sometimes...

 often the best way for me to gain insights into my work is through my hands

 letting them do the "thinking"

this week it was the other way around

my hands were busy enough, finding all manner of papers, photos etc. for the collage work I had planned

busy laying out different options

busy putting most away afterwards

by Wednesday I had two layouts to choose from... until I realized neither had the lichen paper in the mix

arghh - that was the plan that set this whole collage experiment in motion, to do something with the paper I had just made... so back it all came out again and I started over

this time, my head was more involved

considering colour, value, movement and so on

a day later I had chosen what you see below to start with

a massively cropped and edited photo of a rock, another of trees on a misty Yukon morning, two images of cloth I had painted, one shibori-style, again both highly cropped and edited, and another cloth I had transferred an image onto

I have a love for painting either cloth or paper and then photographing it, playing around with editing tools and printing the created image on fine art paper to use in my work - it certainly removes the fear of cutting into a "precious" piece of cloth or paper as I can print it over and over again

and, if I want a more cloth-like nature to a print I can employ the techniques of momigami, which is exactly what I did with one of the pieces of the lichen paper I made, first konnyaku starch and then the crumpling

, 

below, the edited rock image

nature does make the best marks

nothing is glued down yet but I have got to the final layout of the base

I love it though it is rather quiet  - quiet in my work is something I have always sought but I realized this morning that what I really seek to achieve is expressive quietness

there has to be something somewhat dramatic to elevate a piece from quiet ho-hum

I'm thinking the calligraphy I've been doing lately might do the jazzing up this needs... large marks, in black, thick and thin, beginning in the lower left

something done in a hurry, quick-like

I'm also quite intrigued by the shadow falling along the right side

some transparent ink, layered in like that might also be in order

so... I've spent the past couple of days working at learning to make larger more expressive calligraphy

and early in the week the aqua ink and roller will come out

there are two more layouts in the earliest of stages  that may or not get taken forward in the next while - a lot would have to change with these two, this is only the beginning of seeing how the elements might play together - I was more concerned with colour and texture at this stage than anything else

so far so good, but now the things that add the interest need to be figured out - what moves, what goes, what comes in

what's next

take care,

Jillayne