'WE Love Your Books'

POINT is the theme of this year’s ‘We Love Your Books’ exhibition. I am pleased to say that images from my book are included in the exhibition which is solely on line this year. You can view the selected entries, I understand that there were over a 100 submissions, here. Well worth taking a look. More details of the contributors will be added later. It is amazing to see the results of people’s imaginative response to the theme, and some of their skills make me envious. I particularly like the metal book and often wish I had more skills in the soldering, metal smithing area.

Many people seem to have gone in the same direction as myself and thought of point in terms of the folds made when you manipulate paper. There are quite a number of stitched fabric books and some cross stitch; there is even a felted book. Points of a compass and maps are also popular interpretations. There is a flag book with pointy bits. There is a concertina book of drawings of insects, which is really clever as when you look closely you see that the drawing is made up of tiny dots, pointillism.

I used a Turkish Map Fold format and drawings made using acrylic ink, which I then photographed and added some text etc. on the ipad. I also used an app called ‘Book Creator’ to make an interactive book which includes some short video clips of the stages and the decisions made in making the book. These are a two clips from the interactive book.

'All about POINT' from J Bowcutt on Vimeo.






'All About POINT' 2. from J Bowcutt on Vimeo.

Spirals Video

Spirals from J Bowcutt on Vimeo.
This is short video on Vimeo to link with the Sketchbook Challenge April theme of Spirals.

Made on the ipad and using IMovie
 It took me a long time to work out how to do this, so be kind!

'STITCHED'

In the first month an amazing 117 people have joined STITCHED. With 20 plus video workshops to watch, a wide variety of techniques are covered. So far I have had time to watch only a few. I think because it is the first video venture for many of the tutors they are really generous with the amount of time and detail they have included in the workshops.

I have found a number of good tips and ideas already.

My contribution is Make Your Mark with Stitch (Lets Play Noughts and Crosses) and I had some fun showing a simple monoprint method and adding stitch to make a stitched panel which could be used in a number of ways. Here I show it used as a bag front.
I realised part way into organizing the workshop that in some parts of the world they don't have any idea what the game of 'noughts and crosses' is, and not only that X's are not called crosses and 'noughts' is so old fashioned its like a foreign language; so as people have joined from all over the world its probably a mystery to them. Thank goodness for Wikipedia.

A number of firms have become involved and are offering prizes for the  regular draws which Alma is organizing.

The registration is open until May and the workshops available until June.
Click here to visit Alma Stoller.

Reconstructed book.

Animation

Last Sunday, quite by chance, I saw an exhibition of ‘Out of the Ordinary’ craft work at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Anne Wilson, an American artist, had some amazing pieces made from bits and pieces of lace and crochet. The main piece, set out on a white table, was called Topology and was a kind of black and white landscape made out of black lace and pins. You had to get down to eye level to take in all the fascinating detail.
By coincidence she also showed a series of videos of bits of thread and pins with some co-ordinated music which made it really funny; the coincidence was that we have been learning how to make the most basic animation at college. So I went home and had a go with bits of wool- so here is my basic attempt. Unfortunately I can't get it to loop here so you will need to keep pressing the play button.
I recommend you visit Anne Wilson’s web site to see her great animations and inspiring work.