snippets...

raining... a lovely cooling rain has been falling off and on for much of the day

it could rain for a week solid and I wouldn't mind, even two

we've been stuck in the house for weeks anyway, between heat and the smoke-filled air, so being in for the rain is a welcome thing

the only drawback is how dark it is in the house; between the smoke and what must be dark rain clouds up above it, the lights have been all day

embroidery is nearly impossible but there are other things I've found to keep me occupied

I've been recording ink recipes in my book, replete with the blobs and splotches of ink I was wishing for

writing with a dip pen and home made ink is not quite as easy as some make it look - most of my inks turned out just fine but a few have viscosity issues, the cochineal red being the worst so I'm slowly adding gum arabic to thicken it a bit. The indigo ink is actually pretty good though it doesn't look it here - these blobs and irregularities are "operator error", but I'm getting better with practice.

for my birthday this year a very good friend made me a cloth snippet book, a place to attach all sorts of snippets and bits of cloth and thread

I've begun by taking a few fragments I've saved, off-cuts from larger pieces, tiny but precious, and stitching them in small compositions

most of these are very small, a half-inch in width, an inch and half square - hard to do anything with them, but I liked them too much to throw away

it's pleasurable to sit of an evening, with my snippet jar to hand, rooting through it for bits and pieces of pretty

arranging and re-arranging

 and thank you Karen, for both the idea of a "Snippet Jar" and the advice to never throw anything away!

next is a bit of an embroidery - not too much, I don't want to get too carried away with these, but a few stitches just to enhance things a little

a lovely way to while away the hours while the rain gently falls and the forests slowly cool

busy days

I've just had the loveliest of weeks...

and a rainbow of colour has emerged 

we're moving on to pen and paper in the ink-making workshop so I wanted to finish my inks and get them bottled, ready for the dip pen

designing the labels was almost as much fun as making them... almost

I used hot-pressed watercolour paper with brown Kraft cardstock underneath

iron gall ink for the writing

all the coloured threads except the red one on the end were dyed with the inks themselves

the red is made with the addition of tartaric acid and the coloured thread disintegrated in my hands as I rinsed it

who knew?

below are the blacks 

the iron gall "farm" version on the right was made with oak galls I gathered at my sister-in-law's farm in Oregon several years ago

as I gain proficiency with the dip pen my labels will have more information on them but for now it was tricky enough just to get the names and pertinent information

next is to work on my ink-making journal

so far I've made colour swatches for the title page

I've also added samples of the indigo ink-dyed cloth and thread

I don't want this book to turn into a massive "art" project - rather, I want a journal to record processes, recipes and inspiration in

something full of jots and scribbles and ink splodges

it's easy for me to get caught up in neat and tidy with regimented rows of samples and such but that isn't at all what I want

looking at the picture above it seems I'm not off to a roaring start...

time to get some ink on my fingers and turn the page!

the never-ending quest...

since my younger years I have been fascinated by words... an avid reader, it was a natural progression to love writing as well

dictionary games in grade 5 instilled a love for said books, reading my

 "Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged"

version as if it was a novel - all 1854 pages of it!

from there it was a hop, skip and a jump to making my own books as well as studies in calligraphy,  so it should come as no surprise that I have also harboured a long-burning desire to make my own inks

this summer I finally set out on that journey thanks to a course from Tim McLaughlin at Maiwa  called 

"The Ink-Making Workshop"

So far I've made carbon black ink, water soluble as well as a permanent version, cochineal red and cochineal purple, and now indigo

I still have three more to make and then we're on to a module on penwork, working with dip pens

Friday the urge to mess with the inks was too strong to resist so I got out an eyedropper and some fabric I had done a soy milk mordant on as well as a skein of white embroidery thread, and dribbled away

the colours look grey in these photos no matter how much I try to edit them - they're actually a soft denim blue, a very pleasing colour reminiscent of the colour of jeans back in the 1970s

these two remind of a cloudy sky

as ever, I have no specific plans for these dyed pieces except the long narrow one under the thread - that will be the base for my next bookmark... fitting I think

the ink is deep blue-black, full of pigment, a beautiful, velvety colour

fresh off this success I'm going to try colouring a few small pieces with the cochineal inks next

I've already made a small book to record the ink recipes in along with any and all of the other experiments such as fabric and thread swatches, pen-work practices, sketching, painting... 

and on and on it goes

summer fun

summer of '74... my best friend and I decided we would teach ourselves to paint, her with acrylics, myself with oils...

