the cassandra pages

A Report on my Summer Sewing Binge - Part 2

   

In this post, I'll talk about the costs of the sewing projects, my satisfaction with the results and a critique of their shortcomings, and what I hope to sew in the future.

Economics

So, at the end of my current sewing spree, I ended up with six new garments -- three tops, one jumpsuit, one pair of pants, and one dress -- and one previously purchased and now altered top.

The total fabric cost was $130.98 (US$). I also spent $31.69 for the patterns used in these projects. I plan to re-use all of those, plus there are 15 patterns in the Japanese sewing book that I haven’t used at all yet. I spent about $20.00 on sewing notions: thread, buttons, fusible interfacing, and a roll of pattern-tracing paper. So the grand total for the sewing project expenses was $182.67.

If bought in stores, similar garments in equivalent fabrics (pure linen or linen-blends) might cost $65 for each of the tops, $150 for the jumpsuit, $50-100 for the pants, and $180 or more for the dress. That total comes to somewhere around $575 - $625, which I never would have spent. 

The orange linen top that I altered (below left) originally cost $49.90 and was unwearable; now it fits properly and I'll wear it a lot.

From the time I was young, sewing my own clothes was the difference between having new, unique, and more plentiful clothes, and making do with older things and buying a few new ones from time to time. This summer, prior to deciding to sew, I considered buying a linen dress ($70 online) and a pair of light-colored linen slacks from Uniqlo ($45) in addition to the skirt and top I ordered from Grae Cove ($54.90  + 49.90). That would have been a total of $219.00 for four pieces, and that would have been it. In the end I spent $182.67 on the sewing projects and 104.80 on the two pieces I ordered, so my total expenditure for eight garments, rather than four, was $287.47.

Quality and Satisfaction

For those of us who like to knit and sew, the time we spend isn't really a factor in the economic equation, because we enjoy doing it and presumably have enough skill or determination to figure we're learning more in the process, that we have the skill and/or patience to persevere until we have a decent result, and therefore our time won't be wasted. Even so, in recent years many former sewers have complained that it isn't worth it to sew for yourself anymore because fabric has gotten so expensive. I beg to disagree. You do have to spend some time online researching fabric sources if you don't live near good stores, but beautiful fabric is available and if you look, you can find it at a good price. For US sewers, sites like FabricDepot are quite an amazing resource. High-end designer fabrics can be found at places like Mood Fabrics, and I've found and purchased many unusual fabrics, including Indian and Asian textiles, from sellers on Etsy.

   

 

I'm happy with the garments I made. The purple linen dress is totally unique, feels great to wear, and not only did I learn a lot making it, it's inspiring me to learn more about Japanese design. I've been living in the white linen-cotton pants (above) - a nice, lighter change from my usual jeans. The tops have all been in regular rotation, and they've held up well when I washed them. The crinkly linen-rayon white top (below) needs a good ironing after washing, so i don't think I will take it when I travel, but the white-and-blue tie-die print will be coming along with me for sure, as will the red floral rayon top (both shown at the top of this post) which can be dressy or casual.

 

Fitting pants is always tricky. If I make another Zadie jumpsuit, which I hope to do, I will probably alter the leg width and crotch seam slightly to decrease the rise and slim the legs a bit -- but wearing the jumpsuit is so totally comfortable as it is -- it feels like pajamas. I also forgot that I am longwaisted when I cut the jumpsuit bodice, and made a note to myself on the pattern to add an inch of length next time around. For the linen pants, I already altered the rise and crotch seam after basting the seams, and would do it even a little more in another iteration; I would also use wider elastic for the back waist and secure it with more rows of horizontal stitching. Using stay tape on the pocket openings made a big difference; I didn't do this on the jumpsuit and don't like how much the pockets gape open. But none of these criticisms of the fit or sewing techniques will keep me from wearing or enjoying the garments.

Future Plans

The gaps in my wardrobe were much bigger for summer clothes than winter ones. However, I'm already thinking ahead. I have a large piece of lightweight grey-striped linen that will become a long blouse, from a pattern in the Japanese sewing book. I also have a great rayon viscose print that will become a dress, but in a simple pattern to show off the print.

If I make another jumpsuit, it will be with sleeves and in a somewhat heavier fabric for colder weather. The most exciting prospect is a vintage Issey Miyake pattern I found on Etsy. I used to own a related pattern of his for a dress, but never made it. This one contains a jacket, shirt, and skirt -- and I like these separates better. I can't wait to make that skirt (see the schematic below), perhaps in a woven Japanese ikat if I can find something suitable, or a lightweight wool.

What About You?

Obviously, I've been sewing a long time. If you haven't, what you see here probably feels daunting, but I want to encourage you. A lot of us learned to sew and did a few projects, only to give up because the fit was wrong, or we lacked the experience to create garments that didn't look handmade (in a embarrassing way!) What I want to say is that you don't have to tackle a complicated project off the bat -- and you shouldn't. But ANYONE can make a simple linen or cotton top, dress, or skirt. If you want to try, my suggestion is to take a course at a local sewing store or community center, or even online, OR find a friend who's willing to help you get started, or re-started. Ask advice on good patterns to begin with, and start with a traditional, purchased paper pattern in an envelope from a company like McCall's, Butterick, Simplicity, or Very Easy Vogue -- they will contain clear instructions, you won't have to add seam allowances or trace anything, and the pattern instructions will help you learn. if you're using a local chain store like JoAnn's or Fabricville, ask for help at the cutting counter to make sure your pattern and fabric are a good match. Buy fabric you really like, but don't begin with something super-expensive, and don't start out with stretchy knits or flimsy or slippery fabrics, no matter how alluring they look in the store. You want dimensionally-stable cloth that isn't going to stretch or slip as you cut it and sew it; learn and hone your skills on that before you move on to more challenging fabrics. Also, ironing is a very important part of sewing, so make sure you have a good iron with adjustable heat settings and steam, and a sturdy ironing board.

