continuing...

its been a week of just about anything but being creative but today I found a pocket of time to begin the next lesson

not many decent landscape pictures to choose from in my photos but I found one taken in the Lake District in the UK in 2017

converted to black & white

clock-wise from the top: shape, texture, value and edges

I really enjoyed edges, it was fun experimenting with the charcoal and I also enjoyed the texture drawing - the value one is the least successful, mostly because I was kinda sorta mostly following what was in the image but I think I will have another try at it, this time changing them in an attempt to improve the composition

apparently artistic license is a thing!

once I finish the next four in this series I have another image, one from the Yukon, I'll have a go with and when I've done that I want to try again with an image from here in Salmon Arm

practice, practice, practice

a new tack

feeling like I wasn't getting anywhere in my quest for a looser, more abstract approach to drawing the landscape, frustration was building

I knew what I wanted, just not how to go about achieving it

a chance request by another student in an online class forum yielded an answer that caught my attention

she was wanting to improve her landscape drawing skills and asking for suggestions for online drawing classes

there were several recommendations and as I have been wanting to do the same I checked into them all

one stood out:

Anita Lehmann

she has a number of classes that look interesting but "Translating the Landscape" caught my attention and though I had sworn off any more courses until Fall at the soonest, after watching the course trailer and looking through her website and instagram account,  I found myself signing up and jumping right in

and so very glad I did

her approach is methodical, interesting, focused and grounded in developing good skills and paying attention to all the important things: line, shape, texture, value, colour and so on

you begin with working through those elements with something other than the landscape - I used pears and pomegranates

the pears were much easier

(there's a reason pears get drawn so much!)

I'm so pleased with the results - they're not amazing or even good but they're better than anything I've ever done and as I look at them, remembering the process, how the marks were made, what I was thinking about, I can't help but feel a bit pleased

the light and shadows are not always where they should be but the lines show promise

it's more about making something that looks like a pear but not a perfect rendition

I used soft pastels in a drawing for the first time  - messy but the blending effects are amazing

this was done with a bright kelly green, vivid yellow and a smokey grey

I was glad to see they worked out so well as they were the only yellow and green I have!

below are all eight pinned to a board where I can see them as I get ready for the next lesson, where we

 take all of these elements to the landscape

it's surprising what clear explanations can do - not a "copy what I'm doing" rather, an approach for keeping loose and staying away from too much detail

today I spent some time searching photos of the landscape, editing them and then printing a colour version along with a black and a white one

can't wait for tomorrow!

interpretations

interpretation (noun): a stylistic representation of a creative work

we all know nature does the best creative work... breaking the rules or following them, nature's hand is sure and deft, the results cause us to sometimes catch our breath in awe and others to sit quietly in repose

not really trying to accomplish either with my work, more just a desire to try and fashion something that comes close visually whilst at the same time helps me gain an understanding of what has drawn me to notice a particular moment in place and time

what is it about a stark winter landscape that I love so much?

I believe I'm coming closer to understanding that now - it's something to do with the quietness of it

it's just rather all encompassing I think... quiet colours, quiet sounds, quiet shapes - a time of stillness in sound and growth

the world rests and I rest in it

the sliver of open water, a flash of turquoise softly surrounded by a gleaming white

texture on texture

not aiming for a direct translation - too much attachment to getting too many details right when learning on a landscape I love

instead, winter somewhere

a mountain, a few trees, snow and ice

a flash of water

click on the bottom image to get a better view of my attempts at granulating snow and ice where the water flows

this was my second attempt and it comes pretty close I think

I've learned a lot over the past week about tinted charcoal pencils and paint pans - it's not the easiest media to work with though my struggles were not helped by using hot pressed watercolour paper

nor were they helped by only having water brushes with me - not a fan of them either but thankfully I have  proper travel brushes so they will be going with me from now on

that's the thing though,  I try and keep trying, until I figure it out

there's more to learn but this has me feeling some hope that I can, and I will

progressing

I do love trying new things in my work and have several sketchbooks full of small samples to prove it

