shuffling paper

my worktable this morning was covered with at a hundred or more pieces of 

 photos printed on paper, gelli prints etc. and I had a happy few hours playing at layering and composition

not looking for any kind of finished work, rather, i'm combining things based on colour, pattern and visual texture and looking for interesting combinations which will hopefully generate ideas for the way forward

a few came to mind whilst doing this along with beginning to understand what I am drawn to, what resonates,,, how I can take these images of a place that is so completely wrapped around my psyche and tell a story with them

 a few favourites emerged and have now been glued into my sketchbook and next will be some written reflection and thoughts of where to go next

this first one combines three things: two cropped photos, both of water and an acetate print of a branch

and again, that favourite crop taken from the quonset hut photo, on acetate again with a water print behind - the effect for me is snowy mountains through a window

next came painted paper, part of an image of branches on water (heavily edited) and a fragment of tissue paper and scrim, collaged, painted and machine stitched

a fragment of the kandik map of the yukon river, hand drawn in 1880, a different version of the branch on water photo, this time printed on acetate and more of the painted paper

there are other smaller combinations that for now will languish in the scrap pile until i know whether or not they are done with... meanwhile, note-taking is what i'll be doing which should then lead to some mark-making and drawing

my thinking is taking form now and it's almost all to do with the river, it's ebb and flow, continuing on through the years, taking people to and from the gold rush, and still the same after all those years... flowing by,  as time itself does

 there are the riverboats... vessels of people, hopes and dreams as well as loss... the shape of the planks encasing it all

a tinge of yellow for the gold found in it's creeks, the falling down cabins and trading posts along it's banks, indistinct shapes

maps for how to get to the place of dreams 

and maps for how to leave

as time fades memory and memories fade to dust the river runs through it all

a mash up...

this has been a good, good week... think i'm finally hitting my stride

since there was no way to choose just one area to work on there was nothing else to do but choose many, and even though on an ordinary day it would probably be overwhelming it's actually helping me settle back in to being here

it really all started in the yard... raking gives me lots of time to think and as my mind wandered into thoughts of what to plant in the flower and vegetable gardens this year it kind of went like this:

"dahlias... i want to do more sketching of flowers this summer so dahlias would be good, and daisies... delphiniums too- there has to be delphiniums and I bought those seeds in whitehorse - didn't i get those different calendula seeds too? and bee balm - yes, there was bee balm and also evening-scented  stocks... where did i put the seeds again?

should plant the woad soon too, if i'm going dye with it  - no, no woad

 there's already more blue fabric and thread than i'll use in five years of stitching so no more woad

what was that new book on plant dyeing i saw online the other day - what was it called? 

"ourneys in natural dyeing" or something like that? by the person who wrote the one that had the beautiful photographs of plant material with the dyed fibres... have to search that out...

so no woad but i'll do some dyeing anyway - was it the carrot tops that gave me that nice green last year? i didn't write it down - don't remember half of what i did with any of it - really should have written it down as i went... such rubbish at taking notes

need a dye journal - and one for ink and paint too

an ink, paint and dye journal then - and i can sketch the plants in it

no... no sketching - too much work, just needs notes and samples, nothing fancy

ok but i also want a wabi sabi sketchbook and i haven't started it yet - well, start both then... 

have to make katja's birthday card before starting on any sketchbooks - should make it with the dried flowers from last year as i haven't done anything at all with them - if i get busy using them i can press more this summer and the roses will be out soon 

maybe i can put pressed flowers in the dye journal instead of sketching?

maybe"

and on and on it went but i'll spare you the rest

over the past week i worked on all of the above and then some

the first two images are from the wabi sabi sketchbook

i've done a bit of research on the seven zen principles of fine arts, below are two of them

the painted papers are from painting trials a while back

I added them to the pages for interest but did not trim them - they went in as they were 

wabi sabi

below is the first page of the dye section in the ink, paint and dye journal... i've done six pages already and quite a few in the ink section as well

i'm so glad i finally got going on this - it will be such a great resource and a nice record of my putterings with plants and pots

and hopefully it will put an end to the mysterious colours

next is the card i made for my niece's birthday... black watercolour paper for the base sets the flowers off beautifully but every adhesive i tried showed on it and careful as i was there was some visible in a few places

i tried concealing it with black markers but no luck and then i remembered I had some ivory black watercolour paint so i tried that and it was perfect

these are all flowers i pressed last summer in the yukon

i kept trying to compose the arrangement on a separate background thinking i would take a picture of it to use as a reference for when it came time to gluing things down but the flowers kept jumping around and nothing was staying in place

it was exceptionally frustrating as i thought i needed to plan the whole thing out before beginning but that wan't working and so i glued down the tall green grass stem first and went on from there

it went surprisingly well from there

and to get a jumpstart on the sketching flowers plan  i bought a few from the local flower shop

photographing them on painted backgrounds will let me play with sketching petals long after the flowers have died

but... i've been to busy with the yard and the journal and sketchbook to do any sketching... maybe tomorrow...

