Sketching without a sketchbook

I love using sketchbooks but sometimes they gain a life of their own and become too precious for the thing that they are. They also raise the agonising problem of that beautiful first white page. After years of struggling with this confrontation, that interrupts my enjoyment of a lovely new book, I have largely got over it by never using the first page, I start a couple of pages in.

But I have discovered that sketching without a sketch BOOK has become a very helpful way of discovering and planning work. I can record and experience my ideas and materials directly, either straight onto fabric or in a 3D, manipulated way in my hands.

I am finding that letting my ideas grow in this way makes the development of work into a finished piece so much more seamless (excuse the pun). The transition from an art and design media and a paper sketch book into textiles can be very difficult and often the spontaneity of the paper sketch is lost in the translation.

Here are a few photos of these attempts, some have resulted in finished pieces of work while others are still in the ‘sketch’ stage.