Studying design

Alas, Emmy the 40 shaft loom did not arrive on Friday. I called the shipper around 2:30 and was told that the arrival date was the date the loom would arrive at the terminal and that getting it out to me would require an appointment and some additional time. (Which was contrary to the reassurances I’d gotten until then!) Aargh! I am doing my best not to stomp around the house shouting. But I must admit that it’s taking considerable effort not to pout.

(I’m not exactly why waiting for the loom is so stressful for me – perhaps because the loom has been the main focus of my life for quite some time, and swapping out to a new loom will be a huge change. Also, I’m terrible at sitting around and waiting.)

At any rate, the loom will not arrive until Monday or Tuesday, and to keep my sanity until then, I need to stay busy. So today I’m going to start a new project. I’ve been thinking I would like to start a systematic study of design, spending about half an hour a day on design exercises – both taking a critical look at others’ designs and making new designs of my own. Half an hour is enough time to do a single short exercise, and doing it consistently means that, over the course of a year, I’ll have spent 180+ hours studying design. Hopefully that will produce results!

Anyway, my plan is to work my way through design exercises from one of my many books on design. I am currently leaning toward Joen Wolfrom’s Adventures in Design (which is about two-dimensional design in the context of art quilts), but someone in my Designing Fabrics Study Group suggested a different book, which I have ordered and will examine once it arrives.

I’m also planning to start a notebook – an art journal of sorts – doing a different design every morning. I had originally planned to make the notebook 9 x 12, which is big enough to do interesting designs, but not overwhelmingly large. However, if I’m doing other design exercises on the same day, it might be better to go with a smaller format – perhaps a 3 x 5 or 4 x 6 index card. Media will be whatever strikes my fancy. I am overequipped for multimedia work – pastels, colored pencils, watercolor pencils, acrylic paints, fabric, colored papers, stamps, stencils….you get the idea. The one thing I don’t have is a broad color palette of fabric, but since Joann’s is having a 99-cent fat quarter sale starting tomorrow, I figure I can get a pretty wide range of colors relatively inexpensively.

And, I’m starting to retrospect on 2013, and put together plans for 2014. More on that later.

In honor of Boxing Day (which was last Thursday), I offer you two kittens in a box:

Last month, of course, they fit in the box a lot better (yes, it’s the same box):

Yeah, I’d say they’re growing. 🙂