inspiration perfection

last fall I discovered a UK artist whose work I fell in love with

Rebecca Louise Law

she works with dried flowers, hundreds of thousands of them, and makes the most breath-taking displays

I have always loved dried flowers... every summer there are bunches hanging upside down here and there,  inside the house and garage, drying for winter's enjoyment 

her work makes me want to rip out all the grass and just plant flowers

 and then along came the sketchbook prompt for Day 10... 

 "Steal Like An Artist"

in other words, use the work of someone you admire as a jumping off point for the making of your own

be inspired by it but don't copy

I struggled with this as I very much do not want to copy anyone though there are certainly times I see something in a piece of art that sparks an idea

{An interesting aside to this is something that has been happening to me more and more of late... I'll be scrolling through Instagram and see something amazingly brilliant - a twist or turn on the usual that is fresh, inventive and gets me all fired up... I grab my reading glasses to get a closer look at how they did it only to find out that what I thought I saw and what is actually on the screen are two very different things. It turns out my terrible eyesight has provided me with a brilliant way of being inspired and no theft involved!}

anyway, whilst casting about for who to "steal" from and not wanting to do this with anyone I actually know, I remembered Rebecca's work and thought I would choose an image I like and begin there...

ethereal, delicate, subtle in both form and colour, a beautiful play of light and shadow

inspiration perfection 

I began in the sketchbook, bright white smooth paper a perfect foundation

watercolour paint in purple and grey... lots of water... smooshing and scumbling away

fragments of lace painted in white and pale grey pressed on top

it didn't work very well until I started rolling the shaft of the paintbrush over the lace to really press the paint on to the paper

when that dried I took a floral stencil and scraped Golden brand Fibre Paste thickly over top, giving the look of plaster flowers and leaves trailing down the page

a good start with lots to look at and think about

today I took the page out of the sketchbook intending to cut it up but in the end I just placed it to the side and began to work on a separate sheet of acrylic paper - the texture of the paper resembles cloth and the softer white a perfect match for some other papers I had prepared 

diluted carbon black ink painted on vellum, a torn strip from a letter, the pieces of painted lace and a piece of either gesso or matte medium, or maybe even heavy-body acrylic paint... (more likely a combination of all three) that I had put onto parchment paper instead of a palette to use in something I was making; when I was cleaning up the next day I found the leftovers had dried and loosened from the parchment - it looked interesting so I kept it but wish I had written down somewhere what it was

I wanted something white with a branch-like texture so I found some very thin tissue paper, tore strips and layered them onto parchment paper using cmc as a glue, pushing the tissue paper here and there with a paint brush to form delicate ridges and lines

underneath the painted lace are threads I saved from when I tore and cut it, they are just dropped on here to scatter as they would

I though the piece second from the right above was too straight at the top and bottom edges so I tore it again

new, improved version below

much as I like the torn letter strip I thought it really didn't belong so I removed it, added another tissue strip on the right and extended that with a smaller piece of the dried mystery product

below, that small bit of mystery product on the lower right is now removed

I've tacked a few pieces in place with a dab from a glue stick and will attach everything in the coming days - it's a good start but the colour is missing

and although I looked at my painted inspiration piece whilst doing this I hadn't used any of it so I took the painted lace and dropped it on there to see how that looked

 I loved it

so much so that now the wheels are turning yet again and where I am with this today may not turn out to be where I stay

again, and again, and again

it's happened again... the on-going, ever-present, continual, wait-for-it, dependable, here-it-comes, yes, she's changed her mind again...

like the song

"again, and again, and again"

I don't think I'm fickle... I think it's more about not having a clue 

that could be spun as a positive, "she's always willing to try again when something turns out to be not quite right"

whatever one might think of it, I've tweaked things yet again, but I may just be on the right track

finally.

it took until Wednesday to finish Grey's birthday gift... I was hoping to be done sooner but the added time gave me a very significant advantage (over myself!) in that it gave me the time to really think about what the heck I've been doing and what the heck I want to be doing... his gift was a painted book and it was more than a bit of a struggle at times but in the end it came out ok

that evening I picked up a piece of hand-stitching and the instantaneous feelings of joy and relief that washed over me were a tad overwhelming and in that moment I knew, regardless of what other artistic techniques might catch my eye, it's thread and cloth for me forever

that moment of clear understanding also made me more determined than ever to figure out how to use sketchbooks to help me develop my ideas - my usual way of using them has been as a repository of samples I wanted to keep and a place to glue down bits of paper, notes and quick sketches, but I never actually worked in them

in this challenge I have been painting and glueing my way around the page, getting it done to a point I was happy with and moving on, page after page in a watercolour journal

nice to flip through the painted pages but where was the development of ideas in that? 