I spent all of my savings to buy paint, brushes, canvases, linseed oil etc., all the trappings needed to wield a brush and look at the world with new eyes

it's one of my fondest summertime memories, one I've pulled out every so often and thought about, wondering where the impetus came from?

to my recollection neither of us had ever expressed a desire to paint, nor can I remember which one of us threw the idea out, but I do remember that however it struck, we were both all in

when the summer ended we each put our paints away and that was that

over time thoughts of painting again grew; I took a watercolour painting course in the first years of this century and though it was enjoyable and I learned a lot, I didn't stick with it after the classes were finished

I kept the paints though, knowing someday I would pick up a brush again, and over the past four years I have - mostly just playing around, painting what I "need", simple things like holly leaves or rosebuds... now I'm getting a little more serious and am working on developing my sketching skills in addition to painting

I've been making good use of the local library since the early days of the pandemic and taken out a number of painting and sketching books

when I was trying to find interesting subjects to practice on I was stymied - nothing appealed really, and I didn't feel like trying to sketch in the cold so I took to copying some of the sketches in the books I borrowed. Copying is such a great way to learn (many of the Masters developed their skills in this way), and makes it so much easier to just get sketching as opposed to finding and "framing" your subject.

In order to make myself a good learning reference I am adding notes from the books to the page so when I look at these I will remember the lesson, kind of a sketching instruction book tailor made for me!

"water" is something I very much need to work on so these first two pages are water studies, the first is three versions of water and sky

next was waves - well, a wave to be precise

this one was a lot harder and there are tools you can use to give better effect but I was working with what I had

pretty pleased with both of these!

then came rocks

oddly enough, I have discovered I have a thing for large rocks and boulders

there was huge rock pile not far from we lived for most of my childhood - rocks big enough for two or three of us to sit on together, complete with a picnic lunch - I want to try painting it from memory so I am practicing rocks

the thing I love about sketching is how absorbing it is... time stands still, the world falls away and there is nothing in my mind except the soft, swift strokes of the pencil scratching on paper

finally I tried my hand at a landscape; again, a copy, but looks pretty much like anywhere around where I live - mountains, trees and a river is common Canadian view here in BC

so far so good... happy enough with these

still seeing loads of room for improvement, lines I'd change, shading I would do slightly different, but overall, a good beginning

the trick now is get more confident, make bolder lines, and hopefully speed up a little

in the meanwhile, it's good summertime fun

things that happen when you're forgetful and messy...

I have a pink peony growing in my back garden... I love peonies so when the first bloom appeared I had to pick it and bring it inside

sitting on the kitchen table, the scent filling the air, it was a daily delight

as more of the buds bloomed I picked a small jugful and set them on a small table in the backyard whilst I finished my chores... it looked so pretty in the zinc jug against the green of the cedars that I left it thinking I would fetch it in later...

oops!

I forgot all about it and so they sat

fast forward a few days and the peony inside that had slowly been fading finally looked done for... as I pulled it from the glass vase, the petals fell on the table in a shower of pink and white

scooping them up, one that had fallen to the side caught my eye - it was shaped like a heart and looked so pretty... slightly wrinkled, softly coloured, cupping in the centre with the furled edges perfectly so

I gently carried it up to my studio and laid it on the writing table

it's been busy days around here, especially with the heat wave we've been having here in British Columbia and my time in the studio has been pretty much non-existent except for my morning writing, which begins  with the daily ritual of moving papers, books and all manner of creative bits from here to there and back again

the next morning, as I cleared the writing table, I placed the petal on the stack of paper and cloth from last week's blog post, and was struck by how pretty the petal looked on it

possibilities began to flood through a whirring mind and I wished I had kept more of the petals... then, for the first time in five days I thought of the peonies I had cut

racing outside, sure they would be a droopy desiccated mess, I found instead a jug filled with the loveliest dried peonies, their colours beautifully preserved

the water had long since evaporated and in the 39 - 42 degree weather we'd been having, they had dried as they were - I couldn't have achieved such results if I'd tried!

today I began taking one apart - the petals are soft and flexible, not brittle at all, and I can gently rub and smooth them a bit, coaxing their shape, and then experiment with bases to lay them on 

