Drawing

Sarah Grace Dye

Weekend making retreat

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Over the last few weeks I’ve been putting together some ideas for courses that I will be launching over the next few months.

These will include paper making, various book binding lessons and some meditative mark making sessions. But the first of these online sessions will be over the course of a weekend in the form of a making retreat. It will be entirely via zoom so you can join in from wherever you are. It will be live so those of you outside Europe will need to check your times to see how it fits with you! All the details are on my eventbrite page.

My plan is to enable each of those participating to put aside a weekend just for themselves to be creative.

It has been designed so you can enjoy making with some company and maybe discover some knew skills in the process. I recognise that allowing ourselves an entire weekend for this is a luxury but I think you are most definitely worth it. I will lead four workshops during the weekend in a very relaxed manner to give you space to explore. There will be plenty of time to go away and make on your own and some prompts available if you don’t find that all that easy to do. On the Sunday I will spend some time one to one with each of the participants to chat about what they are making and give some hints and tips, or just chat about the weather over a cuppa! Finally I will be sending out a little package of bits and pieces, including some of my handmade papers for you to play with too. I would love for you to join me. The first date is very soon 18th – 20th June and the second opportunity to join is 16th – 18th July both weekends will follow the same pattern.

So if you would be interested to make some marks with me that can become a range of beautiful artist’s books and keepsakes then book your ticket soon! There are only ten places available for each weekend so we can get to know each other and I can spend some time with each of you properly. If you are interested in being the first to hear about courses and other opportunities in the future then please sign up for my newsletter in the post above.

I am so looking forward to meeting some of you very soon! 

Sarah Grace Dye

Final ‘Out of my Window’ drawings

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Appologies its taken me longer than planned to post these drawings! Anyway here you go four more drawings from out of the windows during lockdown, I am about half way through the book I made to house these drawings so the next round will be room aspects I think and possibly out of the front door, stay tuned….

Sarah Grace Dye

Views from my windows

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One of the sketchbooks from the previous post was made so I could simply draw everything from my surroundings. I wanted to start with views out of the windows of the apartment. I love the theme/title ‘A sense of place’ something we used years ago when I was teaching for a module all about making books and recording your environment whether real or imagined. As the years have gone by I have realised that pretty much all of my work is about this same thing. My work is about capturing a sense of place and this period of time in history really calls for that don’t you think? Anyway these are the drawings so far…

An added little clue to the timing of the book is the bookmark end did anyone spot it? I found a ‘corona’ bottle top on one of my daily walks which I felt was a little bit of serendipitous ephemera just meant to be for this book. If you are interested in seeing the time lapse versions of these they are available on my YouTube channel. I will post my progress in a week or so…

Sarah Grace Dye

Personalised Postcards

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With most of the world in lock down at the moment many people are finding that they are isolated from the people they love and even though technology is amazing it isn’t the same as a real person or maybe even a hug. I had the idea of sending handmade postcards to people I know who are on their own for whatever reason as a way of saying I am thinking of you. It is personal, time was taken to make it and I hope communicates care and is a nice surprise. Below are some of the designs that have been received so far.

I like many others at the moment have lost most of my usual income and have been thinking of new ways to help during this time and earn some money to pay my bills. So I am offering my personal postcard services to you. I will draw/paint a 5 x 7 inch postcard either on white or brown card add a message of your choice and send to anywhere in the world! I am asking only £20/€22/$23 per card. I hope that it will be a blessing to someone you know as well as helping me to keep going. If you are interested email me at info@sarahgracedye.com with details of what you would like. If at the moment for whatever reason this is not for you please can I urge you to maybe make your own or write a letter to someone I can guarantee it will be warmly received!

Sarah Grace Dye

Warmth

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Having enjoyed participating in the #areyoubookenough challenge for November so much I made a priority to find the time to concentrate on December’s word which was warmth. I had two very different ideas. One has a focus on memory and capturing a moment the other is a whimsical bit of fun.

This first book was made as a memory of a visit to a friend in Italy. I hadn’t seen her for over a year so it was lovely to catch up and share stories and laugh. All of this was a warm experience. Whilst there I collected all the tea bags we used and they became the signitures for the book. Tea bags need warmth to become that lovely rich colour when the tea infuses in the hot water so a second nod towards ‘warmth’. Finally where I stayed we are surrounded by olive trees 200 of which belong to my friend, they also require warmth to grow. I embroidered 100 little olive tree shapes throughout the book being aware they can be seen on both sides and each side is different so decided that would pass for 200! The rest of the paper and card used came from a book I picked up in a second hand shop whilst there. A lovely memory of an equally lovely visit.

The second book is a bit of frivolous pleasure. I thought it would be fun to make a cut out book of myself with each page being a layer of clothing until I am totally covered, warm and ready to head out into the cold. It was a little tricky lining everything up but I am happy with the results. I was particularly keen to make it as real as I could and also to draw the backs of the clothes as well as the fronts to keep the interest as the pages are turned. A very different project from usual but a lot of fun to do. I really enjoyed the challenge of learning the lotus stitch for the Japanese binding which I will be using again!

Looking forward to finding time for January’s ‘inbetween’ challenge watch this space…

Italian sketchbook

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I have just been very fortunate to take a couple of weeks out in Italy visiting two lovely friends, one in the Abruzzo region and one in Rome. I always have a sketchbook with me and try to take time out to sit and draw the things I am seeing. On this trip I especially took time for drawing in Rome spending several hours at each of the places I went, sometimes until I couldn’t feel my fingers any more! It is quite a strange sensation when the sun is burning the back of your legs through the layers of clothes but your fingers are frozen and turning blue…

Inktober 2019

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I started this a little late this year due to the Book Fair preparations but better late than never. It’s always a great opportunity to focus on drawing and this year I kind of ended up with the theme of ‘Tea Paraphernalia’ . In my little world tea is one of the most important things so seemed an appropriate focus of my drawing attention! I think there may be some kind of little book coming from these I’ll keep you posted. Here are some of my favourite drawings.