sift, sort, start

travelling is finished, company is gone

I could have written that four or five times this year but now both truly are finished for the remainder of the year and I have spent the last two days settling in to my creative work

where was I then?

ah yes...

 

nowhere really

it was a lot of sorting samples and sifting through ideas

not much actual work

the images today are the last of that and as of now the new work has begun

still banging away on the same old tune though

water, sky, plants, layers

abstraction is still top of the list

distinguishable... not obvious, that's my playbook

last year (or was it the year before?) I gathered linen in the manner of shibori and painted it with a granulating watercolour by schmincke 

it's called "forest" but dries blue and brown, sort of

the brown settled on the edges of the folds, the blue elsewhere

below,  top left

on the right is a print of a cropped, bleached out version of it and at the lower left is another, cropped even more

still looking somewhat like water though if placed in a different context, perhaps not necessarily so

a close-up

on the left below is a rudimentary plan for a weaving idea I'd like to do on paper

the other two papers are a nod to a possible colour palette

I'm exploring the idea of extreme photo crops being translated into small woven tapestries though the idea is teetering on the edge of "why?" 

time will tell...

and yet another train of thought is fighting for space just now and it's gaining traction...

still with water, still also the Gold Rush

exploring ideas of water carrying people along the path of their dreams

the clothes they wore and how they were made

a dress Martha Black wore that I have written of before

and work I did inspired by the neckline and it's edge-stitching

note the brown silk piece at the lower left, the blue silk  "waves" at the right

and here I give you a water-inspired version... pale blue-green and brown shot chiffon silk, a "v" created with hand-stitched tucks, the embroidery design taken from a piece of driftwood

a loose plan has formed... clothing, nature, the journey, as bound together in stitch as they were in life

I'm taking this further, though for now I'm making samples of the hand-stitching techniques of late 19th century clothing whilst I let my mind drift along

there's something interesting here that has my attention 

farm work

a sense of leaving filled the last few days at the farm

 that separation of me from place began early I think 

 in a bid to hang on to the simple beauty of following the rhythm of the light I gathered materials that lay at my feet and began to work with them

grasses were printed by pressing them onto a pigment ink pad and in turn onto the pages of a small book I had made in the preceding days

an acorn cap was also pressed on to the same ink pad and then holding on to the stem end it was twirled over the page, the tiny marks finding a pattern of their own

a very scruffy sketch of a young oak tree Maggie, the alpaca liked to stand beneath and quietly watch me come and go 

a very old, almost falling apart bird house on a faded fence, the branches of a nearby evergreen providing a beautiful backdrop

flowers pressed and smeared on the page, the acorn cap for marks and show-through marks from a print on the next page 

a print of grass on the right, a sketch on the left

another sketch, this time a lichen covered oak twig

almost all of this was done in less than an hour

seems I'm no longer as intimidated by the blank page as I used to be

I think that's a direct result of my daily evening sketches... there is that new-found confidence that once I start I can work with what I've got, the first marks are just the beginning and perfection is not required

home now, though I did bring some gatherings to make ink, paint and dye with and will get to work on that this week

this little book is not yet full 

something new

a few weeks ago I came across a method of making books that focused on decorative stitching along the spine... decorative, yet functional as it is also how the book is constructed

as we're visiting at my sister-in-law's farm in Oregon it was the perfect thing to work on during quiet afternoons in the large barn conversion space that is used for all manner of creative work

rather than trying to learn the stitching pattern whilst actually constructing the book I tried a few that looked intriguing, doing them on strips of the cover papers

and am I glad I did!

they are not at all difficult but working out the best spacing for the stitches, thickness of thread for certain stitches and contrast preferences (thread to paper) proved to be a challenge; as with embroidery, some stitches just look better with low contrast and others shine with high

the thread I used was valdani pearl cotton in either a 12 or an 8 weight

when I get home I'll try a few with a 5... for the most part I think 12 is too fine

these samples will all go into my book-binding sketchbook and used as a reference - easy to make a choice when looking at these than a photograph or stitch diagram

and finally, a couple of photos 

 the first is sunrise south of Summerland the day we left

and this next one is a barn-shed on the hilltop across the valley... we climbed high on the hill directly behind the barn for this view

heading home on Tuesday, it's been a quick trip but a delightful one in every way

paper shuffling

last week, against all sense and reason, I had the urge to gather up some papers painted last year and shuffle them about for a while

looking for connections, how this might work with that

layers

juxtapositions

in the doing of that I noticed marks, nuances of line and colour I hadn't really seen before

beginning with commonality of colours, I found papers and fabrics I had painted with varying media

watercolour, ink, acrylic paint and gesso

and then lit upon some pieces done using expressive calligraphy, the words from a Robert Service poem

written with ink on paper I had painted with watercolour

a spray of water immediately after writing caused the ink to burst forth, creating marks that reminded me of the dark winter trees I grew up with

a heavily edited photo of cloth I had gathered shibori-style and painted with a granulating watercolour paint, also from a year and half ago, also seemed like an interesting backdrop 

there are some here too that are intriguing me but there was no time to take either of these further (hence the "sense and reason' remark) - we're off to Oregon for a while to visit family but as I said at the beginning, the urge to play with these was too compelling to ignore

I haven't brought them with me to work with but I have brought the fire they lit in me along with a few supplies to feed it

after a few years of struggling to find inspiration I have come to learn that I must take it where I find it, follow the threads where they lead me and let the work come as it will

to trust in that and seize it when it does

this one I've grabbed with both hands