I'm a great believer in the satisfaction that comes from making and doing things yourself, and find this an antidote to so much of what feels wrong about our disposable, ever-faster, highly commercial, media-driven culture. It's a great feeling to create something from scratch that is uniquely yours, to use it and enjoy it, and to learn from the project so that you are inspired for the next one. The biggest key to success is to start simply, and find some helpful friends or resource people who can advise you about your choices and your process when you're having difficulties. Nobody is born knowing how to do these things! Just as in cooking, we all have to learn, we all get better at it gradually, and there is always something cool and exciting to aspire to in the future.

 

A Report on my Summer Sewing Binge - Part 1

I've always kept my threads and sewing tools in a tackle box. Don't laugh -- there are precious things in it. For instance, in the top drawer you can see my great-grandmother's silver thimble, and a sealskin thimble brought to me by my niece from Sitka, Alaska, where she did a writer's residency. In the lower drawer are several spools of silk thread that were my mother-in-law's, and a package of hand-sewing needles bought in Mexico City. If I look closely, I think I also see a bell that was on our first cat's collar.

The sewing I've been doing this summer started as an experiment. As in my food choices, I've wanted to become more conscious of where our clothing comes from, who our dollars support or hurt, its environmental impact, and how the industry operates. I am neither a purist nor a crusader: I've bought plenty of clothes at Zara, H&M, Gap, Old Navy, and many other clothing companies that use offshore manufacturing. But like my friend K., who writes the blog Passage des Perles, I do shop at thrift stores, and am becoming more and more unwilling to support the fast-fashion industry, distressed by its reduced fabric quality and construction, and underwhelmed by the styles as well as their positioning to a much younger consumer. I also didn't want to spend $200-$300 on just one or two items at local boutiques run by Quebec designers. For that amount of money, I wondered what I could actually make myself, and whether or not I'd be happy with the result. I've enjoyed sewing clothes my entire life, but haven't done much in the past ten or fifteen years ago, partly because of the decline of local fabric stores selling high-quality fabrics for apparel. (Montreal still has several quilting, upholstery, and costume-fabric stores.) What I've learned over the past month of research and sewing has been enlightening, so I wanted to share it. I'll divide the following list into two parts, spread over two blog posts, and try to make it interesting for the non-sewers as well.

1. Motivation
2. Inspiration
3. Planning
4. Acquiring patterns and materials
5. Construction
6. Economics - total cost, and comparison to ready-made
7. Quality
8. Satisfaction
9. Future Plans

OK! Let's get started!

Motivation

When we moved to this apartment a year ago, I got rid of everything in my closet that I wasn't wearing regularly. If the items were still in good shape, I donated them to local thrift shops,  and the rest I recycled or threw out, except for a few beautiful handknit sweaters that I gave to friends. I had been holding onto garments that were twenty and thirty years old, so this was a real purge, long overdue. The biggest hole it created was for summer clothes: when spring came this year, I realized I didn't have much besides jeans and tee shirts, a few tops, one pair of linen pants, and a few special-occasion dresses and long skirts. 

So, I did some shopping...and I wasn't happy with what I found. Not only did the clothes seem expensive, but even in higher-end fast-fashion stores like Zara and Mango, I was disappointed in the uneven quality of the fabrics, the lack of natural fibers, and the cheap construction. Uniqlo was better, but I wasn't really in the market for basics. I buy my jeans at Old Navy, but most of their other clothes tend to be cheap imports in synthetic fabrics. I was looking for linen, or linen-cotton blends. I also checked thrift and vintage stores, where I've found a number of treasures in the past, but didn't find anything this time around. 

Inspiration

Since I follow a lot of sewing and knitting sites on Instagram, and had been searching online, of course I began to get ads for linen clothing and fabrics. After reading a lot of reviews in early spring, I did order a pure linen asymmetrical skirt and a matching top from a direct-to-consumer fashion company called Grae Cove that sells simply-designed linen dresses, skirts, tops and pants. The headquarters are in California and Hong Kong, the factories are Chinese, and -- for what it's worth -- the company has both a sustainability statement and clearly stated policies about ethical workplace conditions and compensation, though I had no way to really check. (It is true that linen and wool both have lower environmental impact than cotton or synthetics.) Anyway, the items I ordered arrived quickly and were well made, at a good price, in high-quality fabric in a beautiful color. The skirt fit perfectly and I've worn it all summer. But the top, for which I had used their size guide, was way too large and boxy. I didn't want to return it, and figured eventually I'd cut it apart or see if I could alter it to fit. But the main message I got from that order was that I should try making simple clothes like these myself, spending my own time doing something that - for me anyway - is fun and constructive. Since I hadn't sewn in a while, I was a little unsure how it would go, but when I found excellent quality linen online, I got inspired, and took the plunge. I also did a lot of pattern-shopping online among independent designers and small companies that I'm happy to support, as well as acquiring the two Japanese sewing books I mentioned in an earlier post.

Planning and Acquisition

The linen, linen blends, and rayon fabrics I ordered were with specific projects and patterns in mind, and I had a few pieces in my stash as well. I wanted to make one or two dresses, a jumpsuit, a couple of new tops, and at least one pair of pants. First, I studied the pattern specifications carefully, since patterns almost always suggest the most suitable types and weights of fabric, and tried to match my fabric choices with those. Buying fabric online is tricky because you can't feel it, or hold a length in your hand to test the drape, or hold it up to the light to see how opaque or transparent it is -- and all of these things are important. It's even hard to judge the scale of printed or woven designs, which is why online stores often include a ruler in one of the photos of the fabrics they're offering. I'm an experienced sewer, but it still makes me nervous to buy fabric this way: cut lengths of fabric are not returnable! Fortunately, my choices worked out pretty well.

I also live within a five-minute walk from the local Fabricville (a Canadian equivalent for JoAnn Fabrics in the US), where I rarely find fabric I love, but can get every conceivable notion from elastic and interfacing to extra sewing machine bobbins.

