Juliette Orton

I've not had a chance to get on with my 'Layering' sketchbook in recent months so it has been lovely to finally have a flurry of activity and to complete a new section of it - from artichokes to feathers! In a previous blog that I wrote about starting this sketchbook (see here ) I explained how I started with a written mind map (which explored any links to 'layering' that I could think of) followed by 4 pages of those same ideas presented in a visual way. I have already explored the red onion layers so the focus of this blog is on the feather and lampshade images from the same page. I'm convinced that the lampshades were inspired by artichokes so that was my starting point. I used a black Staedtler fineliner pen to draw the artichoke using an image from the internet as a reference point. I machine stitched the card onto some green fabric to represent the colour of the artichoke and then photocopied the image, playing around with the scale and...

Since I've started a new sketchbook recently I thought I could do a diary of sorts to explain how I have put the various sections together. I chose the theme of 'Layering' as I was looking through some old A-Level Art & Design question papers and this topic appealed to me. If you want to create your own sketchbook obviously you could choose any theme you like, just make sure that it's something that interests you and you will find plenty of inspiration. I favour an A3 size sketchbook but there are no hard and fast rules on this, and it's best to go for a scale that you feel comfortable with. I started out with a title page and a 'mind map' of written ideas of anything that I felt could relate to the theme of 'layering', a brainstorm of sorts. This is a good way to get over the dreaded 'first page fear' when you just can't bring yourself to start your pristine book and any mark you make is overly scrutinis...