it felt more like scratching an itch

(not that we are encouraged to work in that way, it's just what I was doing)

so now that I kind of knew what I was wanting and as much as I like "beginnings", I wasn't sure where to start... I had a sketchbook of the repository-style on the go but it was 14" x 17" and way too big with not a lot of blank pages left to use... and besides, as I said, I do like beginnings

an hour later I had it completely taken apart, all the stuff I was no longer interested in was gone and the remainder ready to put into a new one - over the next two days I took those half-dozen samples etc. and began a new sketchbook, this time adding some drawings and notes, snippets of fabrics and thread - not fancy, just capturing thoughts

today I cut the most recent Sketchbook Challenge piece out of the watercolour book I've been using up to now and attached it to a blank two-page spread

notes of how I did it

today I looked at it fresh, thinking about what I could do - I want to embroider on interesting surfaces and so for a start I'm working on them

I had the three small samples of paper strips on linen I made last week so today I started making cloth ones using cotton, silk and lace, thinking about layers and peeling, paring back to what was

for years I have saved small bits of cloth and lace so I had a good pile to work with... but every piece I chose had to relate back to the initial work in some way

the blue/gold silk below will get crinkled and puckered when I stitch it

last week I also made larger cloth and paper bases to stitch on - the piece on the right is one of those, what looks like stitching is a fragment of lace pulled and stretched, tacked in place

below, the piece on the left was made on the same day - the piece on the right almost two years ago but I just found it today... various papers joined with free motion stitching... I like what I like I guess

thinking about the strips and the lines that form as they are laid down and brushed with glue, edges tear or roll, distorting, moving as if they are flowing water

so I drew that and made notes about options for filling in - then gathered a few things so I can make a sample of that

below, textured silk on the left, tissue paper stuck on card-stock with cmc on the right

starting out in pencil, with a big eraser, a kind of "safety net" I suppose, but I am determined to not try and  make it pretty - this is a working book, a place to capture ideas and move on

I'm very happy to be getting this figured out and though I want to capture a few more thoughts I am also keen to get on with the next prompt from the challenge and start a new page all over again so I'm giving myself one more day to focus on this and that's that

after all, there's just nothing like a beginning

in and out of comfort

it's been a quiet week creatively

I'm working on a gift for our Grandson, who is going to be three in a couple of weeks... the years fly and as my daughter likes to say "time is a thief"...

I haven't done anything new in the sketchbook challenge other than a little preparing and thinking for the next prompt which is:

"Sketchbook as Sidekick"

meaning using your book to develop ideas etc. and in order to do that page/prompt, I have to actually develop an idea and that takes time

I may move on to the next prompt though and work on the "Sidekick" one over time

whilst I mull that over,  here's what I missed posting last weekend

Day 4 - a prompt for repetition

I rarely use squares in my work and that's the first thing that popped into my head when I read the prompt

tissue paper wrapped around some Christmas presents was my inspiration so I used some of it along with woad-painted paper cut into a square, watercolour squares painted directly on the page, inked squares, stamped ones and a gold foil one for sparkle

I liked doing this, like the end result, but am not at all inspired by it - still glad I did it though

the prompt previous to that (Day 3)  was to be a rebel and break a design rule

I had no idea at all what to do so while I waited for some inspiration to strike I used a palette knife to smear white gesso thickly on the page creating ridges here and there

I had a stack of random pretty-coloured papers to the side and the recent purchase of gold leaf adhesive (I bought the gold leaf long ago but had never done anything with it)

I was thinking the ridges were kind of like plant stems and from there it was a hop, skip and a jump to torn paper flowers with gold leaf stems, the ridges deciding where everything would be

(hopefully the ridges would create a not-following-the-rules design)

when I finished with the leafing and flowering I felt like it was pretty ho-hum but had no idea what else I could do... a few dots with a permanent pen on the upper left gave the sense of a leaf without doing the whole thing - I liked the result so added more dots in a couple of other places

I had a very strong urge to add them on the lower left, where you see the short almost dark-like strokes of gold leaf

I thought dots in between those would help balance the whole thing but then thought I shouldn't add them as that might help me be a rule-breaker

  I may eventually add them anyway, prompt be damned... still the rebel, but in ways of my own choosing!

then came Day 9

"Changes and Limitations"

I had some scraps of paper and one bit of linen, all creamy off-white lurking on my work-table so I thought I would limit myself to them 

