Making New Mini-Concertina Sketchbooks

I am starting my new Dementia research-sketching job next week! It's not blocks of time, like last year's residency: it's odd days dotted around randomly, but the first one is on Monday. So I need sketchbooks to draw in...

All the concertinas that I made for the residency got used up, so I had to make a new batch. Also a new cover, as the residency one was used almost to destruction. The 2m long concertinas I created previously had to be made from a big roll, and that was a bit of a performance. Plus I won't need so many this time, so I decided to make shorter ones, using regular sheets. I thought you might like to know the details, in case you fancy making some for yourself.

I bought full imperial sheets of Bockingford paper, which are 30 x 22inches. I started with the 300gm, but it felt overkill for the shorter length books, so I started using the 190gm instead, which is much easier to fold.

I got 3 books out of each sheet. From the 22 inch, short side of the sheet, I measured for three strips (3 x 7.4 inches), for the height of each concertina. Then I measured down the longer edge, for the folds. Allowing for each facet to be 5 inches, you get 6 facets per book.

The trick is to score and fold the whole sheet at once, before cutting it into strips. This saves a lot of time. You only score every other fold by the way, because the folds are going to go in opposite directions. You can easily hand-fold the ones going the other way, once you've folded the scored ones. Make sense?

Then you flatten out the sheet again and use a long ruler to cut it into the 3 strips. They are only short, but will still work fine.

I made my cover the same way as before, but with the little embellishment of a decorative fabric strip you can see in the top picture, plus another more important modification: I extended the back cover by 1.5 inches, so that I could clip on a water container. It's actually designed for oil painting, for oil and turps, but the two little tubs will be perfect for dirty and clean water and mean I can paint more easily in awkward places where I need to stand.

They have a clip on the back which fits just right on the board - good and tight.

While I was in sketchbook-making mode, I played with some different sizes. I cut the paper differently and got different shaped books. Out of the same imperial sheet, I got two books of 6 inches x 9 inches, plus one diddy, landscape-format book from the waste, which measures 4 inches x 6 inches.

I had to make covers to fit them too. I did the water-extension for the big one, but decided to keep the little one more compact, for slipping in a rucksack when we go out walking.

The great thing about this system is that you can use the cover over and over - you just pop in a new strip of paper. You can use an elastic band to hold the book shut when you're not using it. I did away with the fancy Velcro tab I used before: I quickly lost the tab!

You are supposed to use book board to make the covers, but I ran out, so I used regular mount board, which worked fine except for a very slight warping, which I put right by clipping the cover shut while it was drying (using a couple of bits of scrap card to protect it from getting dints from the clip):

The other thing I didn't bother with was the card insert on the back cover, for sliding the concertina paper into. I found that I generally wanted to fold the paper in different ways as I was working, so I could paint on more than 2 facets at once, which meant I stopped using the insert. It works perfectly well just tucked in loose.

Travels in Lanzarote Day 15: Soaked to my Knickers

We both had such a great time in Lanzarote, neither of us really wanted to leave. I was especially sad to leave behind such great painting inspiration. Fortunately, because our flight home wasn't until 7pm, we were able to get ourselves all packed and out of the Haria house with still lots of time to enjoy our final day.

We drove back up to the area near Maguez where we were the day before, for me to do a bit more painting while John pottered and took photos. We couldn't do a proper walk, as we didn't want to get all sweaty before flying. Spot little me in the landscape above.

I started with the A3 watercolour of the hill at the top. Here it is with the view:

Then I had a go at the volcano to the left (the same one I drew in my Intense pencils the previous morning). As usual, my second painting is looser and more impressionistic than my first:

By the time I had finished, we were ready for a café con leche and wanted the opportunity to say goodbye to the lovely turquoise sea at Punta Mujeres.

We sat on the wall, watching the sea slowly coming in. I started an Inktense pencil drawing of the view to my left. It was very relaxing, basking in the sunshine, listening to the sounds of the sea on the rocks...

Both John and I registered the larger wave arriving. While John got up, turned to me and said, 'Lynne, watch out for...', my blasé brain told me 'It'll probably be fine.' 

A moment later, the wave crashed onto the rocks at our feet. I was quick enough to lift my sketchbook out at arms length, but not quick enough to move my body off the wall. It was as if somebody had emptied a bucket over my head. So much for not getting sweaty before the flight! At least it was a warm, sunny day.

The wave incident happened just as we needed to leave for the airport anyway. Luckily, I had finished my drawing, near enough, and the concertina didn't get damaged, but I had to sit in the car, wet to my underwear (who'd have thought my undies would get such repeated mentions?). At the airport, I wrestled a change of clothes from the suitcase, so it all worked out. Actually, wrestling my A3 sketchbook into the case was the biggest challenge of the day!

