Quilts, diamonds and inspiration

I'm very unhappy with my sketchbook at the moment, although obviously the point isn't to make a beautiful sketchbook, but to work towards beautiful textiles. I've been looking through some of my old sketchbooks though, and they seem to better record ideas and thoughts through drawing, they have less 'stuff' stuck in and more expressive drawing. I don't feel like my current sketchbook is working as either a scrapbook, journal or for drawing. Hopefully this blog will help me get my thought and ideas together better, and through reflecting on the sketchbook and my work I'll see what's working and what isn't. I think the other problem is that it's taking me a while to get back into reading, researching, drawing and making, because I haven't done it for so long, I guess the more I do, the better I'll get...

Anyway, here are a few more pages from my sketchbook and some images from the paper artist Peter Callesen:

Above: Pages showing similarities between precious gems and Amish quilts.

Above: Pages showing inspiration and things that remind me of diamonds - First page, top images by Richard Schur, bottom left is Louis Vuitton shop front, bottom right is Marta Marce. Bottom Page, left image is by Christopher Bucklow, I don't know who created the image on the right - sorry! I love the colours, and the way the colours are positioned together, and  the geometric shapes in the images.

Above: Some of my old freelance work, showing patchwork and pleating (I need to get better images!)

Above: Inspiration afor patchwork. Image on left is Chloe, with great areas of intense patching and pleating and contrasting plain areas, and on the right is Jil Sander, with gorgeous colour and delicate layers.

Above: Work from Gilbert and George featured in ES Magazine 7th Jan 2011. I like the repition of the images at the top of the page, making the postacrds look like patchwork, and I like the glowing colours in the lower images.

Above: Images of paper used to make 3d shapes. I like the paper alphabet, by Sonya Dyakova, because the light has to shine on it from a particular angle to see the words. Like diamonds, it would look different from different angles, and you can only read it in one place, otherwise it's a mystery.

The paper alphabet made me think of Peter Callesen's work. He's a great paper artist, and I like the way that the shape he cuts out of the paper to make the 3d shape from is as important as the created shape. He uses the whole of the material, and gets the most out of it, even the negative sections. Here are some images: