City and Guilds - Lines (3) - peppers

Today was my second C&G class and we spent the morning drawing fruit and vegetables. My attempt at an apple failed becuase it was so juicy I just had to eat it. These however, are some of my attempts at a pepper ( they don't scan very well). The idea is not to be a good artist ( which as you can see is just as well) but to start to look at lines in more detail and to be observant about what is around you which can then be used in the formation of a design. I have to say that in all the years I have been chopping pepper and throwing them into a pot I had never noticed all the fine lines inside them. Nor, as I usally cut the top off first, rather than doing a pure disection as I did today, have I ever noticed how the seeds hang to the stem.



Part of what we are learning is 'mark making' using different media to see the difference in the lines on the page. The next step is to isolate part of the sketches with a window template, enlarge and then develop that set of lines away from its origin into something new.
I had actually never used waterclours before this exercise but bought a tiny starter palette in a plastic travel box just to do it and with one pepper I am kind of hooked. I had seen other quilters, in their books on sources of inspiration, show holiday paintings which they had then used for colour or line ideas on their return, and dismissed that as something I could not do but, in fact, I now think perhaps I can - I will be trying it out in due course. Not least because a fellow student had a gorgeous wooden box full of paints and I love boxes full of things so I need a justification to get myself one. But more seriously I can see now that painting the scene to use in quilting already has one step of simplification and interpretation in it which photography ( my preferred medium) does not have.

Another task I have to start soon is to produce a few pages in my display portfolio on an artists influenced by line. Well, that at least is easy, having been reading Nancy Crow's new book. Inspiration on a plate!