I stuck them down with matte medium, thought the linen too plain so put some fragile lace-like paper on top and when I went to reposition it it started disintegrating and rolling, creating a fabulous texture you can see in the far left of the image below

it was too easy though, too "me", so I continued on... found a scrap of heavily textured brown paper and stuck it to the lower area of the page, again with matte medium

my intention was to put white acrylic ink on it and blotch it around, creating an interesting lower half but the ink reacted with the paper and started turning an odd greyish colour (I actually found a version of grey I do not like!)

anyway, it was awful so I decided to pull the paper off, hoping it hadn't stuck yet

it had, and when I tried to take it off it made a big mess but after a minute I decided I like the mess very much so that's where it sits today

I wanted to add some stitching to it, long straight stitches using sewing thread but I needed to give that a think for a day or two

and then I discovered the "Sketchbook as Sidekick" prompt  and decided I would develop ideas from here for that page

I made these three small versions of the upper half but on linen rather than paper

today I made five much bigger ones so starting tomorrow I'll begin my stitch experiments and see where this takes me

it made remember this piece I did a couple of years ago... handmade papers joined together with tiny straight stitches, all done by hand

this is NOT what I want to do

I love it, but I want to go somewhere else 

not sure where but I've lots of samples and a sketchbook page to help me figure it out

day after day

January days slide by like no other in the year

I look forward to it... this month of quiet and darkness, often cold, with room in the day to think, to try, to do 

the month of renewal and new beginnings

I don't make New Year's resolutions but I always approach each year with a desire to do more of what matters and less of what doesn't

this year is no different and what is mattering to me right now is using some of the art supplies I have gathered over the years - take up those things and work with them

I'm not a trained artist and don't know a lot about paint and such but I like to get my hands dirty and see what can be done with what I have

the 30 Day Sketchbook Challenge is pushing me where I've been wanting to go and though I've kicked up a fuss a time or two, I've worked at it every single day and I've learned several things about myself already

the two most important are:

 I'm not afraid of slapping on paint or cutting things up

 BUT 

I do need a reason for doing what I'm doing - when there's no "story" I am at a loss of what to do

I figured out the first one on the first day; the latter just yesterday

another important thing I learned a long time ago is that the first few versions of a new idea are usually not what I actually want but it seems I have to get it wrong a time or two before I fully understand exactly what is key in what I'm after

so here I am on Day 9 of the Challenge and feeling like I am finally getting comfortable with my sketchbook - maybe I'll have myself a "39" Day Challenge!

(I've just realized Days 3 and 4 aren't here and the light's gone already so I'll take pictures and do a post about them later in the week)

Day 5

Take Risks

since I've never really worked in sketchbooks I had trouble with this prompt so I decided I would do an ink print of a pressed leaf on a textured background and see where that would lead (the "risk" was using one of my precious pressed leaves, a favourite)

the leaf pressed fine but looked rather silly plonked in the middle of the page and one section on the left didn't print well, so... I crumpled some tracing paper and stuck it over top of that side with matte medium, and painted it with indigo ink 

it all looked rather strange so I found a strip of linen covered in straight stitches and stuck it over the join

stranger still

then I found a scrap of painted paper with beautiful browns and smudge of dark blue so I added it to the lower right-hand corner

 the right side now looked like some kind of symbolic landscape and the left. well... it all looked rather weird

I was at a complete loss so I left it and moved on to Day 6

today I came back to it... remembered a piece I had done just before the Challenge began so dug it out - a stitched tree branch on paper and inked over - perfect

when I pulled it from the bag of paper bits another piece fell out - a thin strip of paper with black marks

it was from a larger piece I had done last year, trees drawn on paper and then cut into slices

that went on the linen strip, the stitched branch on the left and I was happy (enough)

I still like the right side best... it's like mountains, or an ice wall... a glacier maybe, with the dry earth and the promise of trees to come?

Day 6

Colour Cues

consider your colour choices and do something different

hmmph! I'd been doing that already with several of the challenges (Days 3 and 4) and as I was struggling with the whole thing in general I thought I would take it easy on myself and do what I liked

pale it was - blue paint, cheesecloth stuck down with matte medium, gesso and more paint, then glued strips of linen leftovers again - I haven't decided what else to do so here it sits

Day 7

use imagery

another tough one as I really don't go for that in my work 

I was struggling with the prompts, the lack of specificity so I started reading them the night before so as to have time to ponder them and what they might mean for me

and I had already used imagery in the previous day's work with the linen cross though I hadn't meant anything by it, just liked the look of it - maybe then it doesn't count?

