sketchbooks/drawings | Beth Emmott

This is the archive for the ‘sketchbooks/drawings’ Category

Garden Book-Sketching

June 5th, 2023

Well, my leg is healed – PT almost over, so all that’s good – Days have been warm and sunny. Sometimes it’s just wonderful to sit outside and enjoy the garden, the birds, and the sun.

Image of Garden book opened.
Opened traditionally

I’ve working on this project – on and off for a good while – sketching in the garden in a simple book that looks more complicated than it is. It’s all made from one sheet of paper, cut and folded. I love the way I can fold and arrange it in different ways so different pages appear next to each and how it can be opened in different ways. Fun to play with.

Image of Garden book.
Playing with folds

Closeup of pages

I started by dying sections with tea and rusty objects-one of my quick and easy way to mark things up. Very serendipitous. Never sure of the result. Then the sketching began using pen and ink. Pages run into one and other. One day I might start a new area and another I’ll work back into a page. Our garden is very organic, and I wanted this book to convey that feeling. It’s nearing the end and I will have to deal with a cover – I have some ideas but it will probably tell me once it’s finished.

Sketching

March 25th, 2023

Still dealing with my leg and can’t really stand for long as yet… so, I’ve been sitting and sketching and experimenting with watercolors. Want to loosen up and not be so literal. Also want to paint outside other than on my deck, but that will have to wait a week or so. Here’s some of my recent explorations. I’m having fun.

Image of Watercolor Sketch

Watercolor Explorations

Documentation

March 13th, 2023

This has been a very difficult time personally and I haven’t been in my studio for a while. In one month, I both broke my tibia and worst on March 4th lost my brother, Senter, to cancer.

I still haven’t been able to work but have started to document some smaller work I’ve done this past year in a small sketchbook. Mostly mark making, collage, and simple printing, resulting in mixed media books and other explorations. Some of this work was done in courses lead by Lorna Crane and by Sally Tyrie through Fiber Arts Take Two. Revisiting work is calming, a chance to slow down and think about my direction – how will this work influence future projects. I still have a ways to go with this documentation but here are some results to date. It’s a work in progress.

Image of Mark Making Book Image of Marks on Fabric
Mark Making Explorations: 1. Mark Making Book, 2. Painted Fabric Samples

Image of Print-Incoming Tide Image of Marks and Prints
1. Print: Incoming Tide, 2. Small collage using various types of simple printing

Image of Nature Studies Image of deconstructed explorations
1. Prints, acetate images and machine stitches, from a series of 14, 2. More explorations, didn’t go with these

Image of Artist Book-Closed Image of Artist Book-Open
Three earlier fabric books, combined together with a leather cover. I’m still working on the cover.

Exposition Catalog and Other Bits

February 15th, 2022

Things have been pretty busy and I realized I didn’t post about the catalogs from my exposition at iMPeRFeCT Gallery this fall. I designed them and am very excited how they turned out. The exposition included both paintings and fiber work and was titled, “Beth Emmott: Places.Spaces, Paintings and Stitches”

Front Covers
Catalog Covers

and two inside spreads:

Catalog Spread Showing Paintings Sample of Fiber's Spread
Samples of Painting and Fiber Pages

If any one wants one they are 8″x 8″ and 48 pages and are available at $15.00 each plus shipping.
For more information contact me at: beth@emmott.com
Again I want to thank iMPeRFeCT Gallery for my exposition!

In the mean time, I finished the Alice Fox workshop. We used our rusty dyed fabrics in finished pieces.
Here are two of mine.

Finished Fabric Finished Fiber
“Yellow” and “Plain and Fancy”

They are small and both used old fabrics from my grandmother’s stash. The yellow bit was weighted silk that was splitting and mainly became a tie-dye from the binding it was wrapped with – there was little rusty marking. It was finished with french knots and a simple running thread. The other work consisted a piece of a cotton napkin and old patterned silk with a couched cord. It was a very fun workshop and a good distraction from the cold weather.

I’ve also gotten back to working on my one-a-day sketch book I stopped in June when I as sick and doing a lot of drawing. Now to get working on my painting!

DVAA Exhibition

November 22nd, 2021

Dropped off my mixed media drawing, “Breaking Away”, yesterday at Da Vinci Art Alliance for their group exhibition “Perennial Visions”. (Opening Dec 2, 2021.Runs Dec 2-Dec 19.)

Image of Mixed Media Drawing
Breaking Away – Mixed Media Drawing

I had an 11:30 drop-off appointment but of course when I made it I didn’t know The Philadelphia Marathon would be blocking almost every street in Center City and most streets to get there from my house. Luckily we checked on the phone as we left and were able to plot our trip like troop movements! But we got there in time and I’m happy to be included!

and now it’s November

November 1st, 2020

Still haven’t been much of anywhere—oh, a visit to the dentist and to get a flu shot, and one day “down the shore”, and one afternoon to Chanticleer, another to Lancaster to buy pumpkins—which the squirrels have eaten right off my porch… and one more evening to my friends deck, bringing my own wine to sit spaced out. That’s 6 events for September and October… we are probably more cautious than many but we‘re both susceptible to infections… We do live in an area where the vast majority of people wear masks and it’s easy to get food delivered etc., so, that’s good.

And I voted, by mail—very relieved when I got back the email acknowledging its receipt. Crazy Times!!!

So, what have I been doing? Still not painting but have been working on a series of 12 drawings/watercolors of images from Scotland.

Here are 4 of the 12 images.
Drawing of Scotland

I also worked on several books.
One, an accordion book with rusty dye as a base for sketching in my garden.

and another influenced by this whole lockdown, mask wearing, distancing, covid life.
Each page flips up to reveal the inside of dealing with 2020!
Image of Lockdown 2020 Book Image of Lockdown Book 2020d
When things get crazy, I make books…

And since my exhibition was canceled—at least it hasn’t happened, I decided to create an online ecommerce shop—of works on paper, not the images from the defunct exhibition. First it took a while to photograph images, improve my filing system and organize things in general. Then, there was new software to learn and to learn how to customize the site as I want. That part if pretty much finished. Now to hook up the financial/tax/shipping bit, but… in the middle of all this we had to have a soil stack replaced—the joys of an old house—but it means there are holes in the ceiling of my studio and in a wall in a powder room, paneling ripped out on the stair landing and total mess of one bathroom—and workmen (wearing masks) in and out… almost finished so now to get back to work.