Bye bye Lanzarote. We will be back. I hope you, gentle readers, have enjoyed following my fun and games, as well as my artistic challenges.

Travels in Lanzarote Day 14: Three Volcano Views

We drove north of where we were staying, to the beautiful hills above the tiny village of Maguez. This end of the island is much more lush. We walked through a field of brilliant, yellow flowers and ate lunch on a rocky outcrop overlooking this valley, with its gorgeous volcano view:

I am always most excited by the shapes and textures, so I had to draw the hillside large enough to express all that with my Inktense watercolour pencils. I just kept unfolding page after page, until I had filled 6 facets of my concertina book.

We walked on out of that valley, around the base of La Corona, the volcano I have painted a few times now, from different vantage points.

We were much closer that I had got before and, as we walked round, this great profile view of the spiky-topped caldera started to appear, which I had to capture in watercolour before we moved on. John's very patient and is always happy to loiter for anything from 5 minutes to an hour. I think this was about 10-15 minutes. Just an impression really, although often they are my favourites:

I love the way the green shrubs create a spotty pattern.

We walked the rest of the day, before rewarding ourselves with a beer at a little bar in Maguez. It took no time at all to drive the short distance back to Haria, so I was just in time to capture the sun going down over the hills by the house:

There is always something a little special about the way the late sun intensifies the colours and makes everything glow.

A good and fruitful day.

To see the rest of the painting from this trip (I painted almost every day), click here and scroll down past my piece of textiles based on this trip.

Travels in Lanzarote Day 13: the Volcano Park

We were driving through the volcano park in the south west of the island. This is a stunning place, where every turn in the road reveals yet more shapes, colours and textures. 

I was desperate to get out and paint, so John pulled up and I sat beside the car on my little stool, with my A3 sketchbook on my lap:

I spent most of my time on the one above. The sun was going down fast, so I was about to call it a day when I changed my mind, did an about-face, and painted another, really quick, instinctive sketch of the view behind me:

I was really pleased with the gestural, abstracted way the lava in the foreground worked. Hope you agree!

Travels in Lanzarote: Day 12. Volcanos and Cacti

Another long walk: again from the hills above Haria down to the sea, but down a valley which brought us a little further down the coast. It was a steep valley, so we were pleased to be walking downhill:

We pootled along the coast, via our favourite little café at Punta Mujeres, had a quick paddle to cool our feet, then walked back up to Haria by a different route in the afternoon. The return journey took us past a good view of the volcano, La Corona, the same one a painted on Day 6. We had time for me to sit and have another go. I perched up on a lava-wall to get a good vantage point:

This time I was faced with the challenge of painting a field of cacti in the foreground. Not ideal. Walls made of lava-boulders are a bit of a challenge too!

I did my best with watercolour first, then worked into it with my Inktense pencils, being VERY careful not to drop any through the gaps between the rocks of my wall. I've done that more than once in the past. I also dropped my pencil into a pig-pen once, when I was sketching in a city farm. An enormous, ugly pig rushed up and promptly crunched it up. Pigs, it seems, really will eat anything. but I digress...

Again, my concertina book was the perfect thing for sketching something long like this, without it having to be draw really quite small, to fit in a regular book.

As you can see, I extended the sketch at the last minute, with my watercolour pencils alone, as I didn't like the way the composition worked with the section I had done in watercolour - another thing that you can only do with a concertina book. There wasn't time to go back and paint that new section, as we had to get going, to get back before dark.

Travels in Lanzarote: Day 11. Sand EVERYWHERE!

This was a day of two halves again. In the morning, we visited another of Manrique's projects: his house on the lava field at Tahiche. The upper section was sleek and minimal. It had more recently been turned into a gallery, showing his paintings and those of his friends.

It featured big windows framing views of the volcano and lava which, in one place, was actually allowed to flow inside:

But it was the subterranean section which was really unusual. Manrique had sited the house amongst more lava-tubes. These were less gigantic than the ones we visited previously, and consisted of a series of 'bubbles': rounder sections between narrower fissures.

He made corridors from the narrower walkways through the lava and turned the bubbles into a series of connected indoors-outdoors rooms, with the uppermost part of each bubble open to the sky. Perfect spaces for somewhere so hot.

After our sightseeing, we went for a walk along the beach beneath the Famara Cliffs which I painted earlier in the trip. It was VERY windy, so apart from a couple of other walkers, the only people on the beach were a few kite-surfers.