There was a learning curve for a Brother sewing machine I was given by K.; I wanted to use it for these projects but only after sewing test swatches and becoming quite familiar with it. There were definitely things to learn, both by reading the manual and by trial and error, so that took a fair amount of time. Sewing has also evolved in recent years: I'm still finding out about the newest fabric markers, next-generation fusible interfacings and seam stabilizers, as well as getting used to printing out .pdf patterns bought online or tracing the ones in the backs of sewing books, adding seam allowances, making alterations, and setting up a system for storing them.

Construction

Then it was time to cut! I'm in a new space, without the big tables of my former studio, but to my surprise it's turned out that this small workroom is the most efficient sewing space I've ever had. The table for the sewing machine and the work table form an L, and across from the machine I have the ironing board, so everything is within a few steps. I did most of the cutting on the floor, which reminded me of being in high school, when Mom and I always cut our patterns on the carpeted dining room floor. The difference is that my body is many decades older, and this was a bit hard on my back and knees after a while -- but I figured it was good for me ;-)

The actual sewing went pretty well. I had self-drafted a top in two hemline variations copied from an existing favorite, originally from H&M. For the rest of the projects, I had chosen pretty simple patterns without fussy tailoring details. The only difficulties were in the somewhat minimal Japanese instructions, which definitely required some prior knowledge of sewing, and figuring out their unfamiliar fitting methods of folding and draping fabric, but I was both intrigued and impressed with the clarity of the pictures and instructions for all of these patterns. For Paper Theory's "Zadie" jumpsuit and "Block Tee" I also found numerous helpful notes online that other sewers had written as they made their garments, along with YouTube instructions that helped with things like making neat bias bindings for the v-necks of my self-drafted tops. The internet is a godsend for do-it-yourselfers, and I was grateful for the help there, which has now replaced the voluminous instructions on the Vogue patterns I grew up with, and my late grandmother's expertise when I would get stuck.

In the next post, I'll assess what I ended up with after this sewing blitz: the quantity and quality of the garments, and whether or not it was worth it to spend my money and time in this way.

 

Sewing a Japanese Dress

Life has felt kind of fragmented lately, between  Montreal and central New York, and it's been hard to sustain the necessary concentration for writing and artwork -- but I've felt like I needed a break anyway. Sewing and cooking have both felt like good things to do. For the past three days, I've been working on a new project from the "Nani Iro Sewing Studio" book. Nani Iro is a Japanese clothing and textile designer, and in this book she presents 18 patterns for tops, dresses, pants and coats. All have simple shapes, but in some cases the construction is both clever and tricky. That was the case with the first project I chose, the "Elbow Sleeve Pocket Dress" shown here. I got completely fascinated with it from the minute I unfolded the pattern sheets from their envelope in the back of the book.

There are just five pieces: the dress front and back, the sleeve extensions, and the back and front neck facings. Simple, right? Well, not exactly, because the shape of the dress is made by making precisely-placed folds, which are partially or fully sttiched, and end up forming two pockets in the front, softly extended shoulders, and two folds in the back of the garment which attach with buttons to draw in the sides at the waist. It's so clever, simple, and timelessly elegant -- I also love that there are no zippers, no set-in sleeves, and that almost every step could be done on the machine, without additional fussy hand-sewing. 

The hemline is asymmetrical, with the front shorter than the back. I had bought 2 yards of this purple linen with a tiny woven stripe, but the pattern (which I got after I ordered the fabric...) called for 2.5 yards. It occured to me while laying out the pattern that by folding the cloth differently, I could use the leftover width along the selvage edge to make a horizontal band to add to the hem. This resulted in the called-for length and also added some visual interest -- and I'm really happy with how that came out.

I've been toying for years with the idea of making clothes from these Japanese dress books, but I never took the plunge. I think that a novice sewer would have trouble following the directions, but if you have some dressmaking experience, you can definitely do it. You just have to study the diagrams and instructions carefully BEFORE cutting and before sewing anything, because they are quite different from the traditional patterns most of us are used to in the west.

I was also helped by the fact that my friend K. gave me a machine she wasn't using a little while ago, and during the last trip to the U.S. I bought a foot pedal for it. My old Singer is a great machine, heavier-duty than this one,  with a much longer throat so I can use it for quilting and heavy fabrics. But this newer machine has several features that helped a lot. One was a very good overcasting foot that allowed me to overcast all the edges of this easily-fraying linen, without needing a serger (which I don't have.) Another was the excellent buttonhole attachment. The machine fed the fabric very well and the tension was perfect -- I just needed to get used to using it.

The linen, from The Linen Lab in South Korea, was a joy to work with; sometimes I wonder why I sew anything else (I guess it's because we have winter here.) I'm happy thinking of the other pieces I bought that are waiting to be turned into garments, and looking forward to wearing this new dress, which will be perfect for the hot humid summer weather we're still waiting for here in Montreal.

A page from the instructions.

 

The front folds are stitched to form pockets and bring in the waistline.

Closeup of the hem.

The back folds in, and closes with buttons, or can be left loose.

 

 

Can We Reprogram our Brains?

Yesterday I read an article in The New York Times titled "What Killed Penmanship?" The teaching of cursive handwriting has fallen out of favor in schools, and been dropped from many state curricula. The reasons cited are obvious: we are living in the digital age; we spend so much time on our smartphones, tablets, and computers, that hardly anyone needs to be able to write by hand anymore, and certainly not "beautifully". Today, the most handwriting that many people do is to scrawl a note to themselves, or write a grocery list (though even I use my phone for that!) - so it's hard to justify forcing kids to learn to write well by hand, practicing all those loops and consistent slants. However, the article went on to talk about a site on Reddit called "Penmanship Porn" where people post and look at examples of beautiful handwriting, and also about remedial courses some people are taking, as adults, to try to improve their penmanship, or even learn how to write in a way that might make a splash on that Reddit site.

This is all quite interesting to me, as a former calligrapher, and granddaughter of a teacher of the Palmer Method who instilled that exemplar of cursive into me at a young age. I still have some of the Palmer Method pens she used - the kind with a nib you inserted and then dipped into an inkwell. Imagine that. My own handwriting, however, has deteriorated a lot over the past thirty years: proportionately, no doubt, with the marked improvement in my typing.

