Surprises...

I usually like surprises, but this was not the kind of surprise I enjoy, necessarily. When I unwrapped the dye paintings, I discovered that those on the Egyptian cotton were muted, pastel in nature, whilst those on the linen tablecloths were their usual bright selves. Sally and I discussed it at lenght yesterday, and came to the conclusion that I'd not scoured the egyptian cotton robustly enough. Strangely, though, it has been in my mind for a while now to dye some pastels...the cloth thing just forced my hand! So some, I've overpainted, they're batching now, and We'll See...others, like the one in the picture, I've ironed, and intend to use.

I started off dyepainting last week with the intention of painting cloth to cut up, rather like the Eight Blue Dots And A Circle piece, ie nine small pieces cut from the same piece of dyepainted cloth. But at least two of the pieces are staying whole, including the piece above the blog, entitled 'Nefertiti'. I think I have to accept that I do what I do when I do it, no matter what I've been thinking or intending beforehand. And it seems to work for me! It does feel 'undisciplined', though...

I've been thinking quite a bit about discipline, or the lack of it, particularly with the Elemental exhibit coming up at the end of next month. I've been finding it hard to generate work for that theme, even though it was me who suggested it...sigh... Maybe, I thought, I'm just lazy. But at the weekend, I seemed to be inspired to do things for it...perhaps it was the collections theme, working as I was with stone, things of the earth... but either way, next week is set aside for work in that vein. Books, I think.... more on the other blog...