NOT a sketchbook

I’m a very reluctant sketcher. To put it mildly. But I still wanted some little souvenir, “artistic response” (!) from my week on Mull. This is what emerged. It’s no great work of art, but it was fun and it’s full of memories for me.

Cover – decorated with broken bits of mussel shell stitched to torn paper.

The little Pink Pig book was one I already had, only about 4” square – not too intimidating? The pages were easily removed to play with. And I took minimal basic materials with me, like a few Neocolour watercolour crayons, needle and threads, knife, pen, pencil and brush.

Then through the week I collected bits here and there and set off a few experiments. As the weather was so good (sorry!) we were out all the time, so not everything got finished before I left - I’ve had to add the finishing touches back home.

So, these are all the pages I ended up with.

Title – cut from newspaper.

Ripples – beach sand mixed with PVA, paper stencil.

Diving gannets – paper cut, after seeing the Sarah Morpeth exhibition. Even more respect for her work after this, ouch!

Columnar basalt cliffs – stitch.

Rust stains – found metal with tea.

Marram grass – pen.

Felt – found wool loosely wet felted and stitched.

Oak leaves – pencil off the edges of fresh green leaves.

Weave – split flag iris leaves woven into slits in the page.

Ring of bright water (otter!) – indented, pencilled over.

Foxgloves – wet brushed Neocolour, fine pen.

Beach markings – tea stain, burned stick.

Stone sculpture – pierced holes.

Birch leaves – fresh leaves printed with Neocolour.

I even made a dangle for the spine from holey shells and found string, but no, it wasn’t me… well none of this is really, I’m a dedicated machine embroiderer, but hey, you’ve got to try something different on holiday, haven’t you?