Saturday, March 19, 2022

water, water, everywhere...


water everywhere, even in the sky... it's rained for days

and days, and days

a good reason to stay inside

ideas have been flowing and I'm having the best of times

working with water on a few fronts has me approaching it in a variety of ways though the common subject is certainly driving a commonality in the work

I thought it might get confusing but it's all rolling around in a big circle with ideas building on each other, one feeding another and so on

here are a few things I worked on this past week:

tracing the piece of driftwood that has inspired most of what I've been doing, I thought it looked like the outline of a lake or a map... and since the marks on the wood map out the journey from tree to what I hold in my hands, I added some of the marks using blue thread, to make them look like rivers... more to come with maps


working with layers, a printed photo of the wood, torn almost in half, chiffon stitched with a single strand of embroidery

I'm so pleased with where this is going - today I'm stitching the outline of the part I tore away and adding marks in the empty space - I did this overlay as a trial so it's a bit small and ragged - I'll need to make a proper one in the days ahead


here I've cut out the shape of the driftwood and now considering what to put behind me

the small sample to the right is one from the Insight Creative Sketchbook Challenge (which I am still chipping away at) - it was in the unfinished pile and last night whilst doing the last of the French knots I thought how much it reminded me of water and wave foam so I added a few straight brown stitched to look like driftwood - now I'm thinking strips like this might be interesting


the sample is now mounted on the sketchbook page where it belongs

one more thing done!


and a view of the whole page

I might add more notes, or I might just leave it - I find mostly these things speak for themselves though I did make a note of the brown thread colour as I really liked it and hate trying to figure things out down the road


and finally, here are some of the results of my first time gelli-printing

so, so much fun!

this first one was done by stamping off the excess paint from a stamp I carved of a frond-type plant I saw down at McGuire Lake last week


with black ink and dark blue paint - quite a grunge effect but I like it a lot


and a blotchy one


it feels good to be this engaged in creativity... it's been a long dry spell for me and this week, when things really took off I finally, fully realized just how bad it had been

nice to be on the other side...

4 comments:

Lynn Holland said...

I’ve always enjoyed watching your creative process and how you record things Jillayne.
The gelli printing reminded me that I have a plate somewhere, I’ll have to dig it out. Looking forward to seeing wherem you take it next
Lynn x

Rachel said...

It does sound as though the wellspring is flowing again. Hurrah!

Christine Barnes said...

Another wonderful flow of work and thoughts (pardon the pun). You have linked the shape of driftwood to your water theme brilliantly just as the wood itself has most likely been partly polished and shaped by the water that carried it to you. I love the overlay of silk on the photos. Does it matter if it is a bit raggedy…. Nature is raggedy as well as wrinkled… maybe your first response is how it should be. I am moved by your deep connection with your subject… only passion can produce such sensitive work.

Magpie's Mumblings said...

It's always such a relief to be on the other side of a dry spell and it looks as though your work is coming along swimmingly (note - pun there - aimed towards all the rain you've been getting). I love the idea of maps and remember reading somewhere that someone was using one of the map apps (Google Maps perhaps?) and recreating the area where they lived. Of course it was one of those things that caught my eye and then I promptly forgot all about it.