I'm not as concerned about whether or not kids learn cursive handwriting in schools from a motor-skills viewpoint -- after all, no one can argue that there's not major dexterity involved in typing on a phone with both thumbs at high speed, and most young people seem amazingly good at that. The brain's ability to form ideas and thoughts and transform them into words is probably not hugely different when the end result is written with a pen than when it's typed - although, let's admit it -- there's a big difference between texting and writing a long, thoughtful letter to a friend. 

But because the development of writing, as symbols made by hand, was such a critical part of human development itself, I do suspect that some sort of evolutionary neural pathway is no longer being used when we do not use our hands in this way. Maybe another question to ask is, "What Else Died when We Killed Off Penmanship?" I'm being somewhat facetious: plenty of people, like my left-handed husband, never learned cursive handwriting, and that fact didn't interfere with either his dexterity or creativity. It's not cursive that's at issue: it's what happens when we write words and thoughts down by hand. It's a slower process, related to drawing, that requires us to think carefully -- there's no delete button -- and use fine-motor coordination, as our brains navigate a complex communication pathway between mind, eye, and hand -- and from there to the intended recipient of whatever we wanted to record or communicate.

What specialized and complex tasks DO we actually use that mind-eye-hand pathway for, anymore? We brush our teeth and dress ourselves, we might prepare some food; some of us play sports; we certainly type. But fewer and fewer people play instruments, learn to draw, learn to write beautifully, know how to do needlework or woodworking, make a really good meal from scratch without taking all night, throw a clay pot, know how to fix their own cars or a leaking faucet -- the list goes on. Cars are a good example -- even if someone might want to learn how to service their own car, most vehicles have become so complex, with computer-controlled systems, that it's not even possible. In this sort of world, where the knowledge, desire, and need to do such things are disappearing, I wonder if the human being isn't becoming something quite different from what we were in all the preceding centuries. How are our brains changing in the process?

When I searched for information on this topic, it's predictably voluminous, but also rather vague. Scientists acknowledge that technology has contributed to weaker memories, attention spans, and information-processing ability. On the other hand, so many tasks that we once had to do in our heads, slowly and carefully, have become rapid and automatic -- and who doesn't prefer that? Going back to the old ways has become inconceivable.

But in terms of the loss of specific practices like handwriting or drawing, there is less written. What science does know is that our brains adapt and change in response to external stimuli but also what we tell them to do: we actually have some control over this. Repeated behavior reinforces certain neural pathways, and causes disused ones to atrophy -- though in many cases this can be reversed. Being repeatedly exposed to disturbing media that upsets us, for instance, can cause our brains to form pathways that automatically end up stimulating negative thoughts, worry, and stress.  When we are under stress, certain hormones are also released that affect our bodies. One of the best ways to interrupt this destructive process is to reprogram our brains through making time for creative activities that help us to focus and concentrate in different ways.  When we draw, write by hand, doodle, play an instrument, knit or sew, whittle a piece of wood, make a paper collage or scrapbook -- as when we meditate, or do yoga -- we are giving our brains a break and stimulating them to strengthen positive pathways, relax our bodies, and decrease stress. But those activities need to become a regular practice in order to have a real effect.

While these kinds of activities have declined since their last resurgence in the 60s and early 70s, it does seem to me that there is a counter-reaction now, and that more and more people want to step away for a while, slow down, and learn to do something contemplative -- and perhaps also useful or beautiful -- with their hands and bodies, perhaps driven to it by wanting something, anything, that will help with the anxiety of living in our chaotic world and the constant barrage of upsetting news. Last week I went to an evening meeting of a new knitting club at the local library -- and it was eye-opening. More about that in a subsequent post!

Hermit Diary 49. Star

Christmas in my house would hardly be Christmas without a paper project or some sort of ornament-making, and this bizarre year is no exception. A while back, I became fascinated by mathematical origami models which are constructed using identical folded units that then are assembled into a shape, and over the years I've made a number of stellated octahedrons using Japanese papers in various combination of prints and solids.

This year, though, seemed like a good time to tackle the Bascetta Star, a model created by an Italian mathematician, Paolo Bascetta. The repetitive folding and concentration of origami are calming and meditative for me, and the process of making this star was a perfect antidote to the news.

Although each star requires 30 modular units, compared to the octahedron's 12, the folding goes fast once you understand how to do it and memorize the steps. And the assembly was actually easier than the octahedron, and way easier than the finished product would indicate. If you want to try, it's fun, and you'll end up with a pretty spectacular object that could even be hung with a small bulb inside. I made two -- this larger white and blue one, from 6 3/4" square sheets in different shades of blue and green with white on the reverse side, and a smaller red and gold star ornament from double-sided 3" squares.

 

This is the basic unit, folded from one square of paper. You can download a .pdf with instructions from Paolo Bascetta's website, and see other 2- and 3-dimensional origami pieces he's designed.

Three units joined together to make one "point". At first I thought you needed to make a bunch of three-unit modules, but that's wrong; in the final assembly, you make only one of these, then add one unit at a time in the same way, and in a particular order, until you've added all thirty. There are a number of videos out there, but I found this one on YouTube the best; it explains the assembly process very clearly, including how to hold the growing star and count the points so that you don't get confused!

Let me know if you try it -- I'd love to see what you make.

A June Watercolor Sketchbook

Studio still life with a painting of Thingvellir by Kjarval. A recent fairly loose watercolor; I want to do more painting like this.