I like the fragments of lace one the best

next I trimmed the lower centre portion of the petal where it attaches to the stem

my plan is to try attaching them to a chosen base and then add French knots for a flower centre, experimenting with various fibres, hoping to achieve something highly textural and somewhat organic in feel

the petals also looked pretty on the paper I made but this might need a more compositional design and I'm just scratching an itch here rather than wanting a full-on piece to be working on for days

still though...

these are the things that happen when you're not just messy and forgetful...

you kind of have to be paying attention as well

thinking, doing, looking, seeing

over the last year creativity has waxed and waned

not often sure of what I want to create, I'm almost always sure of what I want to work with... the solution? 

scratch the itch

if the urge to play with scraps of fabric or lace strikes, that's what I do

when I feel like mucking with paints... I dig some out

I've been working with watercolour, acrylics and water-soluble oils all year; the piece below is done with heavy-body acrylics on watercolour paper with strips of linen attached with gesso prior to the painting

as always with me, texture comes first

when I have leftover paint I dab, scrape and brush it onto other watercolour paper

I tried watercolour paint on acrylic-paint paper (below image, upper right),  acrylic paint on oil-painting paper canvas (bottom), and eventually watercolour on watercolour paper (far right)... I like to see how the paints work on various papers

I also like to see how different fabrics work with the painted papers

one day I made paper, embedding cheesecloth in the layers of pulp, adding dried plant material for flecks of colour

all of these experiments had no end purpose, just the urge to see what could be done with whatever was to hand, building a library of skills, ideas and samples

with each one I see a full range of possibilities, ideas for taking them forward in many different ways

the small stack has built up over the months, never far from sight

every few days I pick it up, shuffle through, looking at them in different ways, seeing new possibilities - what surprised me most was that even though these have been done over the course of the pandemic, and many other things were made and worked on in between, they have a strong commonality of colour and texture

there is simply no denying I like what I like

*I recently learned the "subscribe by email" gadget is going away soon so if you have subsrcibed you'll not receive a notification after the end of the month. I'll see if there is a suitable replacement but in the meanwhile I plan to post on the weekends, usually Saturday

As Time Goes By...

well, been quite a while since I've posted here, and not for any reason but I just kind of ran out of things to say...

it has been the strangest of years; worrisome at times, downright pleasant at others, I haven't minded a quieter way of living nearly as much as I thought I would have. Puttering in my studio, in the yard, in the kitchen - those are always, have always, been my favourite kind of days... I like a quiet life.

creatively it has had it's ups and downs, some wonderful "discoveries" coupled with a fair amount of frustration... waffling, dithering, and being "blocked" have all been present; thankfully I've come a long way in figuring out how to deal with all of them. It always boils down to me being far too attached to the outcome, something I am learning to let go of.

in the meanwhile, I've been using this time at home to try some new techniques, hone some skills and do something different... sketching and painting have moved up the creative ladder and captured my attention of late. When I first started reading up on and learning about sketching I found it difficult to find subjects to use for practice. It wasn't long before I realized it isn't so much that I want to be a sketcher, rather, I want to be able to sketch what interests me when I'm travelling... one of the exercises in a book I was using suggested choosing a sketch by a "Master" and try copying it. I loved doing that and became somewhat obsessed with it so I decided I would learn to sketch by copying sketches and it's been great fun, very interesting and I am already growing in confidence. Win, win, win!

this first one is a copy of one by John Muir Laws, taken from his book "The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journalling". I actually did quite a few copies of sketches taken from the various lessons in the book as well as several watercolour paintings during the time I had his book. (One thing the pandemic did was spur me to get a library card and I have been beating a steady path to and from the library ever since.) This lesson was on drawing a forest view, doing lots of detail on one tree trunk and then lessening that as up draw back into the forest.

this next drawing is a sketch adapted from a watercolour painting by Ann Blockley, a UK artist, this one taken from her book "Watercolour Workshop". Thankfully our library has several of her books! 

as for hand-stitching, I've been making cards lately... they're reasonably quick, lots of variety, nice to give etc. etc.

my latest versions have patched backgrounds of naturally dyed, organic Indian linen from Maiwa

using Edith Holden's book "Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady", I sketched versions of selected paintings and began interpreting them in stitch. 

neither are completed, I flit back and forth between them as the mood strikes

this first one is also sporting some snippets of fabric I dyed myself, long ago, whilst we still lived in the Yukon

a little snapshot of some of the things that have been capturing my attention over the course of the past year and a bit...

what's kept you busy?