I did know I didn't want to face another blank page in the morning so I took some of my carbon black ink, wet the page, drizzled ink on it and took up my palette knife

moving the ink back and forth over the page, "cutting" into where it pooled, scraping and pushing, eventually I covered the page

the next morning I saw mountains

fractured peaks, coming forward, receding, jagged

I loved it

each time I looked at it I saw something different... the strength of them, the fragility, cracked stone, the heaving of earth

mountains pushed higher into the sky, wind and water wearing them away

and in the centre, a dark eye... or perhaps an ear, turned on it's side

I left it as it was, the first thing I'd done I was truly happy with and no way was I going to mess it up

Day 8

Edges

hard or soft, everything has an edge and artist's usually have a penchant for one or the other

I like both

(nothing's ever easy with me)

as I was thinking this one over I thought about edges in a more abstract way, and how water and land are two edges we humans love to try and control

but water ultimately finds it's own way 

I began with a piece of tissue wrapping paper with a map print, tore pieces and stuck them to the page

to the right, a fragment of something I made two years ago, cattails, in paper and silk

on the left, small squares of paper, one flocked green with images of leaves and plants, the other mottled, splattered blue, for water

blue paint, a stitched line of green thread

I'm sitting back on my heels with this one, thinking about what else I might add - it may be done, it may not

I love how I can come back anytime and add more

I had thought I wouldn't add stitching to these pages, that I would make smaller versions of them on linen or paper and stitch on those but the urge to add stitch to the sketchbook pages is too strong and so I'm letting go of the small versions, at least for now, and focusing just on the sketchbook itself

the little one I did for Day 1 is finished so I added it to the sketchbook page along with an off-cut of the inky-black paper

I've come to realize that though the prompts for the challenge may be more abstract than I expected, they are helping me learn more about what I need in order to do the work I want to do

it's not supplies, or really even knowledge - I'm perfectly happy to make do with what I have and what I don't know I can usually figure out

I need a reason, a meaning

I need a story and a way to tell it

what to do?

what to do indeed...

January is "my" month, the one month of the year where, at least at the beginning, I let myself do whatever I feel like

after the busyness of the fall and especially December, it feels like a just reward

this year I decided I needed to get busy using some of the inks, paints and hand-dyed thread and fabric I have made so I signed up for a 30 Sketchbook Challenge and got myself ready...

my worktable has been set up as a paint table with everything I need to hand - keeping it simple and having what I need handy is one way to help me stay on track

I began yesterday and the prompt was 

"Back to Black"

Back to black?

I never use black... dark, dark brown is my choice in that arena but black it was...

I began with a layer of Golden's Fibre Paste and then used a fan brush to paint using the woad watercolour paints I made last summer

after that I "smooshed" on some of the permanent carbon black I had also made - wasn't sure about that so added bright white gesso on top

whilst I worked in my sketchbook, I also did the same things on a small piece of khadi paper - the plan is to work into that with stitch, taking the idea further

below you can see the sketchbook page, small piece for stitching, accompanying threads I dyed last summer and, at the upper right, the scrap paper where I tested out the smooshed black ink technique

I was very happy with this start - even though I had to use black, it all felt quite comfortable 

these are my colours after all

smugly pleased I peeked at today's prompt before going to bed last night...

"Permission to Be Free"

ick

"free" for me would be to hardly do anything at all to the page... minimally minimal is my mantra almost all of the time, to the point of being afraid of being too plain

somehow I didn't think that was what "Permission to Be Free" was really all about - to me it read more of a "Be Bold Not Afraid" kind of thing

ick and yuck

anyway, the whole idea of this is just to get at it, do something, start, see where it takes you

I ended up here

the page was primed with bright white gesso as was a piece of linen (for the stitching later) and then I got out more of my inks:

indigo

green, made with weld and indigo

bourbon-brown walnut

I started with the green, then added the brown

I wish I could say it all went swimmingly well but it really didn't, at least not at first.

Initially I was thinking about trees so my tool was a small piece of driftwood from Marsh Lake in the Yukon, but then cattails crept into my head so I went with that. After filling the page with marks made using the two inks I thought it was flat and boring so I reasoned if cattails were what was inspiring me then there should be blue

using a tiny paintbrush I carefully painted indigo ink here, there and everywhere, sometimes over green, mostly just in the white space, the brush skipping over the page like a fly on water

it kind of looks like a mess but it kind of doesn't

there are most certainly parts I like very much

as on Day 1, I made another piece to stitch into, on linen this time, still with the driftwood as my painting tool, and then to use up the remaining ink I had poured onto the palette, I laid a piece of rough watercolour paper on it to soak it all up and then worked into both of these with the indigo ink 

the threads and ribbon in the photo below are ones I dyed quite a few years ago, the ribbon in 2015

a perfect match

only two days in and I am already feeling a slight shift in my thinking - still fearful of failing, but beginning to feel ok with it

continuing...

as for everyone, it's been busy days here...