About a month ago, I read about an online watercolor challenge happening in the month of June. The idea is to paint 30 "direct" watercolors in 30 days -- that means painting without preliminary ink drawing, just plunging in and painting or drawing rapidly with your brush. his is the second year for this challenge, the brainchild of Marc Taro Holmes, a well-known "urban sketcher" who used to work in the video game industry, and now happens to live in Montreal, and Liz Steel, an urban-sketcher and watercolor teacher  known for her watercolors of architecture. The point of the month-long challenge is to encourage lots of painting practice and less thinking and worrying about picky details or great results; like life drawing, this is to get people loosened up and moving from one painting to the next without judging themselves. I'm totally in support of that, because what I see in so many people who tell me they'd love to paint is fear of beginning, and then a whole lot of self-criticism which boils down to "I'm no good at this." There's no way someone isn't going to learn and improve if they paint 30 sheets of paper in a month, while just one a week, or one a month, leaves a lot of room for those self-defeating thoughts.

I kept thinking about the challenge, and finally decided I wanted to participate. The experience of doing my Lisbon sketchbook has taught me a lot. I've still got two pages left to go in that book, but by eliminating the ink lines about halfway through I've ended up with sketches I liked much more. And I really liked the fact that it's a complete book.

As for the "rules" of this challenge, I'm probably going to bend them. I'm in a different position from a beginning painter; learning to draw with a brush isn't my personal challenge; it's to pursue the work on a daily basis, sometimes painting very freely, at other times with more detail. At this point what I'm interested in doing is painting better (and more) watercolors, toward a particular style. Sometimes that means I need a quick preliminary pencil under-drawing -- so while I may sometimes go directly to watercolor, I'm not going to force myself to eliminate pencil drawing on every page. However, speed is going to dictate a certain amount of looseness, and that's always good for me.

Because I wasn't satisfied with the paper in my Moleskine watercolor sketchbook, I decided to make myself a new sketchbook for June. I used a single sheet of 22" x 30" Arches cold-pressed paper given to me recently by a friend. It's the lightest watercolor weight, 90 pounds, but still substantial. I cut it into smaller sheets that were 10" x 7 1/4", which folded down into 5" x 7 1/4" pages. The one sheet of Arches yielded three signatures of 12 pages each, for a book of 36 single pages, or 18 spreads. I made a traditional sewn binding on linen tapes, with cover boards made of acid-free matboard, covered with Italian marbled paper from my paper stash, added black Canson endpapers, and a spine covered with black leather. 

I wasn't sure how it would work, because I'd never made a book with such heavy paper. The only technical problem was that I didn't sew the signatures quite tightly enough, so even after gluing there is a small gap between them when you open the book to those pages.  But otherwise, it came out well.

The big challenge, I knew, would be to actually USE it. My own inner voice was already saying, "You're going to ruin that beautiful little book!" But I told myself I could make others, and on June 1, the same day I finished the binding, I painted the opening page. 

My goal isn't to do 30 watercolors, necessarily, since I don't have a 60-page book; what I hope to do is to completely fill this sketchbook with sketches and paintings from the area around my studio, which is near the Canadian Pacific railroad tracks. (We'll see what happens -- already it's June 3 and I've only done one painting!) I was shocked when I first put my brush on the Arches paper -- even though I've used hundreds of sheets of it in the past, I had become so used to using the Moleskine paper that the extra "tooth" and receptive surface felt like a wall of resistance, when really the high-quality paper was just begging for more water and paint. I'm not sure what will happen to the book itself when I get this paper really wet -- unlike a block of watercolor paper, the pages will ripple and buckle. But as a teacher once said, "Sometimes you just have to fight with it." At the end of June, I hope I'll have an interesting book full of paintings, and that I will have learned some more things. And you know what? If it's the end of July, that's OK too.

 

Lisbon Travel Journal: A Process and a Search

The Logistics

I went off to Portugal with a new, blank, pocket-size watercolor sketchbook, and the intention of doing as much sketching as I could -- more, I hoped, than I had ever done on a trip. That's what happened -- but, as usual, things got complicated. We planned an itinerary each day, and were on the go most of the time. J. and I walked a lot and for the most part we were always together. This is my choice, even though it conflicts with drawing. Lisbon is beautiful, with many exciting and challenging views, plazas and monuments, and complex perspectives. Still, I found that I didn't want to take too many precious hours out of the day to sit and draw. And when I'm traveling with someone else, it's not fair to ask them to be patient for an hour or more while I sit bent over a sketchbook. My partner -- a photographer -- is really very understanding about this, but we both try not to impose on each other's good nature too much. I sketched before or after some meals in restaurants or cafes, and occasionally at a church or a miradouro -- one of the many "lookouts" scattered at high points around the city. I also did some still life and interior drawings in our apartment in the larger sketchbook I'd brought. Sometimes I did a quick sketch in pen-and-ink on location, and added watercolor in the evening after we were home for the night. But all of this still barely scratched the surface of what could have been recorded in my sketchbook.

After we returned home to Montreal, three weeks ago,  I plunged into choir duties for Holy Week and Easter, plus we had a big professional design job to finish up by the end of the month. The sketchbook kept calling to me, though, and when my friend Valeria Brancaforte, a printmaker and painter in Barcelona, suggested that I just use my photographs and my memory to fill out the pages, it was the encouragement I needed. I've tried to do one new drawing every day or two.

The Project

What started as a fairly amorphous idea -- a bunch of random sketches and impressions of a particular place -- became even less clear to me during this trip. 

Whenever I've traveled as an adult, throughout the past forty years, I've generally kept some sort of journal. Originally, before computers and long before phones, these journals were mostly words in a small notebook, maybe with a sketch or two. I took pictures with film cameras, and made albums of prints when I got home. Later, this same journalistic process evolved into blog posts. After we moved to Montreal and established a much more functional studio space, my blog -- which had been mostly words and photographs -- became more of an art blog, and I started drawing nearly every day. When I traveled, I still took along notebooks or sketchbooks, but the words went into my computer. Although I was drawing while away, I never tried to make a sketchbook that stood on its own. The sketches, along with words, ended up on my blog.

