one of my earliest memories is of playing on the wooden sidewalk in front our house
it was early summer, and the tree that grew right beside it was fully in leaf but only just
I think why I remember this so well even though I was only three years old is because the scent of the leaves was very strong, a sap-green smell that filled the air and only seemed to stronger as the sun shone on
sitting underneath it, the branches concealing me, it was a lovely home for me and my dolls, the leaves casting shadows on the soft, smooth boards which had become "beds"... it was a charming little hideaway. and I played there for a long time before my mom came looking for me
several years ago I came upon a number of photos of my dad taken at about the same age, many of them of him on various different wooden sidewalks all around Whitehorse - sometime around 1941-1942 I think
and so an idea started brewing...
this week I made an attempt at achieving something that would look like an old and ragged wooden sidewalk using cloth and earth pigment paint
two versions, one with small boards, the other, a shorter version but on larger scale (width, not length)
below is the top of the smaller version
and then the underneath
the topside of the larger scale
and again the underneath
in both cases I prefer the underneath sides; the boards are well defined and the cloth, though still looking a little gritty is much smoother and more even than the topside
it's usually the other way around but one of the pigments I used doesn't like to mix well with others nor does it like to sink
the fact that you often get to choose between which side you prefer is one of the side benefits of this technique
the drawback...?
I have to wait four weeks before I can start to take these further
on the other hand, that gives me a lot of time to ponder what "next" might be - as yet, there is no plan whatsoever
this was just a kind of fact-finding mission to see if it would work and now that I know I can do it I need to think about what comes next
in the meanwhile I want to have another go at it but this time on a larger piece of cloth
and so the journey continues, one board at a time
4 comments:
I like those - yes, very like boardwalks!
"down on the boardwalk, down by the sea"
Oooh I missed this one - very glad I noticed it now. Your work on this is fascinating. These are very believable and beautifully wabi sabi.
I, too, played beneath a tree when I was little, only mine was a massive blue spruce. There was a perfect play area beneath and my dad created a little wooden table there so I could have tea parties with my dolls.
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