I do love this time between Christmas and New Years though, the days slip by in a relaxed, easy kind of way

the first few are spent tidying away the remnants of  wrapping and decorating: snippets of paper and ribbon, ornaments that have lost their hangers, stacks of books that needed to be moved to make room for company, etc. etc.

the last two have been spent organizing my studio, preparing for what comes next

I'm still working on my Christmas ledger, snatching moments of time here and there, laying out page compositions only to sweep them aside and try again

the latest one was a title page for the trees... Christmas trees, of course, but also trees of the winter forest 

I found a vintage Christmas card, one of a half-dozen I bought in an antique store in Burnaby about ten years ago - they will all find their way to these pages eventually, but for now, this one has found a home

I also sorted out all the green embroidery thread I use the most and have been grouping them and wrapping thread cards to add in the days and weeks to come as I do yet more stitch samples

in the meanwhile, I had a few samples I had begun of poinsettia's that I wanted to work on... thinking about greenery, inspired by this small tag...

plain outline sketches, templates, ideas for stitching petals and leaves - I can't stitch as fast as the ideas come but at least I'm creating a place to record them

the challenge is not to get too precious about the samples but once I start one I have this notion that it has to be "right"... so I ask myself,  is this meant to be a record of the development of the idea, or the culmination? 

for the one above, the plan is to stitch a different piece of greenery in the spaces between the petals to illustrate varying options... below is a sample where I want fabric leaves but the linen/cotton fabric is too dark of a green for my liking and the leaves, too "predictable" so I am going to remove them... the next choices are below - pale sage greens, right side or wrong? 

these are the decisions, and ultimately, the samples, that I am continually revising

what I know for sure is I love the petals done this way and I'm pretty happy with the centre though I think it needs to be more open - I want to sample a variety of threads for centres so I'm working on a plan for that, both the doing and the presentation

I'm enjoying this work very much, it's a nice way of easing back into making but it is also nice to finally be continuing on with some of these stitched samples that have been kicking around for many, many years 

I'll be working on it all through the year I think, getting what I already have safely attached and developing some of the ideas further

I'll leave you now, with best wishes for the year ahead...

so many of the struggles of the old year will be continuing on into the new, there's no magic re-set button for any of it or any of us but I look forward to it just the same... optimistic, realistic, accepting, and determined to do better... seems like a lot of contradictions in terms but I suppose I'm like that

peace and goodwill to all of you

and a heartfelt thank you for being here

ever present

for as long as I can remember, making things for Christmas has been my favourite 

I love everything about it and every year I am inspired anew

a grey folder has been home to various templates and a pile of drawings, lists of thread colours and stitching notes... in another basket is a small stack of stitch samples

the other day, sifting through it all, I thought it might be nice to gather it all together and put it into a book... 

a Christmas ideas book

I began with the snowflakes

a stitch sample I made a couple of years ago

threads I've used for them plus this year's woad

several months ago I bought a journal made of khadi paper 

 I had been wanting khadi paper for a different stitching project but it was sold out on every website I looked at except one that had journals... the price was comparable to a package of paper of the same size so I shrugged and thought why not? 

easy enough to take apart 

but then it arrived and was far too beautiful to do any such thing

glad of that now as it's the perfect book for this

below, a page from the book torn into four pieces, one each for sampling stitch, sketch, script and watercolour

I've only ever stitched on khadi paper so I need to test my paint and pens to see what works and what doesn't 

more stitching and samples of cardstock

next is sketching, a pattern page and some quotes and phrases

planning has begun on the pages for trees

there are so many ways to stitch them - these are just a few of the ways I've done them over the years

looking at them, thinking about what it would look like if I stitched them as forest, had me remembering these words from the poem by Robert Frost, which led me to a notebook of Christmas and winter quotes, phrases, and poems, copied out in calligraphy twenty-two odd years ago whilst taking a course in calligraphic writing

I'm tired of having things scattered around the studio, having to search here and there to find them when I need them

the inspiration pile is growing by the minute as I remember bits of stationery, vintage Christmas cards, gift tags I've saved for years

it'll be nice to have one place for all of it