one and done?

a few spare hours one afternoon this week had me itching to start the colour module of "found" but as i began to gather the required materials i realized i hadn't seent nearly enough time on the mark-making and shapes modules

"one and done" is not likely to reveal a whole lot of what i like and what i don't as far as marks go nor is it going to help me get past my difficulties in getting those first marks done

colour was set aside then and the inks came out

one thing i had wanted to do in the expressive calligraphy course was to write out some of robert service's poem "the spell of the yukon"

he often wrote of the land, the harshness of it and a loose thought had formed of taking some of those lines, writing them expressively and then adding paint/ink/water to create a landscape, formed of the words themselves

that idea seemed like a good fit with "found" and a first rendering shows some potential 

the lines used were:

"from the big dizzy mountains that screen it,

to the deep death-like valleys below"

apologies, as i forgot to take a photo of the first line before adding ink and water

there is much potential in this so i'll continue exploring the "written landscape" in the coming weeks

on to mark-making then,,, a sheet of good quality drawing paper marked into a grid with masking tape

somehow small squares feel less daunting though i'm just now beginning to feel an overwhelming urge to do this again, no grid, and just do whatever, wherever, and see where that takes me...

black stabilo, black woody pencil, my own walnut and carbon black inks

a bamboo skewer, the pine needle paintbrush i made last year, a dried poppy seed pod, a dried peony flower... such good fun

i began in the top left corner (see below) and did these four squares first

being happy enough with them helped loosen me up and the rest followed swiftly, and yes, it was definitely interesting to grab different tools and try them out

the next subject was shapes and i wasn't keen... not at all

i've never thought a whole lot about shape but i am learning i'm not a fan of rounded, blobby shapes, nor squares - i like most rectangles, some triangles but not all, ovals, though not so much the perfect ones... rosebud/leaf shapes but not too contrived - it's all a "just so" kind of design sensibility i think

i like the shape of nuance

at first I drew dark blocky shapes and was not at all impressed

a fresh sheet of paper and i started with a loose circle but the lines didn't connect so the look was of a circular shape but without that "closed" connection I felt like it was curvy lines as opposed to a proper shape

pickiness aside, i trudged on but with the woody pencil instead - if i had to have shape then i was having texture too

the leaf shapes came next, then the flower, followed by what appears to be an upside-down heart but is actually the shape of the base of my studio spray bottle

the last one was inspired by the antique carved wooden frame of a small painting i bought at a brocante in france in 2019 

this is my first experience drawing with a woody pencil - i've never seen them before but was ordering mark-making supplies from jackson's in london, england and noticed them so thought i'd try one - will definitely have to get more 

an enjoyable second go-round and am actually feeling somewhat keen to do more

but the colour module is also beckoning...

dusty roads

a very inspiring blog post i read a little while ago reminded me of a print i had ordered of my icy branches trapped along the shores of our little lake -  printed on hahnemuehle bamboo printer paper,  it's been languishing in a drawer for almost two years

i'd intended to use it for a book cover, hard-backed, but had never got around to making the book as i couldn't decide on the orientation

the idea of small pamphlet-stitched booklets as in the linked blog post was very appealing so i dug out the long-forgotten prints (there were actually two copies) and set to work, cutting the paper so i had two landscape booklets and two in portrait-style

two of the booklets have a fine drawing paper for the pages and the other two have sea white cup-cycling paper, a nice drawing paper made from recycled coffee cups

love how the image spreads across the booklet when it's fully opened

being very inspired, i printed one of my favourite icy winter images of the yukon river taken this past winter and made a fifth booklet with it

for an extra bit of detail I added either a sliver of a photo or piece of painted paper to the inside cover(s)

when the prints were cut down tiny over-looked details gained in prominence - here the markings on the ice resemble two hearts, nestled together

the image below is my favourite of all, that hint of red-brown bark is such a delight

working with these images brought to mind a small envelope of old photographs of my dad as a young child that i keep on my worktable

whitehorse was vastly different in the early 1940s, before the army came to build the alaska highway... before any roads were paved, when the town was still very small

dad loved to fish in the river but more than that he loved to wear his papa's hat

there is nothing like riding a bike an old wooden sidewalk... uneven boards and curled edges make for a slightly bumpy ride that is far more fun than concrete or pavement can provide

(the sidewalks were still mostly wooden when i was young so i had the great fun of riding my trike on them too)

in this next image I'm fairly sure dad and his friend had picked armloads of fireweed - the leaves and stems look right

these images have always made me think of dusty roads and wooden sidewalks

kind of sounds like the title of a country music song doesn't it

for decades i have wanted to make a book of poems about childhood in the yukon using these images as part of the illustrations

first i had to learn book-binding, then calligraphy, then drawing and painting and whilst i'm not a proficient at any i think i'm capable of now of bringing my idea to life

one more thing added to the "to do" list then

"are the colours that arise with the first light of dawn beautiful if nobody is watching?"

a beautiful question and one i've gone back and forth with several times - odd how something like this can sit in my mind for a very long time, eliciting answers that are often negated as quickly as they came to be

my first response was that of course they are but then i thought beauty is a perception, not an absolute and so yes, there must be someone to see them and feel that

but then...

