sketchbookery

few things in art annoy me but sketchbooks and getting paint all over my hands are at the top of the list

just to be clear though, I love nothing better than looking at sketchbooks - flipping through my own or swooning over some I have seen online; my annoyance is completely wrapped up in working in them

fear of the blank page, fear of messing up, not knowing what to do, ripping pages out or gluing them together when the work goes awry

several weeks ago I'd had enough and embarked on another attempt at a 30 Day sketchbook challenge I had bought a few years ago

some days have been easier than others, some results better than others (there has been no consistent correlation between the two)

the pages shown in this post are from the last week and bear being seen as a group as they are all on the subject (the reason why will become clear shortly)

number one:

consider the stages of your work, where are you most comfortable, beginning, middle... end?

definitely more comfortable in the middle... rarely do I have any kind of plan from the beginning so I tend to do or glue down the first thing I think of - a mark or scrap of paper, swath of ink or paint... and then figure out what I can do from there

once I get that first thing down it goes fairly easily from there

I always get hung up at the end

if I think it's finished I almost always also think its too simple

if I think it needs something else I struggle with deciding what

no vision

number two:

work in a series

easy enough - pilings and river then, with the first in the series already in the books

painting the river was way more satisfying than a piece of painted paper as in the first iteration; working directly on the page felt rather bold 

a scrap of fabric with dark lines was a nod to the river boat

this version feels looser, the river feels alive - it was the opposite in the first effort

number three:

feel free to be yourself - no requirements, do exactly as you please

easy peasy and fun to do

felt like playing with the trees so I did

rougher pilings, painted in layers with sepia ink

wintery

day four:

explore a colour you don't use a lot

I like black but don't use it a lot so...

black marker and ink for the trees

a black mono print for the river, black ink for the rocks

I applied glue to the back of the paper for the river ice and whilst attaching it I crimped it every so often to get the icy wind-row effect

watered down black ink stippled on it here and there in a quest for the granular texture of the ice 

pictorial but I'm ok with it

day five:

work with a strict time limitation; as well, try working in short bursts and then step away for a few minutes before doing the next thing

this was fun - I get way to caught up in taking all the time I want when working on things which results in a lot of dithering and usually a lot of over-working things

I did what I knew first - the dark river in the middle (which is bluer than it looks here) 

quickly followed by the painted paper below

walked away...

came back in 5 minutes, painted two pilings (the left one was shorter than shown here)

went away again... when I came back where the pilings went into the river the paper had wrinkled and bubbled horribly

whilst thinking of how to deal with that a cut-off from a sheet of practice calligraphic mark-making caught my eye 

it was perfect - neither tree nor mountain, just expressive marks that made me think of wind

a new river glued in place with paper pilings glued over top of the painted ones dealt with the mess

pleased with this one  - it does look much better in person!

day six:

dialogue between pages - what has been working, what hasn't - how can you expand on some of that, or subtract it?

I have enjoyed working with the pilings yet felt I wasn't progressing in the shapes (too hung up on the numbers I think and not trying for expressiveness)

 the horizontal lines in the first two collages of this series were also pleasing so I began with those two elements

a scrap of paper from cleaning excess paint/ink from the brush had me thinking of the pilings 

a piece of tissue paper I had accordion-folded and then soaked with watercolour a few years ago was laid over top

the rest was a fight, trial and error, do and then cover up

the top pale piece is a greatly enlarged crop of a photo of the river ice 

the dark piece on the right is a print of a painting I did a while back

(I photograph my favourite painted papers and then print them on fine Awagami printer washi paper to use in my work)

this piece, this day, was when I finally felt like I was getting it

pulling apart that landscape and bringing together the elements I care about in a way that evokes all of it, just not in direct representational way

and then...

day seven:

conquer your fear

take a piece of work you think is finished, or that you love, and add something else

be brave

and how did that go?

not well at all

loving the look of layers I added a small scrap of a print of cloth I had painted a while back

when I sat it on the page and looked at it in a photo I liked it

yet when I glued it down I did not...

having typed that last sentence, on impulse I just now went back to my deleted photos to take a second lookout said image and realized right away there had been another strip of paper off to the right that I hadn't used

hmmm...

I'll be right back...

and done!

I flipped the thin strip top to bottom for better balance of the golden brown and now am happy

somehow that thin strip of painted paper with the slash of golden brown has added a richness to the piece it was lacking

when I sat down to write this blog post I was firmly convinced I had been right in being afraid of wrecking things that I love,  that my hesitation to push forward is well justified and keeping things simple is a good strategy

and though this is not at all a resolved piece of work nor do I think I have made something amazing, I do believe it is far more interesting with these two additions... not necessarily better, but for me, more interesting

I just hope the next prompt isn't to take the same piece and do something else to it...

four more days to go 

and. how many more lessons?

take care,

Jillayne