If The Answer Is Fifteen Minutes...

...what was the question?  Well, quite simply, that's the amount of time I can work before I'm too tired to continue.  Given that this is the first day I've felt like doing anything other than something very basic, like folding the book from yesterday, that's reasonable...after all, I've only been out of bed for a few days.  The real question, of course, is how long I'm going to be stuck at that...and the simple answer is, I have no idea.  Anyway...

I wanted to get on with the book I showed you yesterday, and decided to stick with pastels, and use the same basic colours in each section of the book, but in reverse order, so, green in one section at one side, means green on the same section but at the other end of the book on the other side.  Sorry, no photo to prove that lol.  This is as far as I have got so far.

I had forgotten how much I enjoy working with pastels.  It's a very direct way of applying colour, no intervening brush, no water, unless you want to use it. Just me, my fingers, the paper and the pigment.  The colour here is built up using roughly five or six different shades of the same colour, with a little bit of white here and there.  That's fun to do.  Here is a couple of the pages in close up, so you can see what I mean.

I've run out of steam, now, so it'll have to wait.  Fortunately I can leave the work set up in the studio without inconveniencing anyone, so it can wait as long as it has to.  I can't do this work on the sofa; too much dust, that would be impossible to remove from either upholstery or carpet (yes, that is the voice of experience).  I'm working onto a sheet of clear plastic, so that if there is too much dust to pick up, I can simply fold up the plastic and bin it.  I also have a hand held vacuum cleaner, and the floor in there is tile-effect vinyl, so easy to clean up.  In Norfolk, this kind of work would have been done in the shed, but I don't have that luxury any more. 

More when I'm able to do it.

Dry Run

I said in my last post that I needed to try out the ideas I had for the book I'm currently working on.  Yesterday I went on the hunt for a bit of paper, not a difficult task in my workroom, where a whole long shelf is devoted to different types.   And I got sidetracked by this piece, torn from a sketchbook.  The image is a variation of the kind of thing I want to try out on yesterday's book, based on semi abstract landscape.  It depicts stratum on stratum of different colours, with drawings on top reminiscent of the kind of thing you see on weather maps, denoting the movement of air, or indeed on OS maps, denoting the topography of an area.  The strata are in chalk pastel, the lines in marker pen.  Sadly, as I found when I started folding, I didn't fix the pastels, so ended up with somewhat chalky hands...but I managed, nonetheless.  Must buy some fixative (probably hairspray, easier to source than formal fixative, and works well).

This is how it looks folded

I think it's quite interesting.  The reverse is, of course, blank, and I'll have some fun deciding what to do with it, again, probably a variation on the patterning that's going on on this side.  I like the way an already random(ish) pattern has become even more so here.  Food for thought, anyway.  Really must get that hairspray...

Back Again...

...but probably briefly... still not overly well.  I did, however, manage to do something with the large sheet of paper I had begun to turn into a folded book...this book, to be precise...

It's made from sugar paper, which is great for chalk pastels but not for paint; it would be likely to buckle.  Each page is roughly 4.5" by 6.5".  What's interesting, though, is the way it unfolds.
,

As you can see, it creates a spread of four pages, each time.  When you turn it over, however, it works slightly differently; there are three pages, then two, then two, then three.  Either way, it makes it interesting; how to create visual interest, without making things too cluttered.  I can think of a couple of ways of approaching it.  The fact that there are two sides, with two structures, means that perhaps I can use both, one on either side.  So I'm going to make a small mock up, using a piece of A4 and some crayons, to see how that would work.  

Finally, here's the original page, so that you can see how the whole thing was cut and folded...you'll notice that art on paper is not the draw that textile art usually is for the cat (no pun intended)...

The Only Advantage...

..to being stuck in bed, is that, occasionally, someone gives you flowers, in this case, my lovely daughter in law, Tracey.  Gladioli are among my favourite flowers, graceful, as sensual as lilies, but without the poisonous, staining pollen.  They last for ages, too, always a bonus. 

I'm not able to stand very long, so I quickly took a succession of images.  The light wasn't good, either, so they're a bit on the blurry side, but I rather like that.   I also like that they gradually become slightly more abstract as they go along.   The flowers won't last for ever, but the images will last for as long as I keep them.  See what you think.

