A little doodling and a little carving

I have found that I have got a little frustrated at my textile workshops which I attend at college. Whilst its good catching up with some of my fellow past-C&G buddies, I have not felt sufficiently inspired or inspired by my efforts. I think this is part down to the fact that I am not comfortable with playing and because I haven't done much in the way of working with a sketchbook. So, in one respect I think I need to play but in another I need to be a little more disciplined about doing so. A bit of a paradox.

I started very simply at the beginning of the year with cutting some of my papers up as cup sleeves and then using them to create a mini collage mural on my cubicle divider (which will be posted soon). It didn't require much effort and one bonus is that I got a nice freshly brewed coffee or tea out of it (plus I realise I have probably saved myself approximately £14 this month, by not buying my usual from the work cafeteria). Of course my supply of papers is not going to last forever and so my next step to up my creative play can add to creating more paper designs.

My friend C, who can be found over at Cheshire Cheese has been setting herself all kinds of creative challenges and coming up with some wonderful images (and even following that up with ideas for stitch - hmmm maybe March). This month she is following an exercise from a mutually owned book: Finding Your Own Visual Language by Claire Benn, Jane Dunnewold and Leslie Morgan (Claire and Leslie are collectively know as Committed to Cloth). I have just noticed the ridiculous price for that book on Amazon - you can get it from their website at a more sensible price. Anyway, the exercise is to create and carve a stamp a day for 30 days. Well, as it is February then it will be 28.

I started this exercise by going back and having a look at some fabric which I purchased in Paris before Christmas:

Then I got out my neglected sketchbook and did some doodling:

Then I got out one of my bargain erasers (25p for 2, Tescos), my carving handle and blades and came up with this:

Then I tried a few variations in my sketchbook:

I am sure if I was more practised I could say something intelligent about my prints - no good ideas for follow on leap out at me. But this is the beginning of the month (although very late in the day), my hands are inky and I should be getting some shut eye. I encourage you to go and look at what C has written today. I particularly like her ribbon like arrangement.