and so on, and so on

what it does do very well is make me notice and think of the colours that "arise with the first light of dawn"

for the past week i have been waking in the pre-dawn hours, when it is still dark and as i never close the blinds to sleep i can lay on my side and look out the window at the hills and watch the darkness begin to soften as the first light emerges from the horizon

 in those early moments, the sky becomes a light misty grey, the clouds, if there are any, are always painted in varying shades of grey ranging from dark, stormy greys to muted pearlescent ones - the trees are black-green, sometimes the leaves are a smoky yellow-green

as the light grows the colours of change, the sky shifts from pale greys to soft blues, the clouds lighter in colour and the trees brighter greens; it's beautiful, but it's the earliest moments of light and colour i am drawn to

a scrap of paper with this writing was floating around  my work-table last week so I wrote it out in my wabi sabi sketchbook and found a small piece of painted paper which portrayed the colours of dawn here so perfectly

i'm quite enjoying matching words to images; it's a beautiful yet informative way of capturing the essence of a thought

lost and found

mark-making is something that has always fascinated me but have found very difficult to do

a few half-hearted attempts left me wondering what it was that really appealed... the marks other people made were so intriguing whereas my own were somewhat... blah

they felt contrived

same with all of my attempts at expressive calligraphy but this week there was a bit of a breakthrough 

instead of trying to follow a set of prescribed exercises i worked at finding my own way instead

in large part it is thanks to the incredibly generous gift of renee mueller's online course 

"found"

won through her birthday giveaway

the first module focuses on working with writing as well as mark-making and while she does demonstrate her take on both you are to do your own thing and so, finally, i did just that

the interesting thing with the handwriting was that it fell right into the path i'm on in the course

"expressive calligraphy"

which i've dabbled in now and again over the past few months, mostly during my morning writing

this time what i did was completely different different than anything i've tried before

writing across a large piece of drawing paper that has since been cut up to preserve the parts that intrigue me the most, i found there were a couple of areas where the wiring was rather angular with a strong slant - very different from any previous attempts which were upright and curvilinear in nature

below is the first word, easily recognised as "the"... somewhat expressive, yes, but also quite distinct

the writing definitely got more expressive as i relaxed into it and by the end there was some that pleased me greatly

some was done with a calligraphy marker, some with pointed pen and then additional marks with a stick and finally the broad end of a skewer

(the stick brush was made last year in the yukon, with both the stick and the pine needles gathered from the forest behind the house we used to live in

buoyed with that happy outcome and enjoying most the work done with the stick and skewer i continued with them

flowing lines and variety in tone and shape achieved by constantly twisting the skewer in my hand as i drew it across the page

another crop taken from the calligraphy and a variety of mark-making trials, all done with the stick, alternating which end i used as i went

the piece below reminds me of the markings on the poplar trees at marsh lake - trembling aspens i believe

and yet more...

many of the off-cuts are in box of collage papers but i couldn't resist putting together this little one before tidying everything away

and so, a good beginning

how does your garden grow?

 there is not an awful lot to show for the past two weeks... it's been busy in these parts with the heat of summer upon us already

usually the transition from winter to summer takes time, allowing me to settle in to the changing seasons and adapt my routine to new ways of working

not this year - we've gone from winter to summer in a heartbeat and as far as the yard and gardens go it's been nothing but a huge challenge though i seem to have finally found my footing

the chives and chamomile are in bloom as are the raspberries, the roses are just about to and the lilac is finished

whilst waiting for more to bloom in the yard to work with in my sketchbook,  I've been playing with a few different ideas 

the first came from a book i borrowed from the library

Folded Book Art by Clare Youngs

it wasn't exactly what I was expecting but there was an example of a book page with embroidered flowers that I really liked so it thought i'd give that a try

loosely following the provided design, picking and choosing the elements i liked and softening the colours slightly, i used an old letter from france, written shortly before the great war on "ministère de la guerre" stationery

 backed with an ultra lightweight iron-on interfacing, it was surprisingly sturdy to stitch into

the letter was from a young man to his family and though i can understand most of what was written i decided not to try and do a proper translation... one hundred years and more have passed since it was written but it still feels rather private and i like that my stitching has obscured it somewhat

it's now taped into my studio trials sketchbook with the caption

"before the flowers were all gone"

which came to me just as i finished the last few stitches - and how very appropriate a title it is

i have several more letters written to his family so even though this was initially done as a reference for  stitching flowers on paper i am thinking there may be something here to think about and perhaps pursue a bit further

next, a pencil sketch adaptation of a watercolour painting from another book had me thinking more about yarrow, and a desire to stitch some in the brownish-gold dried stage rather than in full summer bloom

wanting to reinforce the idea of age and decay i prepare a base using a piece of the "greige" 110 year-old hand-spun, hand-woven linen from the netherlands topped with a piece of painted, waxed and burnt silk chiffon

once the edges were burnt the charred bits were rubbed away which was a VERY messy business that resulted in black flecks all over the place, including the chiffon which added greatly to the aged look

this sketch is just a warm up though - i'll be going out in the coming weeks to find a real-life version at the appropriate point of decay to sketch, photograph and then stitch and make it my own

if you click on the image of the linen/silk stitching base you'll get a better idea of just how grungy it is

and finally, a pink version of the white queen anne's lace card i posted a while back

 the effect of the stitched flowers on the faded tapestry-like fabric still holds a strong appeal for me and i'm thinking about what flower to tackle next

in the meanwhile, a trip to the garden centre this morning for a new watering can also yielded a white and a pale blue delphinium along with a pinkish-coral dahlia

i've a strong urge sketch dahlias and stitch delphiniums so we'll see how that goes

there are a few others on my list of flowers i'd like to tackle in one manner or another so the garden is an ever-evolving subject for art in the making and I'll be trudging off to the garden centre again before too long

there are kitchen gardens, cutting gardens, cottage gardens... why not an art garden?