moving forward, though rather slowly
I've finally decided on a rectangular concertina book for the ice/branches studies, but one with a horizontal orientation
the pages are folded and embossed, viewing window prepared (for selecting crops from painted and printed papers), a selection of crops are cut and ready to be glued in place and now I'm working on bringing fabric and thread into the picture
I've also been painting ice, trying a number of different paint colours and tools, slowly and steadily getting closer to something that connects with what I saw and felt that day
in thinking about the branches and possible methods for constructing them, I sampled some fme stitching on English scrim with the horizontal threads removed and stitching "branches" with the verticals
the white stitching is complete and to judge the effect, I've laid it on top of one of the painted backgrounds with the view-finder cut-out placed on top... getting a sense now of the composition
I still need to bring in some of the soft greys and darker browns but am thinking of doing that with straight stitches as I attach the fme
I'm also working on embroidered branches that can be cut out and applied... I've a feeling there are so many options - those are just the first two that have come to mind
the next trial iswith tissue paper collage made with leaves and scrim embedded in it
this is from an old sample that I have now torn apart and stitched together, changing the orientation of the stitching lines - shows promise but I need to paint it as the colours are wrong
it does seem more abstract though, and that's the point of this work
to take something I see and make something inspired by it but not in a perfectly representational way
and now on my daily walks I am noticing fallen branches and twigs on the sidewalk
it's the same thing but different
(I love statements like that - not correct but everyone knows exactly what you mean)
I've been photographing a few of them, picking them up and taking them home to sketch
more often than not I see letter forms, just as I did with the branches at the lake, and I am slowly gathering an alphabet, creating a font of sorts
I'm not sure if they'll play into any of my current work but it's one more thing on the creative journey that is giving me a fair amount of pleasure at the moment
3 comments:
Twig fonts and ice - you are certainly having some interesting developments in this work!
Slow and steady but each step forward considered intuition, if there is such a thing. It is a delight to see your work on this progress. I always say that drawing a thing helps one see the detail but you demonstrate here that also working on a theme brings the usually unnoticed sharply into focus….. I love the simple photo of sticks on the ground. You are probably the only person that saw the beauty in the pattern they made as they lay as they fell. Nature is the best mark maker.
Nice! You are inspiring me because I want to figure out how to add more dimension to the embroidered details on my landscapes. Seeing what you did with your branches has reminded me of a technique I saw once where you used twisted silk ribbons to create branches. Hmmm....pondering further.....
Post a Comment