More Lessons From Cara.

The family came to visit this week.  Robin had an interview, I'm in bed, and we had a variety of people coming to the house, and needed someone able bodied, just in case.  I asked Cara if she would like to play with Granny's Magic Crayons, and she enthusiastically agreed; apparently the brush is magic too, but that's another story altogether.  The crayons are watercolour, which is what makes them magic, and she got to draw in Granny's sketchbook, which is special all by itself, apparently. 

She started with a flower, clearly feeling that some sort of a nod towards representational art was required...

...and told me that the shapes round the edges were petals.  Well, of course they are.  And that's where it started to get interesting, and she started having fun.  We worked out that you have to press quite hard with the crayons, and not use too much water, or you don't get good colour out of it all.  Oh, and you can dip the crayons into the water and get a really satisfying line.  And off she went.

I really like these.  They're spontaneous, bright, good fun.  Above all, Cara really enjoyed doing them, and that's what's important for her.  For me, though, I got to wondering about fun.  I enjoy making what I make, but I do get wound up about painting, still.  There's a small girl in me going, you're really bad at this, even after all this time.  And it's all so serious, deep and meaningful.  Sigh.  What about joy? 

So, after she had gone, I thought I'd see what spontaneity felt like, not to mention looked like.  Well, it didn't look like this....

Far too much thinking, not enough playing.  Worrying about meaning, balance and all that sort of stuff, despite myself, turned it into something stilted.  This was a bit better...

Still a bit stilted, though.  Too busy.   And then I thought about the way  I warm up in my sketchbooks, by scribbling...a version of taking a line for a walk.  And something clicked.

I really shouldn't have added the water; it dulled down the colour quite considerably ( two primary colours equals a secondary; three plus, equals mud).  Still, it's spontaneous, undeniably, and above all, it's fun.  One of my favourite art quotations comes from Picasso: 'It took me four years to paint like Rafael, but a lifetime to paint like a child'.  I hope Cara will put up with me until I work it out a bit.

Distracting Myself...

...from the thought of hospital tomorrow, I picked up this book, which you read about here.    I wrote a poem for it at the time, which has been sitting in my sketchbook...today, I edited it.  So...it went from

Dreaming the landscape
a blur of colour and
movement
a rickle o' stanes
glinting in the light.

to

dreaming landscape
blur of colour
and movement
rickle o' stanes
glint in  the light.

I'm happier with that, it's more condensed, more direct.  I'm not a poet, not really.  I know bits and pieces about how things are supposed to work, but really, I just write it down, and then take away all the bits that don't seem to belong.  It's reminiscent of sculpture; the sculptor works with a whole piece, and takes away the bits that don't belong, to find the form within. 

So...what to do with it?  My original thought was to have words on every page, but that didn't seem right...plus, I was worried about the pen bleeding through to the other side, as the paper is quite thin.  It didn't, as it happens, but I'm glad I made the decision I did, a word on the first and every second page.  I've spread out the first few pages (just as well they're not attached yet), to let you see what that looks like.

Looking at that second image, it would be interesting to make a stepped book like this, showing the whole poem at a glance...one for the sketchbook...  But I digress.  I had intended to stitch this piece: looking at it now, I don't think it needs it.  I only stitch when stitch would add something to the work.  I know that's not the fashion, and probably hasn't ever been...but it's right for this piece.  The other book I made at the same time will, I suspect, need stitch, as well as a poem.  First, though it needs a good trim; looking at it, I realise that some of the pages are smaller than others, and I'd rather they were the same. 

The last thing to do for this book, though, is to fasten the pages together, a simple three hole binding. Not sure what yarn I'll use, or if I'll plait some threads together, so that's for another day.  Perhaps a heavy gold thread, to relate back to that last line of the poem.   Meanwhile, though,  I've made a template, a simple piece of paper cut to size and folded to work out where the holes should be.  When I'm feeling better, I'll use a hammer and nail to make the holes, using the template to show me where to put them.  For now, though, it'll need to wait.

Writing It Out.

You might remember this book...I wrote about it here

I said I needed a poem, which I would write on the reverse. And lo and behold, in my sketchbook...