View of the Targus River and Castelo de Sao Jorge

During these same years, in the craft world, scrapbooking became a thing, while artists took it one step farther, making personal journals that combined elements of scrapbooks, sketching, and handwritten journaling, and teaching others to do it. Online, we saw the rise of the wildly popular urban sketching movement, with talented artists holding international seminars on techniques for drawing architecture, urban landscapes, and people. Local groups of avid sketchers have sprung up in many cities. These travel and urban journals are personal too, often combining words and paper ephemera along with pen-and-ink or watercolor sketches. People share their work not only in local groups but on personal and group blogs, and social media.

Natas (Portuguese custard tarts) in pen-and-ink and watercolor, with stickers and packaging from Pasteis de Belém.

All of this is fantastic, I think -- it's brought new methods of creative self-expression, as well as community, to a great many people. I've certainly been influenced by some of these trends, and they've found expression on my blog, but until I decided to make one cohesive paper journal of this trip, I hadn't thought it through. What exactly was I trying to do? What was this thing I was making?

The Targus River from the Alfama (the old Moorish quarter)

The drawings in my large sketchbook were not confusing: they were black-and-white line drawings done in my familiar style. I had made a somewhat subconscious decision to do the small pocket sketchbook pages entirely in color. But in what style? Good question! The answer that emerged was that I didn't have one -- at least, no style I was completely happy with. Most of the first pages were done with pen-and-ink, followed by watercolor washes. Sometimes the line felt too heavy for the small pages, giving a cartoon-like feeling. At other times, when I managed to stay looser, the result was more pleasing to me. I thought I'd try working in direct watercolor, over a lightly sketched pencil drawing. I did the two landscape sketches (above) over the rooftops looking toward the Lisbon harbor, as a comparison. Both were nice: they're just very different in feeling and even in purpose. 

When drawing tiles or ceramics, using line work made a lot of sense, and seemed effective. For sculpture or landscape, I wasn't so sure. I kept going back and forth between the two.

Madonna and Child at Igresa de São Domingos

Halfway through the trip I decided that this was the real purpose of the project: to explore and search out a style that I liked, or perhaps to refine two different styles for different purposes.

I did two full-spread seascapes using watercolor alone, and began to feel a little more satisfied. Both were too contrasty, and I struggled with the Moleskine paper, which is really not very high quality, but they had more feeling, depth, and emotion than ones that began with a pen line. Was it ridiculous, I wondered, to spend so much time on an 11" x 3.5" sketch, when I could have worked much larger on excellent paper, and gotten a much better result? 

Calçada do Combro, with tram lines overhead.

Then there was the problem of perspective. For years I avoided drawing buildings, even though I've studied perspective and know the basic rules -- I thought it bored me, but really I lacked the necessary patience. Doing complicated urban drawings of buildings and rooftops, which I'd first tried last year in Mexico City, gave me more confidence. In Lisbon, with its hills and endless angles, I tried to pay more attention, and take the time to get the drawing approximately right, but I was also learning how much to leave in and what to leave out to create an evocative impression and satisfying sketch rather than an architectural rendering.

In spite of all my second-guesses and self-criticism, the sketchbook itself was beginning to fill out, the pages adding up to a record and impression of what I had seen. I didn't have this from any other trip we had taken. So I kept going, determined to finish a standalone, completed book, rather than abandoning it mid-stream. Some pages would just work better than others; that was fine with me. It could contain a variety of styles. In the end, it would be a record of my own search and struggle, as much as it was a record of a place.

Dinner at the apartment: salad, fruit, and vinho verde.

A modern travel sketchbook can be so many things -- there are no rules. The most satisfying ones, to me, have a developed, personal style, but their "tone" varies just as much as we artists vary in personality; that's part of what makes them so cool and interesting. Some are detailed and architecturally accurate, some much looser; some are whimsical and playful. Some focus on food, or buildings, or people; some use more or less color or pen line; some incorporate a lot of ephemera. In the end, it's all up to the maker.

 

John Singer Sargent, Ceiling of Palatine Chapel, Palermo, Sicily, watercolor, 1897

But what did I most want to do? A few days ago, I spent some time in the library looking at some John Singer Sargent watercolors I hadn't seen before, including his travel sketches from Sicily. Back in 1897, he had sketched altar retablos, wall mosaics and pavements that I too had admired and photographed 120 years later. I felt a flash of connection and recognition, as well as gratitude, as I pored over his masterpieces. Each sketch, no matter how loose or unfinished, was worthy of framing. They confirmed my gut-level instinct: I was most interested in trying to follow in the footsteps of artists like Sargent -- whether that took the form of a book of paintings and drawings, perhaps to use later with words, or loose sheets intended as standalone paintings, or sketches that could form the basis for later paintings.

This, on balance, is the most important thing the process has showed me: that at least part of the time, I want to aim high and do something more serious, partly because I feel the press of years: I don't have unlimited time.

Like anything worth doing, drawing and painting require discipline and practice, and also passion. I really love to draw, and always have. Developing a lively pen-and-ink style, with or without color, has been a priority for me, and it's fun. Likewise, direct watercolor is a medium I love, even though it's technically difficult, and very easy to ruin. Better paper is a requirement. In the future, maybe I'll end up binding sketchbooks for myself to use, with the paper I like best -- I can guarantee that the traveling artists of the 1800s and early 1900s were not using cheap sketchbooks. I need to take my own advice, and use the best materials I can afford.

I was happy with the first direct watercolor I did after revisiting Sargent's. It took twenty pages to get to this point; I've got another ten to fill. 

 

 

 

Fitting It In

The Tower of the Winds, Athens, the Roman Agora. Watercolor and fountain pen, 9" x 4".

We've been super-busy lately, with a large professional design job that came to us unexpectedly, an upcoming book for Phoenicia, taxes, and various other personal and volunteer responsibilities. I've also had some more dental surgery, oh joy. I've felt like I haven't had any sustained time to do artwork, but in spite of that, I've managed to fit in a few drawings or other projects. It's important to my sanity to keep a creative practice going, so I'm glad to see the evidence when I look back through my photos from the past couple of weeks.

