Developing sketchbooks

Oh the days have slipped by and I realise that I haven't posted for the whole of February!  I have been preparing for a sketchbook project, partly for Skipton Embroiderers' Guild and partly for myself.

As a member of the guild I have signed up to take part in a project known as Travelling books.  These little A5 sketchbooks are a great way of increasing (or perhaps unblocking) your creativity.  Working in a group of 5 or 6 people, you each decide on a different theme.  In the first few pages of your book you create a mood board showing your inspiration and ideas and then produce a small stitched piece (it can be just a sample or a completed work).  At the end of the first month you pass it to another member of the group so that they can add their own interpretation of your theme.  The books continue to pass around the group until you receive your own one back.  Hey presto!  You now have 5 completely different pieces of work based on your chosen subject and hopefully a few new ideas for what to try next.

The project has taken our branch by storm and we have 3 separate groups of 6 but quite a few new members were hesitant about taking part and I realised that they were unfamiliar with the concept of sketchbooks.

We all take hundreds of photos on our phones and cameras but translating these into a creative craft project is quite a daunting prospect.  I have devised a course to guide even the most reluctant artist through different ways of analysing pictures to transform them into a design to stitch.  Using my own theme of Water as a starting point, I've been busy manipulating photos, making collages and prints to show the techniques that I use.  

I'll be teaching the sketchbook project at Skipton Embroiderers' Guild for the next few months but I'm also running a day workshop at my studio in May.