the things I forget...

these quiet winter days... so few distractions

I find myself sinking deeply into felt memories... how the cold looks I remember well and over the past few years being here during the winter has certainly helped reinforce that

how it felt was a different story; there just hadn't been this kind of cold during all those visits and now in the thick of it, I find myself remembering the feel of it  how much the two are intertwined

seeing the whipped snow and ice crystals blow about the air is one thing, feeling it on your face at -35 with a wicked wind chill is quite another

it feels as if you're skin is burning and freezing all at the same time

the mountain tops,  heavy with deep white snow are enveloped in a misty haze... blowing snow, as much up there as down here... stunning against the blue of the sky

with all the snow dust in the air you'd think to see only crystal diamonds blowing about yet when the sun is shining they take on a golden hue, warming in look but definitely not in feel

I've taken a few walks on calmer days but mostly time is spent indoors

enjoying my daily prompts, here are a few from the last while...

below, "looking through a window or door"

again, the living room windows to the forest behind on a sunny day

the greens enlivened by that dancing golden light

I used masking fluid, to hold on to more of the white than I usually seem to be able to

a tangled forest

the prompt below was for overlapping shapes

text from my course was an easy choice

some overwriting

over and over and over again in black

a section with light grey Graphik marker

another using leonardt calligraphy nib with black ink

and a small patch of pale, pale blue watercolour paint

and finally, "winter light"

easiest one of all, I knew all I wanted was the thin-stretched blue of the sky with the gold dust sparkling through the sunlit air

ideally this would also have some crystal-diamonds but I haven't figured that out yet

I may settle for a spatter of white watercolour

I'll ponder that as I stay out of the wind

take care,

jillayne

paper and ink...

ice crystals shimmer thickly in the air...

 dancing in the sunlight as the wind swirls and whirls them round and round

the effect is magical, though it does make me want to stay inside where its toasty warm

inspired by the motion, I picked up a plastic fork, dipped it into a dish of black ink in front of me and did some swirling and whirling of my own

not an easy tool to master but such great fun to try

I'm in the midst of a course on using text as texture with Claire Benn and Take Two where we are encouraged to use, among other things,  found objects such as forks and other oddments to see how they might work as a writing tool

on a walk to find a twig or two I found a good-sized branch torn off a tree during a recent windstorm

clinging to it were several tiny pinecones

fragile, hard to hold but oh so effective

this last one is a favourite - a broken popsicle stick,  any long splinters cut back to create a somewhat "even" rough edge

for the the upper version the stick was dragged to form the letters, in the lower, it was used to stamp them

another thing gathered on that same walk was a few small clumps of long thin pine needles

a paper-making date with a good friend yielded the sheet below

the needles were scattered over the couching sheet and the freshly pulled sheet of pulp was pressed upon it, drying under weight overnight

the result is light and delicate with strong impressions of the needles, clearly visible from each side

so, a paper and ink week

lots of trial and error, experiments galore and a few wonderful outcomes 

take care,

Jillayne

found in the backyard...

early January was lovely  

slow time, quiet days

I spent the first few reading a small stack of newsletters from various artist's in my inbox awaited me - one, from Carolyn Roberts, a beautiful painter in the UK contained a free gift: a pdf file of 30 days of prompts called

"Sketch, Snap, Repeat"

small noticings inspiring quiet work, nothing taxing, just looking, seeing, and recording in a way that suited you

I immediately decided to do it but saved it for my time here in the Yukon

at first I thought to make it about river but it's not possible to get there everyday so instead I chose the view out my daughter's living room windows, out into the backyard and greenbelt beyond

a most inspiring view

the black lines of the deck railing are the first thing you notice, then the mass of trees... somewhere in the midst, a chain link fence

I'm not quite up to date but getting there... the Little Miss broke her foot and with a cast on, couldn't go to daycare... instead, we spent our days colouring, doing puzzles, and playing endless games

they're off on a warm winter holiday now and I have the house to myself... all the art supplies I brought are laid out on the kitchen table and I'm ready to work

the first thing is to catch up with the prompts

the first prompt was "lines"

and circles:

neither of these spreads is finished yet but you'll have an idea of where I'm going with this... so little done,  yet I'm already feeling the value of taking the time to look and think and record

and with these long pages I can include a lot of information and have a play with some of the more interesting ideas that come of it 

so, a beginning

from the land of ice and snow

and sun

a thin winter sun that creates the most beautiful softly diffused light when there's ice fog

a non-cold-fearing friend took this photo during a recent spell of -45 and colder weather, the ice fog shrouding the land, temperatures too cold for the sun to have much success at burning it off

photo - C. Young

she also took the one below after it warmed up several degrees - she knows how much I love the dark open water contrasted with the snowy banks and frosted branches

photo - C. Young

and she very kindly lets me play around with them using various editing functions and using them in my work in any way that fits my needs

its the next best thing to being able to take them myself!

now that my feet are firmly planted in the land that made me I will be spending as much time out and about as I can

filling the well

take care,

Jillayne

little things

January has come to be my favourite month of the year... the slowness of time passing somehow seems to spread to slower, quieter days in the studio

there's no rush to the making

less "must do", more want to

more time to pause, wonder, and think

I made some yarn a while back, having finally learned how to spin with a drop handle

it's all sat neatly twisted into small skeins awaiting tags of some sort, ones that will remind me of the breed of sheep that provided the roving and when and where I made it

