figuring it out

after two weeks away from my latest work, 

 it felt as unfamiliar to me as if I had never worked on it all

shuffling papers on my worktable... printed edited photos, painted papers, drawings - nothing worked, it all seemed rather forced

this morning I had an idea...

flipping through the papers once again, I pulled out the ones I liked best

whether it was the colour, texture, location, item - whatever it was, if I loved it I chose it

gluing each into my sketchbook for a reference, I spent some time reflecting on what I thought as I looked at them, jotting down notes alongside each

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water, wood, sky

an old building

once that was done I looked at the various lists and found some interesting commonalties

and some things I was surprised by, most notably strong lines and hard edges

I'm usually all about soft and subtle, blurred lines

after that I went back to the papers from the day before... 

still thinking about wood and water - here I used a painted paper, a gelli-print and a print of a shrub on acetate

this next one is a crop from a photo of a northern lake, a piece of painted linen and another acetate print

love this one

it has the look of a landscape, almost as if the waves of the lake photo become mountains in this collage

next is to look at the photos again and think about drawing 

I'm eager to do more prints but first I want to explore drawing 

one thing at a time