The drawing above was a test of a landscape-format Arches watercolor block, done one evening from photographs I took in Athens. We're going to be taking another trip soon, and I've been trying to get my art supplies together. I still don't have the ideal travel sketchbook; my hardcover Stillman&Birns is just too heavy to carry around in a purse all day, and the smaller sketchbook is a bit too small for serious sketching. So that's a dilemma to solve in the future.

Paints are easier. Here's a sketchbook sketch of my current palette, with some ideas for changes. In the end, I couldn't buy a small tube of perylene maroon locally, but was happy with the mixtures I was able to achieve from my basic palette of colors. All I'm doing is swapping out the Cadmium red for Quinacridone Burnt Orange -- a very beautiful intense burnt sienna that is full of light on its own but different from Quinacridone Gold, and forms lovely darks when mixed with deep blues. (Thanks to Liz Steel, who's always tinkering with her watercolor palette on her thoughtful and well-annotated urban sketching blog, and Jane Blundell, an online expert in watercolor pigments and mixing.)

And there have been a few drawings. Here's one of my father-in-law's small Nefertiti-head with the houseplants we're coaxing through the winter, and a still-life of two pears wrapped in paper and the orchid pot that seems to keep reappearing in many of my drawings this winter, because of it's pride-of-place on the table where we eat.

But the most fun I've had making things lately happened on the day before Ash Wednesday, called variously "Shrove Tuesday", "Fat Tuesday" or "Mardi Gras", when the cathedral traditionally holds a pancake and sausage supper. I don't think many Anglicans fast during Lent, so this won't be the last time they see fat or meat for a while, but it's a nice tradition to observe anyway. This year, the dean suggested that we wear masks to make it more fun. I spent an afternoon making these two for J. and me to wear, and they came out in a sort of Viennese style, with the gold beaks. I've never been big on dressing-up, but this event was a lot of fun and I loved making these masks!

I hope that you can see signs of spring wherever you live (unless you're in the southern hemisphere) and are able to do whatever keeps your spirits up!

Drawing Basics 2: Fear of Failure, and How Not To Succumb

Let's get some of the clichés out of the way, up front. Do any of these sound familiar?

"Oh, I can't draw a straight line!"

"I'm not a REAL artist..."

"I used to love to draw as a kid, but my teachers told me I didn't have any talent."

"I don't think I have the patience for it anymore."

"I don't have enough time in my day."

"Oh, I'll never be able to draw like  ______."

"I'm afraid my kids/husband/friends would make fun of me."

"I've tried to do it, I've even taken classes, but I get so discouraged."

"I was told I was pretty good once, but then my life got so busy...and now it seems like it's too late."

OK, that's just a sample of the phrases I've heard from wistful would-be or former artists over the years. Maybe it surprises you, but I've said some of the same things to myself. Whenever we consider starting something new and challenging, we're listening first to a positive inner prompting that ranges from a subtle whisper to an insistent, persistent longing. That voice in our head is important, and we need to pay attention. When we're children, we just plunge in and try things, but as older people, that inner voice of longing and desire and attraction is followed immediately by doubts, and arguments aimed at convincing ourselves why failure is likely. That second voice is good at what it does: it's had a lot of practice! We truly are our own worst enemy.

Try to go back to the source of the love and the longing. Where does that prompting come from? Can you remember? Did you like to draw and paint as a child? Do you love looking at art and would like to try to make some? Did you once draw and paint and then gave it up? Why? What happened? Now, when you think about taking up drawing or painting, what is the inner dialogue that follows? Are there discouraging memories that surface, or fears about what might happen if you did try?

Here are seven reasons why I think people give up almost before they've begun. (And of course these apply to many pursuits, not just drawing.) 

1. Comparing ourselves to others. 
2. Expecting good results too quickly
3. Difficulty enjoying a solitary process while beginning
4. Difficulty establishing a regular practice
5. Negative conditioning from childhood or later
6. Embarrassment, fear of ridicule
7. Setting unrealistic goals

Now, let's take those apart.

1. Comparing. We all compare ourselves to others, no matter how good we are or how long we've been at it! It's human. But it's also self-defeating. The bottom line is that comparing yourself to yourself is the only helpful comparison, and practice makes you better. You will never improve if you don't do it at all, so there's only one solution: getting started!

2. Lack of Patience. It takes time to develop any skill, and you will need some patience. There's no magic formula, but what I would suggest is to fall in love with the process and the materials. Really enjoy the feeling of the pen or pencil on the paper, or the colors of your paints. Buy some good materials and use them. Enjoying the process of seeing and creating and making is what saves all of us, because we all get discouraged. If you focus too much on the finished product instead of the creative process, you're making it a lot harder for yourself. Yes, look at a lot of art, see what you like and think about why, get inspired, ask professionals for advice. But just keep your eye on the ball, which at the beginning is a regular practice of drawing, ideally every day.

3.Getting through the early stages. OK, you say, that's hard when I feel so clumsy and inept. Right. You might take a class, watch videos, join a sketching group or team up with a partner. Find the parts of the process that are easy to like, like going to a park or botanical garden, or a favorite cafe. Or you can embrace the solitude and the meditative time spent with yourself. Enjoy the realization that you're opening your eyes to seeing things differently, seeing things as an artist! Focus on the seeing, and draw a lot without being too hard on yourself. Draw something simple every day -- don't start with people, or your dog or cat, draw everyday objects with simple shapes, even if it's just your teacup or a piece of fruit! Make it a practice. Over time, you will be surprised, because practice in seeing always pays off, in more ways than just in art.

4. Establishing a Practice. We all accept that playing an instrument requires practice, but I think a lot of people think art is a matter of talent we're born with and arrives sort of fully-formed. In fact, drawing is a discipline; you're training both your eyes and your hands. Even if you get pretty good at it, if you stop for a while you get rusty. So practice is necessary. The trick (as with all forms of exercise) is to make it regular and fun, and then you'll keep at it. We're all different so I can't tell you what will work for you. My most basic advice is to get a sketchbook you like and always have it with you, or else set aside a time when, most days, you're going to spend fifteen minutes or half an hour drawing. Make it something enjoyable, precious and personal, whether that means having a cup of tea or coffee while you draw, or going someplace you especially like -- just carve out that time until drawing becomes a habit and something you look forward to. And as you can see here, it's OK to draw the same things over and over again!

