the turning

the seasons are turning, summer slipping away seemingly overnight

the morning air, cooler than the water,  sends wispy tendrils of mist floating lightly over the river

a chance early morning drive turned into a beautiful experience in it's quiet presence

benches heavy with dew, the flat rocks that usually invited me to sit a while were icy cold to the touch

 instead, I stood quietly at the edge of the path and let my gaze follow the flow of the water along it's path

steely grey with a sheen, the surface texture seemed more richly textured than ever... the circles were still present but the space in-between was completely filled with marks... lines, dots, short dashes, some echoing others, some finding their own direction

I came home, got out the sewing machine, some white linen and began

this is actually the wrong side, a variegated blue thread in the bobbin that looks rather darker here than it actually is

a close-up below gives a better indication of how the blue actually looks

the other side was stitched with white thread but I haven't been able to get a decent photo of that yet

last week I did two blue versions... blue thread on blue linen

the above is stitched more densely

below, the stitching is less so

all of these need hand-stitching additions, building texture and enhancing the patterns... winter evening stitching

my time here in the north is over for now,  back to Salmon Arm tomorrow

I've taken dozens and dozens of photographs, collected bags of driftwood, interesting stones, earth pigments, raven feathers, rusted wire , drawings, written observations, charcoal rubbings and more

I'm going back armed with a few pages of written notes of ideas, things I'd like to work on and with... 

seems there will be busy days ahead

taking it in

an off hand request for me to take the kids to daycare on Friday quickly turned into an early morning opportunity to spend a quiet hour at the river downtown

coffee and raspberry pecan scone in hand from a favourite bake shop, I found a perfect sit-spot just down from the walking path, on a large, flat slab-rock of granite

the swift swirling flow of the river never fails to startle me

this morning, whilst letting my eyes slide along with the current I noticed the faint gurgling of the water as it came up against a thing or two along it's way

a bird chirped faintly across the river, a squirrel chattered nearby

I let the sunlight settle over me... a glowing, golden warmth

the world settled

other than an edit to straighten a slight tilt in the river bank, these photos are untouched, the current marks not sharpened in any way

this is exactly as they are

and such a surface it is!

the sewing machine is coming out next week and I'm going to have a go at emulating some of this with a little free-motion embroidery

wish me luck!

the sewing machine is not my strong-suit, but thankfully, some of the stitching will be done by hand will be done by hand

I've been researching current marks on rivers and what causes them

it's all to do with volume of water and the shape and features of the river bed

disruptions below cause disruptions above

as I was framing the view below to take the photo I noticed the water to the left of the pilings was somewhat calmer on the surface than the water to the right

the pilings disrupt the flow, making for a break in the current; thus, fewer marks

the water current is a visible record of every change the river has endured or created

many years ago a child skips stones across a river's surface...

they fall slowly to the riverbed, slightly altering it's surface

the water shifts a tiny fraction

a new ripple forms

a memory takes shape

the water flows

field notes

in the land of mountains, trees and water, the colours can be jaw-dropping, the light clear 

and I can never get enough of being outside

yesterday was a day spent boating on a favourite lake

nestled in the midst of coastal mountains, there is simply not a bad view

and many beaches to stop at and do some beach-combing

impossibly beautiful water

collecting driftwood from the southern lakes has been a pastime of mine for as long as I can remember

fascinated by the lightness of it

the strange structures revealed as layers of the tree are washed away

cracks and whorls, lines etched both lightly and deeply

rough textures on one side, smooth as silk on the other

I love it all... the look, the feel,  and as I turn them this way and that to see what remains of what was once a tree I wonder at how they came to be where they are

over time and distance what was once a tree has been stripped away and what I'm left with in my hand is a record of that transformation

and yet it feels like there is more to it than just that

to feed my curiosity about how water and wind leave their mark on the wood and the transformations they craft I'm starting a small field notebook

a place to do a quick sketch

record a thought or two about what I see

what I think

what might have been

and as I couldn't find one of just the right size with just the right paper, I'm making my own... 

 beginning with a few signatures made to look like small notebooks in and of themselves

 I'll be working in them over the coming weeks

and when I get home they, and a few more, will be bound into a small leather-bound notebook I can continue to carry with me whenever I have the urge to go on a beach walk

tomorrow I'm take one of these and my urge and heading to Kluane Lake

to see what I can see

take care,

Jillayne

in the landscape

back in the land, and landscape I love...

arrived one week ago today and has it been a whirlwind

lots of visiting with family and friends, playing with the grandkids over and over and over again and several splendid walks along the river and through the bush not to mention three days of camping in the midst of tall, tall trees and a wild creek

happy and tired

four weeks to go

the day after I arrived I tagged along on a playdate with the kids and managed a couple of short river walks, one to skip stones with a special seven year-old and the other taking a number of photos of these...

clambering over a pile of large sharp boulders meant to protect the river bank from erosion during some the extreme high water occurring these past several years I managed to get a few good closeups of the wood texture and grain

serious creative fodder

before I left Salmon Arm I printed a few images of driftwood planks I had from the  Taku Arm of Tagish Lake

I hadn't completed Day 30 of the Sketchbook Challenge and knew I would be doing it whilst in the north...  the prompt was to just do whatever came to mind, to explore what mattered to you in a way that pleased you based on everything you had learned about yourself and your preferred methods along the way

and so, I did this

though I used the prints of wood from Taku I now have the above close-ups above so going forward they will be appearing my work with the pilings as and when

as ever, there is more to be done but this is all I could manage before said camping trip and as I'm just squeaking in under the wire with this post so I'll post the finished version next Saturday

in the meanwhile I'll be hanging out at the intersection of Pure Delight and Creative Inspiration!

take care,

Jillayne 

sketchbookery

few things in art annoy me but sketchbooks and getting paint all over my hands are at the top of the list

just to be clear though, I love nothing better than looking at sketchbooks - flipping through my own or swooning over some I have seen online; my annoyance is completely wrapped up in working in them

fear of the blank page, fear of messing up, not knowing what to do, ripping pages out or gluing them together when the work goes awry

several weeks ago I'd had enough and embarked on another attempt at a 30 Day sketchbook challenge I had bought a few years ago

some days have been easier than others, some results better than others (there has been no consistent correlation between the two)

the pages shown in this post are from the last week and bear being seen as a group as they are all on the subject (the reason why will become clear shortly)

number one:

consider the stages of your work, where are you most comfortable, beginning, middle... end?

definitely more comfortable in the middle... rarely do I have any kind of plan from the beginning so I tend to do or glue down the first thing I think of - a mark or scrap of paper, swath of ink or paint... and then figure out what I can do from there

once I get that first thing down it goes fairly easily from there

I always get hung up at the end

if I think it's finished I almost always also think its too simple

if I think it needs something else I struggle with deciding what

no vision

number two:

work in a series

easy enough - pilings and river then, with the first in the series already in the books

painting the river was way more satisfying than a piece of painted paper as in the first iteration; working directly on the page felt rather bold 

a scrap of fabric with dark lines was a nod to the river boat

this version feels looser, the river feels alive - it was the opposite in the first effort

number three:

feel free to be yourself - no requirements, do exactly as you please

easy peasy and fun to do

felt like playing with the trees so I did

rougher pilings, painted in layers with sepia ink

wintery

day four:

explore a colour you don't use a lot

I like black but don't use it a lot so...

black marker and ink for the trees

a black mono print for the river, black ink for the rocks

I applied glue to the back of the paper for the river ice and whilst attaching it I crimped it every so often to get the icy wind-row effect

watered down black ink stippled on it here and there in a quest for the granular texture of the ice 

pictorial but I'm ok with it

day five:

work with a strict time limitation; as well, try working in short bursts and then step away for a few minutes before doing the next thing

this was fun - I get way to caught up in taking all the time I want when working on things which results in a lot of dithering and usually a lot of over-working things

I did what I knew first - the dark river in the middle (which is bluer than it looks here) 

quickly followed by the painted paper below

walked away...

came back in 5 minutes, painted two pilings (the left one was shorter than shown here)

went away again... when I came back where the pilings went into the river the paper had wrinkled and bubbled horribly

whilst thinking of how to deal with that a cut-off from a sheet of practice calligraphic mark-making caught my eye 

it was perfect - neither tree nor mountain, just expressive marks that made me think of wind

a new river glued in place with paper pilings glued over top of the painted ones dealt with the mess

pleased with this one  - it does look much better in person!

day six:

dialogue between pages - what has been working, what hasn't - how can you expand on some of that, or subtract it?

I have enjoyed working with the pilings yet felt I wasn't progressing in the shapes (too hung up on the numbers I think and not trying for expressiveness)

 the horizontal lines in the first two collages of this series were also pleasing so I began with those two elements

a scrap of paper from cleaning excess paint/ink from the brush had me thinking of the pilings 

a piece of tissue paper I had accordion-folded and then soaked with watercolour a few years ago was laid over top

the rest was a fight, trial and error, do and then cover up

the top pale piece is a greatly enlarged crop of a photo of the river ice 

the dark piece on the right is a print of a painting I did a while back

(I photograph my favourite painted papers and then print them on fine Awagami printer washi paper to use in my work)

this piece, this day, was when I finally felt like I was getting it

pulling apart that landscape and bringing together the elements I care about in a way that evokes all of it, just not in direct representational way

and then...

day seven:

conquer your fear

take a piece of work you think is finished, or that you love, and add something else

be brave

and how did that go?

not well at all

loving the look of layers I added a small scrap of a print of cloth I had painted a while back

when I sat it on the page and looked at it in a photo I liked it

yet when I glued it down I did not...

having typed that last sentence, on impulse I just now went back to my deleted photos to take a second lookout said image and realized right away there had been another strip of paper off to the right that I hadn't used

hmmm...

I'll be right back...

and done!

I flipped the thin strip top to bottom for better balance of the golden brown and now am happy

somehow that thin strip of painted paper with the slash of golden brown has added a richness to the piece it was lacking

when I sat down to write this blog post I was firmly convinced I had been right in being afraid of wrecking things that I love,  that my hesitation to push forward is well justified and keeping things simple is a good strategy

and though this is not at all a resolved piece of work nor do I think I have made something amazing, I do believe it is far more interesting with these two additions... not necessarily better, but for me, more interesting

I just hope the next prompt isn't to take the same piece and do something else to it...

four more days to go 

and. how many more lessons?

take care,

Jillayne

letting me be me

"do what feels good to you"

 "don't fight it"

"give in to it"

"no expectations, no requirements, no high art ideals"

"just be yourself"

as if...

I laughed out loud at this prompt... I have been fighting myself art-wise for years now

trying to overcome how I naturally do some things that I now want to do differently

its been a continuous battle that usually results in the first few iterations of most anything I try being tossed out in short order whilst I stubbornly persist in working toward an ideal

the thought of tossing that into the bin made me laugh

but... in the interest of getting out of my own way I gave in to myself and worked on a subject that has long held my interest using materials and marks that I am always drawn to and my same old same old colour palette

and interestingly, found pleasure in all of it, especially in knowing I was meant to give in to it and that what I  created would not have to be tossed in disappointment

it came easily and felt good

(the sketchbook is in the press so no photo today)

this prompt came on the heels of the day before's direction to work in a series for the next few days, an aid to seeing how work can develop over several different but successive iterations

so, repeating myself for several days... yikes

after Day One of this was done, 

out of curiosity for where I was before 2020, I turned to my first ever sketchbook

and found this

hmm... rocks, ice, current

done long before my renewal of Yukon winters and the river, it speaks to all of it even though it was not the intention at the time it was done

and this, tissue paper crumpled and glued on sturdy paper looks a possibility for cracked ice

strips of white and off-white paper, handmade, Japanese and commercially-printed  tissue paper with a heavy textured handmade paper glued on but pulled off in disgust at how wrong it was only to have a most amazing result

with this is I see a way to interpret the windrows on the ice and a rocky shoreline

and there I sat, looking at the past and seeing nothing but relevance to the present

lesson learned

take care,

Jillayne

riding a wave...

there's been a shift in my thinking of late

not sure exactly what's brought it about... perhaps I finally just got tired of wanting to work in certain ways and decided to actually do something about it

perhaps it's the sense of time and the years slipping away from me

or it might be the influence of some of the Stoicism reading I've been doing

maybe its all of that and more

regardless, I am in the midst of the biggest spurt of creative energy I have felt in more than five years

and oh my does it feel good

several years ago I purchased a sketchbook challenge with thirty days of prompts

I started with gusto but fizzled before the halfway mark... recently I began again and have just completed Day 17

below are the outcomes of two prompts

for the one on the left, the prompt was to do something you would do if you never had to show it to anyone, most especially online

I chose to copy a sketch of JMW Turner, a favourite from a book that is a facsimile of one of his sketchbooks

(and here I am, posting it anyway!)

gesso on the page first as this sketchbook is made of drawing paper

then watercolour

the dark blotch at the top of the page is ink that came through from working on the other side but it seemed to fit in well enough here so I let it be

my favourite part was working on the sky

it's also the part that scared me the most!

the page on the right is the result of a prompt to revisit old work 

I had done some dark squiggly trees a while back and wanted to revisit them, this time with added snow, and silver foil - but in an abstract way, not a representational one

I began by laying down a dark blackish green but it got too thick and heavy, looking like a large, 

rough-edged triangle taking up 1/3 of the page or more

I scratched into with the flat end of skewer, pulling back a good bit of the paint, added a lot of swirly scratch marks and then let it dry for a while

next was titanium white paint (all acrylic paints in this one) but it started to turn grey so I brushed in more of the black-green and then it got really messy

frustrated, I grabbed a 1/2" flat brush and started trying to brush in tree branches but within ten seconds I realized everything had splodged together to make a deep blue-green that looked remarkably like the water of Marsh Lake

holding my breath, I kept going with the motion, bringing in more and white as I moved from the right of the page to the left

and then I stopped and walked away, before I could mess it up

when I cam back an hour later I saw a rising wave

I could never have planned this

if I had said 

"today I'm going to try painting a wave at Marsh Lake"

I wouldn't have had a clue where to begin

but in trying to paint an abstract tree I ended up with this

which also clearly demonstrates I know nothing about painting abstract trees in snow!

but I'm taking the gift 

and grateful for the lesson

show up, do something, see what happens

take care,

Jillayne