caught in the ice...

wandering in to the studio late one afternoon just over a week ago, wondering what I could do with the free hour I had... looking through a few things on my worktable but nothing clamoured for my attention

 by the time I finally chose something almost half of the hour was gone

feeling frustration starting to rise at the time wasted I thought back to a day not long before I went to the Yukon in May, when I had settled on re-visiting my work on the Yukon River and developing some new pieces

to the storage drawer I went, pulling out a few pocket folders and zippered storage cases filled with cloth and paper samples and snippets

within a few minutes I had sorted out everything that had to do with the ice lines I was exploring early in the year and decided to begin there

that evening I looked through the photographs I had taken on the day I first noticed the ice formation, set up a "River Ice" folder in iPhoto and transferred them all there

the next time I was between chores (staining the patio and/or picking cherries) I played with a few simple photo edits and then printed out ten favourites to work with

this past week I cut out the photos in preparation for drawings and a bit of mark-making, cut up some drawing paper and generally got organized for that

once that was all sorted I turned to the stitch samples in progress, thinking about which ones still capture my interest, what just needs to be finished and which ones provide enough information as they are and can simply be mounted in the sketchbook as a reference

to be sure I run the risk of making this all about getting organized - its an old trick of mine, used to dodge doing the riskier stuff like actually drawing, or starting a piece of work

to snap myself away from that I picked up a piece of linen I had done machine stitch writing on... it was from several years ago, a discard from a previous work

hmmm....

it was triangular in shape with a wobbled curve edge

a few seconds later there were three wobbled-edge strips - layered, they reminded me of the ice, the rough texture of it, the repetition of line

next is to add a few stitches along the raw edges

the idea of stitching words on the cloth with the machine holds more promise I think, and a few variations on the theme have already come to mind

jotting things down in the notebook I set up (like a bullet journal, with numbered pages and categories) will not only keep me from forgetting any random ideas that wander through my mind,  but will be a quick stop to find something to work on in those short periods of time available to me during this very busy month

it's all about cherries for the next while...