5. Negative conditioning is the hardest thing to overcome. I'm so angry with the adults who discourage people -- from anything -- especially when we're mere children. It is so often more about the adult than the child, but it can scar us for life. Try to listen, instead, to the longing and the love you feel for art and for self-expression. That's the true and original thing, and no one can take it away from you, because it is human and universal. Every time you hear the discouraging, negative voice in your head, try to remember a place or a time when you felt inspired, and hold onto that rather than the negativity. Every one of us not only has a right to be creative, but it is our birthright as human beings. Our individual path is for us to discover, and choose. Overcoming negativity is difficult but possible, and getting on the path is the first step; in fact it's already a victory. (A personal note: I gave up art for five years in my thirties because I was so discouraged by interactions with a teacher whose words and method I didn't understand. I know the effect this kind of negativity can have and how hard it is to recover one's own path.)

6. Ridicule. We are all afraid of making a fool of ourselves! My answer to that is: I'm doing it, I've had the courage to take the risk and try something new, so I'm not going to let people taking potshots from the sidelines faze me. That's their own insecurity talking, or else simple meanness and bullying, and I'm not going to pay attention. If people close to you can't be supportive and understanding, tell them politely but firmly to leave you alone. If the person giving you a hard time is yourself...learn to gently tell that side of yourself to go take a walk, and return to your practice.

7. Unrealistic goals. Watch what you're projecting for yourself; listen to your inner dialogue. If you go into this imagining your work up on the walls of a gallery, with a crowd of admiring people telling you you're wonderful, you've set up a pretty high hurdle. We're fortunate that today we can share work online with friends, and to pursue the things we like to do with far-flung, link-minded people. I think it's a whole lot healthier than expecting to publish best-sellers or have a Carnegie Hall debut, and have gallery shows and sell our work for millions of dollars; very very few people ever achieve that, and frankly it doesn't necessarily mean the work is great. If you keep at it, you will find ways to share your work that are satisfying and rewarding, and you may even sell some -- but go back to point #2: keep your focus on the process and the pleasure of learning and making gradual progress in seeing and creating, which can continue throughout our whole lives.

What do you think? Have I missed anything important in this list?

Next: seven reasons why drawing is absolutely worthwhile.

A studio still life, and some talk about buying paints and pastels

I was in the local art store the other day, buying pastel paper, and ended up also buying three oil pastel sticks - a dark blue-green, gold, and purple. It isn't a medium I've used much since I wore out my childhood set of Cray-Pas a very long time ago, but I've been seeing oil pastel work I liked and thought it would be a good experiment. This is the first attempt -- a fast, ten-minute drawing -- and I quite like the refusal of the thick stick to become pointed and fussy; the intense, rich color; the possibilities for thick dark application and for blending.

The same basic set of objects, drawn in pen-and-ink sometimes last year.

In art supplies as in most things we buy, there's a big difference in price and in quality between different brands. Usually the more expensive brands are worth the price, and that seems to be true in this case. The main stick I've used for the drawing here is Sennelier ($4-$5.50/stick, depending on vendor), while the gold is Van Gogh ($1.75-$2.50). The Sennelier is creamy, non granular, and luscious to draw with. The Van Gogh, much drier and more granular, is about the same as the Cray-Pas of my youth: I'd call them student grade. Other types -- and other colors -- may be stickier, or crumblier. A full set of Sennelier oil pastels lists at $539; I've seen discounted prices of $243 - but I'm not interested in a full set at this point, but in acquiring particular colors. I'll be buying more, slowly. They also come in very large sticks, at a commensurately larger price, but those are too big in diameter for what I want to do.

Beginning artists sometimes ask me whether to buy a set of colors of paint or pastels or other media - or to buy open stock. I usually suggest that they buy a set, but of the best quality they can afford. I think we all love sets of colors - there's something about opening a metal lid, or a lovely box, and seeing a whole range of colors nestled inside - maybe it reminds us of those big boxes of Crayola crayons. As a kid, I used to spend hours rearranging my crayons in different ways, which probably foretold more about my future than any Tarot deck. Six colors often isn't enough for someone without experience in color mixing, but a set of twelve colors is usually plenty for someone to get the feel of a medium and decide if they like it, without spending a fortune - because good art supplies are really quite expensive.

Inferior colors, while they may look brilliant and beautiful in the tube or box, are harder to handle and give unpredictable or low-quality results that can easily discourage even the most enthusiastic artist, who may blame herself but shouldn't. The choice isn't all black and white, though. In nearly all media, there's a middle range that is affordable, but not prohibitive. Art stores that cater to university classes are a good place to look, and there are many reviews of art supplies online. In this field, you really do tend to get what you pay for: the top-of-the-line brands are the best, using the finest-ground, best-quality, long-lasting pigments and the best binders and mediums, and sold by companies with long histories of research in the field. The beginner doesn't need to go right to this rarefied top level, but he does need to stay away from the bottom. (Drop me a line if you have a question, I'm always glad to try to help.)

This is my 90-color "landscape" set of Rembrandt dry pastels: I have two drawers full of different pastels, some inherited some bought in sets, some bought individually.

There are several problems with sets for the more advanced or professional artist. One is the need for a  greater range of colors, or a different range, from what is provided by the manufacturer in their sets, which may be general assortments, or color ranges specifically selected for landscape, portraits, or still life. Or we may find that we use up certain colors much more quickly than others, and need larger tubes or more sticks. Sometimes I start with a set that matches most closely what I think I'll use, and then augment it. In the case of pastels, that means buying new boxes for storing the ones I buy individually.

And storage of art supplies, in general, is a whole other issue, which I'll talk about sometime soon in another post.

I'm curious to hear from non-professional artists who've bought art supplies -- has it been a good experience? Confusing? Frustrating? Do you feel like you got your money's worth?