distractions

a long-overdue tidy up of my worktable last week was on my very long list of things to do

as I surveyed the clutter I thought if I had to clear it all away I might just as well shift the table to face out the larger window and since I was going to do that I might just as well clean the windows and vacuum the curtains whilst I was at it

emptying the bottom shelf to facilitate the move meant reorganizing all of that might as well be a part of the game plan

and so it went on a dull Tuesday morning

a 30 minute job turned into three hours but at the end of it I had to admit it was worth all the effort

you might think that's because everything is nice and neat and once again I am not just reacquainted with many of my art supplies, I also know where they are!

truthfully though, it's not that nice and neat because of my having taken a closer look at a piece of scrap paper I used a couple of weeks ago when I was painting 

 I was so taken with the random brush strokes, blending of pale colours and interesting creases that it took me a minute to recognize it as a paper "drop sheet" 

next to it were a few scraps of a failed photo transfer from a very long time ago... the photo had been one of the clay cliffs and as the transfer didn't work properly I cut the linen into random pieces - one reminded me of a birch tree so I laid it on top of the painted piece

a tree beside the frozen river

another fragment of the same paper was where I had tested a few colours before painting the papers

more ideas for the pilings...

so not a bad morning then

a tidy up and a few more ideas generated

well, not a complete tidy up... these are still sitting on the worktable

I can't seem to bring myself to put them in the sketchbook yet - I want to look at them every time I go into the studio and think about how to develop them further

what paper to work on?

watercolour or acrylic?

charcoal?

supplies are slowly gathering and it seems yet another tidy up is in the offing...