lately I've been pin-tucking fabric to create the look of cracked ice and the other day I finished the first sample of taking that idea further

the fabric pieces were sewn to paper, machine-stitched, and then much of the paper removed with water

white gesso was applied to both the front and back

I've placed it on a piece of watercolour painted blue to see if it had the effect of an icy river

pretty happy with it though I already have a plan for a different version

one thing truly does lead to another and I'm keen to make the next version

not for a bit though as I've travelled through the mountains to the wide prairie of Alberta

a landscape of lines...

lines of fencing

lines of trees

a line of clouds on the horizon

field lines

cut lines

ditch lines

I brought limited supplies, just  a few things to try small ideas

keep my hands busy in quiet moments

today I started this

a splash of water with tinted charcoal

a scrap of brown for wood

another of blue-grey line patterned Japanese tissue paper

and now some stitched wooden pilings - my intention is to stitch them all the way across and think about what comes next...

same song, different tune

surfacing...

I recently read "Surfacing" by Kathleen Jamie

a quick, delightful read, it's a most interesting collection of personal experiences and explorations around subjects that embody "surfacing" in some way or another

it naturally led me to think about how "surfacing" presents itself in my world and likely the most common way is through my creative work

the ideas and techniques that strike me the most seem to have a way of circling around and around, eventually coming back to the surface to be worked at another time

at least once

often more than that

(I like what I like)

what is occupying my thoughts, time and hands these days is something I trialled a few years back when exploring all things "icy"

I was investigating different ways of depicting river and lake ice, particularly the layers that are created as it freezes and thaws at the beginning of winter and then again when it breaks up, most especially in a swift-flowing river

more especially the Yukon River

one way I had sampled that effect was to use silk cloth and paper, cut into rectangles and stitched into sections 

I wasn't really trying for realism rather, I was more in pursuit of abstraction at the time

they didn't fit into the final work but my interest was piqued and they have stayed close by since

this week they are inspiring my work once again

one version of the previous trials is a regimented ordering of off-white rectangles of different silks and paper, the other has shapes that are little less regimented and a few flashes of blue along with a tempering grey silk

it's the one I'm most drawn to 

I began today's work as before, working in sections but decided fairly quickly I would rather it wasn't that lined up so have already begun changing out some of the pieces I had pinned in place (the top left one in the photo below is since changed as well)

still the same colour palette, mostly the same fabrics and papers though I may have to paint some soft blue-grey paper as the ones I had are down to one or two small fragments

this time I'm working on a much larger version - the base fabrics are cut 3 3/4" x 25" and there are two of them

I have a plan, a loose one and it involves a section of "open water" in between them... we'll see

in my usual fashion I'm beginning with what I know for sure and the rest will sort itself out from there

I hope!

making to make

I don't remember what day it was, just that it was late November... not sure why this has to begin with that but it does

I don't remember and it strikes me as odd that I don't as it was such a day; walking along the Yukon River, past the Depot (train), past the pilings and the ways, the old rusted I-don't-know-what... part of a paddlewheeler from a century ago

Shipyards Park, the site of Sleepy Hollow, where we once lived

places and things assigned to history, reminders of an earlier time but all I noticed that day was the river and the sky

a cold wind, high

the clouds hung low, purple-grey, and heavy

it was early afternoon with a thin winter sun that hung low in the sky, it's light slanted, skimming the surface of the water

in the shadows the water was dark blue-grey, where the light touched it was like molten pewter

swiftly, silently, it moved, swirling, curling... ripples that blurred the reflections of trees along the opposite shore

it was a winter river, one I had never really seen before as when we lived there the river was almost always frozen by that time of year

the current was mesmerizing... the ripples creating the most wonderful surface and I continually zoomed in and out trying to capture what I was noticing, what struck me

I took many, many photographs that day but what I really wanted was a sketchbook so I could try and draw them as I was looking - it was the first time I was overtaken by an urgent feeling to capture something I was seeing with my own hand

the feeling of disappointment at not having pen and paper to hand has remained

but...

