, I tried to capture the layers of story and emotion. And then it was over. Too quickly!!

And I stood back and looked. For me, it captured the feeling the music evoked in me and a transient, ethereal quality of figures not quite visible, partially emerging, then quietly disappearing back into the nebulous background. As a whole compositionally it doesn't work but I like the essence of it overall. It's the capturing of feelings, emotions, the less tangible elements that are such a big part of us. How to honestly express that?

It also inspires me to think how I could take this further. It makes me think of space nebulas, inner dreamscapes, fantasy illustration with printing, stitch and mixed media embellishments. Dreamlike vistas with layered felt as a base - or painted and hand dyed fabrics with applied layers of pattern and decoration. So many ideas just from a little sketch.

This small section makes me think of drawing with felt, seems the next logical step into textiles don't you think? It's been a while though so I'll have to brush up my felting skills and hunt out that fleece:) Hmm, what if I just drew with fleece to music? Added threads, fabrics, sequins, netting, layers of colour. Then went mad with the stitch and embellishment after? Ooh, a rich vein maybe!

Let's see where this goes. I think I might give this project some space to grow into itself over this month and post as I go. It might be nice to dye some fleece or fabrics to work with too. Maybe hand paint some yarns as well so I can knit some new organic vessels inspired by the music. I can see 'the firebird' colourway now, hehe. Time to hunt out some more inspiring music I think :)

Thanks for the company and see you all tomorrow!  elaine x