When we had walked up and back, I really wanted to paint, but the only shelter from the wind came from some sand dunes. We tucked ourselves in behind one, which did help a lot.

It was only after I had been painting for about 10 minutes, that I realised how much sand was whipping round behind the dune and sticking to my watercolour. If you enlarge the picture below, you should be able to see the sand all over the sketchbook:

A few more minutes, and there was more sand than paint on my palette! I soldiered on, but very soon it was ridiculous. We realised that we too were covered in sand - it was all in our clothes and encrusted into our hair. 

So we beat a retreat. At least I got more or less finished and the majority of the sand brushed off once it was dry.

Travels in Lanzerote: Day 10. A Little Bit of Fame

Another walking day. This time we walked from the hills of Haria, down to the sea, finishing at the lovely little place we were at the day before: Punta Mujeres.

When we got there, we visited the same little street café as the day before. After our café con leche, we sat down at the sea edge. The colours were so vibrant.

It was mesmeric, watching the sea crashing over the rocks and gradually filling the swimming area. I took the opportunity to do a painting. It was a bit of a challenge, but I was very interested in the clear water in the walled-off section.

Little did I know, but a resident of Punta Mujeres was watching me from the café above. It turned out that she was a regular writer for the Lanzarote magazine. She took lots of photos and says I will be a feature in the March or April edition!

We chatted to her and her husband and they bought us a beer. Then, when we realised we had missed our bus home, they invited us into their home, gave us home-made lentil soup and local wine and then drove us back to Haria. How lovely is that? Sketching does it again!

Travels in Lanzarote: Day 9. Meeting the Locals

This was another day when I only managed one sketch, because we were off sightseeing most the day. We went into an extraordinary cave-like system of tunnels - volcano tubes - which are caused when lava is pumping out in a channel. The outside cools and then acts like a pipe, through which molten lava keep pouring. Until, when it stops, the tube is left. They are gigantic:

Not only was it dark inside, but you had to walk round with a guide, so not great for on-the-spot-drawing. So, afterwards, we stopped off at a lovely little place just down the coast called Punta Mujeres.  We sat outside a little street café overlooking the water, while I did a quick sketch. I experimented with a coloured line, using one of my new Graphik Line Painters (another Christmas gift from Derwent). Then I tinted it with my Inktense pencils.

It's not the best sketch I've ever done, but it had the usual effect of introducing us to the locals. The owner got very excited and borrowed my book to show to the various punters I'd drawn. Some little girls then came over to practise their English, talking to me shyly about my sketch.

There was a little section of sea walled off with volcanic boulders, where people could swim, though there was nobody in there. It was full of little fish. It was a much warmer day and the water was so beautifully clear that, before heading back, I had to have a paddle. So I got my white, English legs out and went into the sea in my knickers!

Travels in Lanzarote: Day 8. Market Day

On Friday, we went for another long walk in the lava field along the coast of Tamanfaya, the national park. The lava flow disappears into the beautiful turquoise sea, where waves crash dramatically against the rocky outcrops.

It's a pretty bleak landscape mostly though (can you spot John in the middle there?):

I didn't do any sketching, as we needed to keep walking, although we did stop for a rest at one point, when we discovered rock pools, and had an intimate encounter with a few little fish. A gang of tiny, see-through prawns also nibbled at the skin around our toes.

On the Saturday, it was market day again in our village of Haria. The week before, it had been freezing, with a really nasty wind, but this week was much warmer, so we hung around all morning, soaking up the atmosphere. 

We had a very chilled time, hanging out in a couple of the street cafe's, eating, drinking coffee and chatting to people who chanced by. There was even live music. I got out my Inktense pencils:

After lunch, we wandered back up the hill to our little house and I sat by the pool (it was still way too cold to go in, but a nice place to sit), and I sketched the view:

A rather lazy day all round.

Travels in Lanzarote: Day 7. Spots, Stripes & Gullies

After my the previous day's difficulties, experimenting with drawing techniques, I decided next day to revert to watercolour, but to be brave enough to work in my big sketchbook. To be fair, it wasn't just about the intimidation factor of a large expensive book: it is also pretty inconvenient, lugging an A3 book around under your arm!

So I didn't walk as far. Instead of heading high up on the hill, I sat on the scrub land just along the hillside and sketched the view which was more or less opposite the house. I was fascinated by the red gullies, the stripes of the terracing and the spotty pattern of the shrubs:

When I was done, I just had time for another quickie, before the usual cloud set in. This time I concentrated on the scrub land itself in the foreground and the yellow flowers which dotted my side of the hill, letting the shapes and patterns of the hill opposite form a colourful backdrop: