keeping on

ninety and counting... 

I've amassed a nice little collection of these tiny collages and have a few left to do though I'm taking a break for a few days

studies of water, sand, driftwood, seagulls, seaweed, wild roses, aspen trees, fir trees, moss, mushrooms and so on

aspen trees

I've been looking at them and making notes, thinking about what I'm seeing, noticing commonalities, what is being repeated - they're a clue as to what appeals the most to me which seems a good place to begin

when I was working on the bird tracks in the samples I began stitching some, then wondered if what I was doing was correct - I decided to double-check online - a perfect case of what we think and what we see and what is really happening

even though I was only wanting to look at the shape of the marks, the images were all so inspiring that I knew I wanted to do more with them once the collages were finished... ideas tumbled and the next thing I knew I didn't know where to start

(Lesson 1 - stay away from the internet!)

when I don't know what to do I start small... a line of tracks in the sand then

I drew a few simple curved lines on the khadi paper I am loving working with and then found a small painted collage I had done a while ago - it was done to capture a thought, not meant to be anything other than that

when I laid it on the paper it looked fine but I had a hankering to do something a little more interesting so I got my ruler and rotary cutter, turned the collage over and sliced away

a slightly staggered placement and I was happy

I posted it in the forum of a class I'm taking by Karen Ruane and then a short while later I posted it on Instagram as well

one of the comments from a classmate gave me pause...

to paraphrase, "I like this but I prefer the layout of the Instagram version"

?????

the image I posted in the class was with the strips just laid on the background and in the Instagram version they were affixed but I had used the class photo to ensure things were in pretty much the same position so I was a bit puzzled

over to Instagram to have a look I saw immediately that the image had posted upside down 

odd how that one small thing can change a work so much

to be honest I wonder about version 3, which does not exist... I like the orientation of the marks in the first image and the collage in the second 

good thing everything is in place and can't be fiddled with

yesterday I started playing with beach finds

today I'm taking photos of driftwood to have a close-up look at some of the interesting marks on the surfaces

and I am NOT looking at anything to do with driftwood online!