the in-between times

I remember long-ago lazy days of summer stretching endlessly ahead of me... walks in the forest, days at the lake, jumping waves, collecting the shells of fresh-water snails, picnics at the Rock Pile

the summer days still seem endless but not so much in the lazy, pleasant ways of used to be

summers now tend to be the time for the large-scale outside maintenance chores that take up big chunks of time  though this year it hasn't been as bad as usual

this year its only the fence that needs fixing and staining and though I had a brief foray into it in May its only now that the work is in full swing

which means creative time is minimal... which means its hard to dig into anything that requires any kind of regular attention or large blocks of time... which means I get agitated

sooo... determined to be able to do something creative as and when a bit of time presents itself  I sat down a couple of weeks ago and did a quick doodle, expanding on an idea I tried a few years ago of adding details to a drawing of the clay cliffs in Whitehorse using writing for some of the furrows

I couldn't find that drawing so grabbed a piece of paper that had been smudged with charcoal and had a play at using asemic writing to depict hills in a landscape - not trying for anything specific rather, just an attempt to see if I could approximate what I was envisioning

this was literally a 3 1/2 minute effort,  just to see how the marks could work in a landscape and I came away thinking it was somewhat promising so I got out a couple of books I have on expressive calligraphy and had a flip through them

and then a video or two...

and now the worktable is laid with watercolour and ink, brushes and pens and whenever I have a bit of time between fence panels I can grab a tool and make a few marks

and in the way of things, now that I'm thinking about marks and such my niece and I found some interesting pieces of bark whilst on a walk last week... large chunks had fallen off a dying tree and we noticed interesting marks on this one

made by termites, it looks to me like a map of their munching

and then we saw a few other examples of nature's textures

 I remembered this image from the Spring... the disrupted reflection of branches on the water was very intriguing though admittedly, I didn't notice that until looking at the image on my laptop

so... I made a duplicate, cropped it and added a filter called "Silvertone"

lots of possibilities for calligraphic play here, as and when...

and in between fence panels

noticings... "being known"

when you live in a world full of such interesting things "noticing" can sometimes seem to take on a life of its own, with each day laying any number of such things in front of you for to be seen

as the curious mind collects these noticings, they are sometimes enjoyed for a few fleeting moments or, if recorded in some manner,  they can be transformed from simply being noticed to a state of being known

I have carried pocket notebooks on trips that over time become laden with written noticings,  observations I have made on anything from menu items, signs, behaviours, scenery - things people have said and small details I have seen

flipping through it will take me back to an exact moment and place in time a way more fulfilling than looking at a photograph ever could be

several months ago I wanted to make a small book for a friend who shares the same love of observation and recording but I wanted something that was more for a drawing or fragment than only the written word

and so the idea for a "noticings book" was born

in the end I made two books, one for each of us, knowing we will enjoy observing our different approaches to using a book such as this

to continue that similar yet different approach I made the covers for both books from a single piece of ink-painted paper

to further enhance that which has been noticed I wanted to create a design space on each page that would act as a kind of frame

as I am still quite new to print-making this took a bit of thinking and planning

along with more than a few trial runs

in the end I got what I was after

a diminutive concertina book with a small square blind embossed indentation on each page, the perfect place to isolate a small yet important noticing of some kind

first drawn out on graph paper, then a model made with a lightweight interfacing with small squares of sturdy cardboard glued in place

all the measurements for fold lines and page joins worked out

the only challenge was that toward of the printing the required number of pages for the two books (plus a few spares for good measure), the cardboard corners were starting to soften and fray, the embossing becoming slightly less distinct 

I'm keen to make more books like this but am thinking I'll see about getting some small copper or brass plates for etching and using those for my templates rather than heavy-weight card

but that's a thing for another day and time

for now, there is world of wonderful things waiting to be made known to me

it's all about the light

August is change... I felt it early one morning last week, there was a slightly different quality to the cool air wafting through the open window

couldn't put my finger on it but it was more than just the feeling of a cooler summer morning - more like a felt memory of late Fall... when the nights and mornings are dark,  the ground frosted white and the geese fly overhead early and late

later that morning an email from a friend mentioned her return to collage experiments and as always happens when she writes me of them, I had a renewed collage hankering of my own

I thought of some frosty prints I had made a few years ago, some using a Lino-block stamp I had carved - a quick search found them along with a few other simpler scraps 

above is the orientation I began with, below is where I finished

not sure which is best but I'm leaning above

along with everything else, I've also been working through a "Winter Writing Sanctuary", a seasonal free offering by Beth Kempton last winter - the lesson I was on whilst working on this collage was to write a winter Haiku poem using various prompts - the one I had chosen was "winter garden"

shadow petals drift

thorns lay bare across the snow

winter garden moon

not a direct translation of the collage but there's something in each that reminds me of the other

on searching for the said prints I came across some pigment-coloured cloth I had made a couple of years ago

in search of twilight at the time of making, I had played about with indigo, black and yellow ochre

the result wasn't overly successful but as I looked at it the other day I had a hankering to draw darkened bare-limbed trees

a dip pen and carbon black ink I made worked rather well I think

done lightly, there is little to no bleed 

small, absorbing what-ifs that whiled away the hours a few times this week

when its hot and humid

the heat arrived last week -  blistering temperatures, the hot heat

 the humidity followed forthwith

uncomfortable doesn't begin to describe it so to soothe myself, I browsed photos taken in the depths of winter

this one, of the Klondike river boat, is a favourite

it was taken last November during a wild snowstorm that descended on the city in a moment and created havoc within a couple more

 

a few years before that I took the image below... a section of one side of the Klondike, before the latest restoration began, the boards beautifully distressed

the boats were constructed of narrow strips of wood, painted white, a simplicity in design I have always been drawn to

 a long time ago I had a thought to some day take that design sensibility, long, narrow and white, to make a book

seems some day may have arrived... 

having made up my mind to get started on it, I quickly decided on the paper I want to use (Hahnemühle Agave Watercolour paper (my favourite) and then thought about what this book might look like

long, narrow pages, white, a nod to the boards

at the moment I'm leaning toward a measurement of 3 1/2" x 9"

for imagery I decided to turn to the river for inspiration

favourite images of the water and some with the shore were printed

a rummage through some older work yielded strips of white linen that had been coated with gesso and then painted with watercolour - something interesting in that combination

 before I tackle the actual book I'm going to work on a number of sample pages, beginning with what I know and then seeing what comes of that...

for now its a place to begin

 

 

these are now glued down, the "page" pressing under weight

 

I then wondered what cutting a long narrow opening into a page might look like, with the imagery of the next page showing through

I dithered on the size of said opening and then decided to just cut one and figure it out from there

so far so good

the first trial "window" is 1" x 6 1/2"

I like it but proportions are tricky things so I might try something slightly less than 1" on the next sample - or maybe cut a few with a variety of measurements and have a play

laid on an image of shore trees against the sky, I liked what I was seeing, so much so that it is now cut and mounted behind

 

another project on a long list of "would like to do"s coming to the forefront and one I'm excited to be starting finally, after all this time

so now its ice lines stitching in the evenings when I get to sit a spell and paper and book things in the day when I need to escape the heat

summer might not be so bad after all!