I have been working with these images for some time now and will continue to do so for a long while, their influence has been invaluable even without the added reference and understanding of an actual drawing of them but on Wednesday they inspired something else

I have been doing a lot of reading lately along with working through an online course called "Sensing Place" by Debbie Lyddon, an artist from the UK

 information has been pouring in and there have been some good revelations but one thing I read or heard lately caught my attention in a big way and gave me pause

(I'm sorry I can't provide credit as I neglected to make a note of it)

"when out and about in a special place record and notice any and every thing but afterward hone in on what was the one thing that really caught your attention, that grabbed you" and won't let go 

(the last bit out of the quotations is my own addition)

I've been thinking about that ever since I heard it, thinking that when I'm there, in the Yukon, I rarely am able to sketch outdoors as I'm always with people and somehow I can't convince myself that it wouldn't be rude to ask to stop and sit a minute so I can record something - I find myself reaching for the phone camera instead

anyway, it occurred to me that if the point of this is to capture that one important thing all I really need is a little book and a pen

and so a little book I made

3" long by 2" wide, it's a little chunker of a book at 1 3/8" thick

reclaimed leather for the cover 

(my first leather book and I'm smitten)

handmade headband (which you can hardly see)

the pages are khadi paper

thick and ruffled, perhaps not the best for drawing but oh well - I love the feel and mayhap that will be the catalyst to get me to use it

a flash of blue fabric

the original plan for a closure wrap was a strip of fabric scraps reinforced by stitch but a chance online encounter with a book about medieval bookbinding led me down a different path

reading about the first book led me to another book "The Codex and Crafts of Late Antiquity"

a book about how the earliest book structures and binding techniques were developed from existing textile crafts of the time

and that led me to a video presentation by the book's author which was nothing less than completely fascinating

 in the end I changed the fastening plan to one used almost two thousand years ago that was developed from how sandal straps were made

I loved making this book... it's a delight in the hand, filling the palm completely, the leather soft against the skin; holding it feels as though I am cradling a small realm of possibility

water, water everywhere

painting cloth has been an interesting and absorbing process though it feels like the more I learn the less I know

water has been my focus for the past two weeks, both still and moving

the sample below is the one that intrigues me the most... it has an atmosphere of both lightness and heaviness to it, in both the air and the water

as if sound can only fall noiselessly back to earth as the air is too oppressive to carry it

a stillness that is absolute

 below, the water is blue and the sky a pale misty blue-grey, as if there was high humidity and the colour has been lost to it

interestingly, I think it also works in the inverse

in the orientation below, the blue is the sky and the water a limpid silver, as if in the evening when the sun is diffused by cloud and the reflections are long

I used a granulating water colour called "forest grey", folded the cloth in half along it's length and painted on the colour in a fairly dilute, watery wash

when it was almost dry, with just a hint of dampness remaining I opened it up and this was how the paint had settled, the gold-brown pigment creating a horizon line all along the fold

of all the cloth I have  painted over the past few months this piece, in it's simplicity, is my favourite

below is a shibori-style piece with the gathers running through the centre length of the cloth, to emulate a river

not a terrific success - it would be better if I had not done such regular rows of shibori but...

turned on it's side it's like tree bark - very like the poplar trees in the yukon with their long grooves or the cottonwoods here

an unexpected but interesting outcome

and last another pale water piece painted with the same forest grey as above bu this time scrunched up a bit so the gold pigment settled into what look like pale cracks 

I've also made two more squares of linen with stitched "ice cracks", ready for whatever might come next

so, the work goes on, the quantity of prepared cloth increases and I need to start thing about how it will all tie together

not sure how, but when in doubt, keep making samples and eventually the ideas will come... trouble is, sampling can only take me so far and I'm keen to take this further now...