some things i did

art activities are still taking a back seat to house painting and yard chores... frustrating beyond measure but there is some satisfaction that things are starting to look pretty good and i remind myself now and again that at some point the end will come

one exceptionally hot day forced me inside and so a bit of sketching and mark-making took place - working with chunky blocks of charcoal but also an indigo intense block, and a few charcoal pencils... it was a messy, dirty business but oh so much fun

i used a large piece of drawing paper and just started making random lines and marks across the paper... it wasn't easy though, perhaps in part because it all felt so aimless but i kept on, sometimes turning the paper, erasing, smudging, re-drawing and slowly the process drew me in

it wasn't long before it began to feel like a landscape so i turned the page again, trying to force myself away from that

in the end it all looked rather odd to me so i tore it into large chunks, trying to isolate areas i liked

the piece below was leftover, the only area where there was nothing i liked at all... but it's funny the difference a day makes

when i photographed it iPhoto imported it upside down and i liked it that way so much i duplicated the image and now have a copy of it each way round

and a few more days later i can't say that i prefer one over the other - there are things about each i like very much

last sunday a big wind kicked up late in the evening - it was a wicked one, and the sound of it woke me several times during the night

the next morning i took my phone with me when I went for my walk, knowing the trees would have shed a number of small branches and the sidewalks would be littered with "letters"

they did not disappoint... many photographs and a handful of twigs later, i arrived back home with a good variety of interesting letter forms to sketch - so many in fact I decided I needed a sketchbook devoted just to them

a "y"

a very funky "r"

(this one fits right in with the thinking of the expressive calligraphy course i've been working on)

another "y", because you can never have too many

some of these, if turned, could easily be interpreted as a different letter but I take them as they are presented to me

my favourite of the day was an "f"

photographed below with an "l" from the next day along with a pinecone... thinking perhaps it might be a period because after all, trees use punctuation too

let week i discovered tinted charcoal pencils... 

sketching first with a mechanical pencil, then "driftwood" to emphasise the darker gnarly areas and finally a touch of "mossy green"

and then my laptop did it's thing and gave me a new perspective on it too

how it happens

it's been another long hot dry week here, the drapes and blinds shut all day to block the sun... an afternoon in the studio had been planned but all my energy and ambition had faded away with the cool morning air

tidying then... the continual little pile of things that don't get put away

these two were there, in amongst the hastily scribbled notes and diagrams

placing one on top of the other, liking the effect, thinking about what could be next, i had an overwhelming urge to make of these small linen, paper and sometimes cloth and lace collages

tidying was off the table 

a little more cmc added to the glue jar, a dash of water and swirl around; setting that aside, 

into the linen scrap box I went, then the paper and cloth ones respectively

some used parchment paper from the last collage go-round laid out and i was ready to go

and just like that there were 33... all laid out over three sheets of parchment paper, drying quickly in the warmth of the room

they were made quickly, almost nothing was trimmed except for a few over-size pieces.. a few scraps of lace here and there but only four or five - mostly it's paper and often but not always there's a scrap of cloth

they're small, a couple are long and narrow, maybe 1 1/2" x 3", most are perhaps 2" x 3" or less

love the ones on dark linen... stray threads here and there, a selvedge left in place

the one below is from a making session a while back - there are 8 or 9 like this, all about 3 1/2" x 5" or thereabouts, all on a scrim/cheesecloth base... light and airy, fragility at it's best

no particular plans as yet for all of these but the wheels are turning

in addition to that there was an afternoon spent putting together my coptic-binding sketchbook

it went well, only one tangled thread, holes and signatures lining up well, a nice firm binding, flat covers, a book that sits closed and opens flat

the neat, regular stitches on the inside

so far so good... next is to tackle the large one 

in my usual fashion though, the urge to paint my own cover has hit and so the project is stalled for a bit whilst that gets sorted out... never having painted anything that large, and wanting something in my favourite yukon palette but abstract, not representational, some experimenting is in order

and so here we go again...

the time it takes

this post could easily be titled "round and round and round we go"

it all went like this:

several weeks ago a plan was hatched for a project to do 100 small collages in a couple of days but before commencing on the collages a sketchbook was needed to mount them in as soon as they were finished

not having one in the "perfect" size, a second plan was hatched to make said sketchbook

paper was purchased, cut and folded, spacers made and inserted where required, cover boards cut, cover papers selected, all ready to go and then...

a decision to make a coptic binding rather than a case binding led to a few self-doubts... i've never tried my hand at a coptic binding

being rather attached to the papers etc. chosen for the "perfect-sized" sketchbook, and not wanting to discover a coptic binding would not be the best choice after the fact, yet another plan was hatched to make a trial version in a smaller size

first a little research on how to make a coptic-bound book and then more paper cut and folded, more cover boards cut, new cover papers selected and so on

the paper has been glued to the covers and they have been pressing under weights for a few days now

next up is to poke the holes in the covers and signatures and the trial version will be ready to stitch together

the paper chosen for the cover of the trial version was one i had wanted to use on the "perfect-sized" sketchbook but didn't have a large enough piece

it reminds me of the evening sky at twilight

the first one you see is going to be the front cover... the large black mark in the centre-left makes me think of a mountain and just above and to the left is a crescent moon shape... the gold accents are metallic, the soft pink and general busyness of the paper makes me think of the milky way

and here, the back cover

a lot more pink on this one but still a beautiful sky

as soon as the paper cutting and folding began a settled happy feeling came over me... i do love to make books

this morning, as i was taking a few minutes to check on the boards to see if they're ready for the book to be put together i saw this collage of paper, scrim and silk cloth... it's a favourite that's been hanging on an inspiration board in front of my writing table for quite a while now, and wondered... what kind of cover would it make for a book?

hmm...

turn, turn

had a day set aside this past week to do some playing with my ink and a few new art materials but a summer cold zapped almost all of my creative energy

i showed up at my work table at the appointed hour where the materials were waiting for me but all I wanted to do was turn around and go find a comfy chair and a blanket

still... there was a sheet of acrylic paper marked off into various-sized sections and a brand new intense indigo block waiting for me along with a few inks and my fountain pen

i began with the indigo, then a bit of water followed by a black art graf tailor's chalk and then my fountain pen

every so often a bit of water was added to the page, then sepia ink, and whilst things ran together in interesting ways, the mountains i had envisaged did not materialize and it was all beginning to look like a mess

thinking white acrylic paint might help, i added a bit to a couple of squares with a palette knife but it was awful so i quickly blotted off as much as i could with a paper towel

a bottle of white acrylic ink was lurking at the back of my worktable so i gave it a good shake whilst looking over what i had done thus far, waiting a few minutes for all of it to begin drying

giving the ink a good shake and then using the applicator, I made some gestural marks in each of the sections

a short time later they were dry so i peeled off the masking tape and had a look at what i'd done

not terribly impressive, not at all

and no mountains... but, knowing you just have to keep moving forward, i cut them all apart 

odd how separating them, allowing each to stand on it's own changes thing

isolation is a very important design tool and one i learned early on to keep at my fingertips

 taking each in turn, looking at them this way and that, turning them,  looking at them from all sides

it never fails to amaze me how much that simple act can totally transform something 

every single one looked better in a different orientation than the one it was created in

this first image is the "right way up"

and now with a 180 degree turn

the next two were both turned once to the right - they look like winter trees

love the snowy branches

my four favourites

working in this random, gestural way may seem like an odd way to create but i couldn't have painted these if i tried

labouring over them as I iould have done would have made them contrived and stilted; instead, by just playing with ink and marking tools, being ok with not achieving what i hoped for and looking to see what else might be, i found something beautiful and inspiring