in addition to all this i've finished two christmas cards (yep, i'm starting early!), working on another card of queen anne's lace on a faded floral tapestry print fabric, basted seven boro-style bookmarks and reorganised my linen scraps, ribbons and sketchbooks

busy, busy, happy days

time and distance

home now... five days on and it still feels more than a little odd to be here and not there 

wandering in to my studio a few times each day,  slowly unpacking the small box of supplies taken north, trying to familiarise myself with what was being worked on in the months preceding

it's so been so long, november really, since i've worked in this space... picking up where i left off seems rather difficult at the moment so instead i've spent some time flipping through sketchbooks and looking at work from the past year and a half or more

it's been an interesting walk down memory lane... 

a painting of old pilings from the shipyards in whitehorse on a letter from a friend who always uses the most beautiful and interesting papers to write on

wind-downed twigs found on the sidewalks that reminded of letter forms... trees have their own way with words

tissue paper collage 

plaster pushed through a floral stencil onto a painted background

small stitched samples... fragments chosen for texture and line

a preliminary sketch for a wedding card for our daughter

designing, making and using my own stamps for block-printing

painted snowy mountains

inking up pressed leaves and flowers and using them as stamps

collage... this is the piece that made me realise how much i love black

and this one from last September that looks surprisingly like something from my last post

through time and distance, the things that interested me then interest me still 

  now to decide whether to begin something new or continue with something from before... just these few photographs have given me ideas to work with in either vein

there's a hopeful fresh feeling in the air... and it's not just spring

snow day

this last week here has been spent doing the things not yet done... walking old neighbourhoods, visits with friends and painting with snow

still wanting backgrounds to work further into and using the graphite and gold paint I bought here, the quest was for something simple... paint dropped in to water and moving how and where it would followed by spatters of gold, sometimes mixed with the graphite paint, sometimes not

this next one with a bit of french ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, then the graphite and gold

when it dried I was reminded of the placer miners, scrabbling in the muck of their claims along the creeks - may just leave this one but a sketchy cabin could look pretty interesting on it... hmm

the last tissue paper collage i did got a wash of gold followed by the graphite - thinking about hitting the high points with something dark, perhaps charcoal here and there and then see where they'll take me next

the sketches on the work from the last post have begun and will hopefully be finished before i leave as well as the cabin i mentioned above

it's been a long slow progression with all the works done here but a most enjoyable one - no need to feel like things had to move along quickly... life slows down in the presence of little ones and that way of being seems to have found it's way into my work as well

i definitely want to "pack" that way of working to take home  with me

moving along

progression, on all fronts...

in my last week here, things have started to come together - it seems all this thinking time has been good after all

most of what i've learned is in reference to what i like, what i'm drawn to...

the old, weathered, linear, industrial, abstract, faded and worn

texture and line, strength in both

neutral colours but a splash of something bold now and again

a contrast of natural softness and industrial strength

these first images are crops of photos taken at the transportation museum on my birthday... crawling on the floor, trying to get some interesting angles... thankfully it was a quiet day but my actions did garner a few odd looks 

the side of a late 1920s truck

cast shadows on the floor

part of an aircraft engine

another angle

yesterday i got the idea to write verses from "the spell of the yukon" onto white tissue paper to collage with when i get home

at first my writing was fairly neat 

the tissue paper had a mind of it's own though and it was easier to give in to the nature of it,  letting the letters go where they may as the pen and the paper wished

(I learned that from the expressive calligraphy course with brody n. though this writing is in no way reflective of calligraphy)

this second column is a bit looser because of that

letting go even more

and yet more again...

that writing led me to my small "sketchbook of days" begun here in on my arrival in january

favourite lines and couplets from the same poem written lightly over several pages followed with a light wash of paint in the colours i am seeing here at the moment

three two-page spreads with varying transparency in the colour;  shown here is the lightest of the three

sketching on top of all of them is next - perhaps some mountains or hills, maybe skinny trees, winter branches...  when i get home i'll try this again with my light grey permanent pens as well as my dip pens using a more calligraphic style of writing... perhaps some fireweed pink colour added to the mix... or purple for the spring crocuses that will cover the hills after my departure... and the flowers themselves sketched on top... maybe a splash of gold paint

none of these thoughts are original - you can see versions of any or all of it all over the internet but they are new to me and a way of moving my thinking along in a delightful easy going way