thoughts of a wandering mind

dappled light, cool morning air

high on the ladder, red pail hanging by its handle, I'm hidden in a swathe of green and red

thunk, thunk, thunk, into the pail the handfuls of cherries go

the methodical repetition of picking them allows my thoughts to wander to the small room on the top floor where creativity happens...

in my mind I gather fine Japanese papers, vintage linen, threads in shades of blue/grey, white and off-white and drawing/painting supplies... looking and considering, laying a few of each aside to begin

twenty minutes later, at the potting bench, the cherries now in a large bowl, the sorting begins... good ones here, the rest there

here, my mind wanders again, now experimenting with printing on the papers... first digitally using edited photographs, then mono- and gelli-plate printing... ice lines flowing across the pages in silver or grey

inside now, standing at the kitchen sink - washed cherries to the left, a parchment-paper lined sheet pan to my right

pulling the cherries apart with my thumb, removing the pits. checking for worms (I found 9, in 175+/- cups of sweet and tart cherries)

at the same time,  the work upstairs has progressed, painted and printed papers depicting the frozen ice that lay along and partially over the Yukon River were being combined in various ways, here and there with added stitching or drawn marks... the work was absorbing and experimental, I was very much in a "flow" state of mind

as the last pan of cherries slid onto a shelf in the freezer, the images of creativity faded away, replaced by the hum of the refrigerator as I closed the door

it was wonderful while it lasted...

the next day, with a few free hours ahead of me I stepped into that same room and all of the inspiration I had been previously flooded with fell away, dropping at my feet as swiftly as the few errant cherries that had escaped my grasp the day before

I've had this happen to me time and again but on this occasion I was ready - all the work I had done ten days before to print photos, make notes, organize my thoughts - all of that was all recorded in my sketchbook, just waiting for me to finally show up

flipping to the pages where I had jotted down ideas of ways to depict the ice lines, I quickly settled on one close to the top of the list

expanding on the kintsugi-style trials I was doing on paper in the Spring, I wanted to try the same thing with silver leaf to portray the wind-blown lines of snow and ice

choosing a piece of drawing paper previously painted with a pale blue-grey ink, I began

silver leaf

building up the lines by adding more and more layers of the medium as each dried, eventually I had achieved a certain degree of relief that felt correct and as soon as it had dried enough I applied the silver leaf

next was to cover that with the specialty sizing that would allow me to add paint - this in an effort to break up the lines of silver somewhat and bring in the sense of crusted snow and ice

the photo makes the lines look very dark - in reality they are mostly a fairly flat silver though I took care not to put the sizing on all of it, wanting some of the brighter silver to shine through

with the sizing medium

next was to start adding colour over top of the silver in a stippling effect, using white and light grey

that took a lot of trial and error, first to find the right paint, and then the right brush

I finally settled on matte acrylic paints in white and black and a small, scratty brush, bristles somewhat stiff from being used as a glue brush over time and also from being cut into to create an uneven edge to it

first I stippled light grey here and there on the silver leaf lines followed by white - once that was done I added a few light grey stippled areas here and there between the lines, looking for a rough ice surface effect

with dry and white paint on the lines and in-between

I was beginning to feel somewhat pleased with the overall effect though it did seem rather "neat and tidy" so I decided to add one more layer

a fine white stipple over much of the ice area, crossing over the ice lines, overtop of the light grey already there - just a random pouncing of the brush with the barest bit of white paint

low exposure

I played with the exposure setting when photographing this stage in order to show the white stippling done at the end - it seems to be rather effective at bringing the piece to life

below is a high exposure photo which is probably a bit closer to the true value of the actual piece than the one above

so... I think next I'll print each of these last two images on a piece of fine Japanese paper and then have a think about what to do with them

I may not exactly remember all I made whilst up in that cherry tree, nor during the processing afterwards but it fed the creative spark, got me to just show up when I did have the time, and my previous planning helped me to get moving when I began to flounder

this small exercise in creative experimentation has given me a great big creative boost but the funny thing about it was... whilst working on the ice lines I was thinking of making cherry pies!