I like provenance and I love a written record of it

as I riffled through my paper cabinet looking for ready-made tags I thought instead perhaps they should have something a little more unique, something to reflect how amazingly creative it felt to spin and ply yarn that could be made into something warm for me

something to honour the gift that was

on a search for some scraps of painted paper I came upon a small digital print of this drawing I did a few years ago

the print was 5" x 7" and on a fine art printer paper so a good weight for tags

a few quick cuts had me pretty delighted and from there it was just details: rounded corners, a torn edge, handmade cord

I love the uniqueness of them - the high-quality print makes them look like an actual drawing yet I can make them over and over again should I wish to

another little thing,  done earlier in the month was the impulse to take my scrappy watercolour flat brush and use it to make tiny winter trees across the width of a card

slight pressure on the back end creates enough width at the bottom of the mark to create the effect of snow-covered winter trees

this is another one I'll return to but I need to practice varying the pressure so as to make them all slightly different

and I'm feeling rather tempted to hack away at a few other lesser-quality brushes so I can create a variety of tree heights

it has been a joy to have this time of quiet, away from the hustle and bustle but as January comes to it's end I'm now looking ahead... 

life picks up some steam and next Saturday I'm packing up my art supplies and sweaters and heading to the Yukon for a month 

next post from north of 60°

brr

take care,

Jillayne 

Round One

print-making is something that's been on my learning list for quite a few years and I've puttered at it here and there but as one desire in a long list of them I've not managed much of it

this week I got the inks and brayers out and spent a couple of hours getting rather dirty and making a great big fun mess

as I mentioned in my last post I have been thinking about transparency and layers so I thought I'd give that a go first

didn't work out so well, I need a lot more practice figuring out the right amount of ink on the inking up plate, and the printing plate, not to mention the brayer

I did manage a few light prints I could probably use and then I just played with layers on one sheet of paper, trying to get some darker areas here and there, attempting to reduce the graininess

not trying to create something useful, just rolling practice

I admit I do kind of like the gritty nature of it though

my next hankering was to try some marks reminiscent of the calligraphy squiggles I did several posts ago, where I thought of a word, held it in my mind and then just moved the brush quickly, at random

using the brayer for that was fun though I did get some rather thick globs of ink here and there so before using my fine Japanese paper to pull the print I lightly touched down a piece of cartridge paper to dab off the excess

very happy with the dab-off!

below is the ensuing print

not bad... a bit dramatic with the bigger, heavier marks, less light and lively

still delightful

from there I inked up the printing plate completely and then used the brayer to mark it up, pushing and flicking the edges of it to pull ink off

this way and that

here and there

interesting marks though still grainy

another try at inking, this time printing on a smoother paper

trying to push the brayer with the pressure a little longer

it was a good time but yes, a lot to learn

so I'll just keep at it then!

take care,

Jillayne

sometimes...

 often the best way for me to gain insights into my work is through my hands

 letting them do the "thinking"

this week it was the other way around

my hands were busy enough, finding all manner of papers, photos etc. for the collage work I had planned

busy laying out different options

busy putting most away afterwards

by Wednesday I had two layouts to choose from... until I realized neither had the lichen paper in the mix

arghh - that was the plan that set this whole collage experiment in motion, to do something with the paper I had just made... so back it all came out again and I started over

this time, my head was more involved

considering colour, value, movement and so on

a day later I had chosen what you see below to start with

a massively cropped and edited photo of a rock, another of trees on a misty Yukon morning, two images of cloth I had painted, one shibori-style, again both highly cropped and edited, and another cloth I had transferred an image onto

I have a love for painting either cloth or paper and then photographing it, playing around with editing tools and printing the created image on fine art paper to use in my work - it certainly removes the fear of cutting into a "precious" piece of cloth or paper as I can print it over and over again

and, if I want a more cloth-like nature to a print I can employ the techniques of momigami, which is exactly what I did with one of the pieces of the lichen paper I made, first konnyaku starch and then the crumpling

, 

below, the edited rock image

nature does make the best marks

nothing is glued down yet but I have got to the final layout of the base

I love it though it is rather quiet  - quiet in my work is something I have always sought but I realized this morning that what I really seek to achieve is expressive quietness

there has to be something somewhat dramatic to elevate a piece from quiet ho-hum

I'm thinking the calligraphy I've been doing lately might do the jazzing up this needs... large marks, in black, thick and thin, beginning in the lower left

something done in a hurry, quick-like

I'm also quite intrigued by the shadow falling along the right side

some transparent ink, layered in like that might also be in order

so... I've spent the past couple of days working at learning to make larger more expressive calligraphy

and early in the week the aqua ink and roller will come out

there are two more layouts in the earliest of stages  that may or not get taken forward in the next while - a lot would have to change with these two, this is only the beginning of seeing how the elements might play together - I was more concerned with colour and texture at this stage than anything else

so far so good, but now the things that add the interest need to be figured out - what moves, what goes, what comes in

what's next

take care,

Jillayne