I know, it's not easy to read on there... here's the final text...

random
marks
embedded
in stone
lifetime's work
to grasp
that process
make those
rune-like
forms
both with
and without
meaning

That seems to express everything I intended.  The challenge, of course, is to write it on the back of the book in a reasonably regular manner.  I started by writing it again, removing a few words, just looking to see how many lines there are...fourteen, it turns out...

Next stage...measure the book itself, which, it turns out, is the length of an A4 sheet of paper.  So I folded an old letter (yup, we recycle...) to the correct width, then folded it in half, and added the words.  On reflection, should have folded it in quarters, but hey... this isn't about perfection, it's solely about distributing the words in a fairly even manner, without huge gaps...

So...it's possible.  Basically, I added the words on line seven, worked downwards, then upwards.  Looking at it, I decided that capital letters were out.  And then wrote the words again, on the book, this time.

Unfortunately a couple of stray capital letters got in there...a sign I was thinking about too much at once. I can't correct it, so it stays that way.  What happens now, is machine stitch on the other side, which will, of course. obscure the words to some extent.  I like the thought of that; it's not easy to 'read' the marks on stone, either, so it's consistent with the original inspiration.  That may not happen for some time; hospital op on Wednesday, which, while minor, may cause a flare up of the ME, which has been pretty bad recently, so I'm not planning anything.  If I get to work, it will be a bonus.  I am going to take my watercolour crayons and pencils upstairs, so that I have something to play with.  Might as well make the most of the down time, if I can.

Finishing Off.

It ain't finished 'til the fat lady sings?  Sometimes.  Other times, something feels as if it ought to be finished, but continues to niggle at you.  Over the years, I've come tor realise that the only thing to do is to put a piece like that aside, and let the unconscious work out what needs to be done.  It can take a while....or not...

You may remember this piece; I talk about it here. And it has been annoying me ever since.  Predominately because it's boring.

Not to mention that it somehow felt too wide.  Today, I worked out what to do with it.  I've been rereading 'Structure of the Visual Book' by Keith A Smith.  It was talking about folded books, and gave an image of an accordion book, not unlike the ones I've been making, except that the folds were very frequent.  So, when I glanced at the piece, I thought...I wonder if I could turn it into an accordion book... and started playing around with the necessary folds.  In reality, though, it was obvious that the section at the far end, with the starfish, really wouldn't be happy with that treatment.  The folds, though...they were interesting... soft folds, not pleats, folded so that the words are easy to see, closer together.  So I tacked them into place...and that wasn't easy; stitching through three folds of Evolon is heavy going, and involved forcing the needle through them.  And I ended up with this...

 So...not so wide... soft folds suggesting the waves at the beach... the paint treatment not so dominant...definitely better.  It's still by no means the best thing I've done, but I can live with it now.
I decided to leave the stitches in... by the time I'd got them there, I was pretty well exhausted.  The should really have been white, on reflection, and I might replace them at some point, though I did add some brown stitches at the bottom right, just to balance it out.

Is the fat lady singing?  Nah, she's going for a lie down...

Sketchbooks And Journals...

...became big business several years ago.  Articles about how to are all over the internet, not to mention the books.  In this country, I think it's a lot to do with City and Guilds; if it's not developed in a sketchbook or journal, it's not considered 'proper' work.   Snort.  And all these articles and books are full of beautifully finished illustrations, many of them mixed media of some kind, implying that that is what you should be producing.  Yeah, right.   To me, both sketchbooks and journals are working documents, and they're not for public consumption.  They're about process, the development of ideas, and it's unfortunate that this plethora of information and images potentially puts off as many people as it encourages.

I rarely use a sketchbook, and when I do, it tends to be to kill time in a waiting room.  I much prefer to develop ideas through the materials, usually without a specific plan.  As it happens, I was in a waiting room yesterday (more of that later), and I thought I'd share what I did, and what the process was in its production.

So...I started just making marks, a good way to warm up.  They're the marks in the centre of this page, a roughly sketched repeating pattern.  And then I thought, what I should really be doing, is playing around with ideas for a book, more specifically the book that will support the work I showed you here

So... I drew a number of rectangles.  and started to play around with the basic idea, to see if it would work at the smaller size of an individual book page.  The rectangle trick is a really good way of developing ideas; it lets you compare and contrast within a single page.  Seemed to be okay, so I took it a stage further, looking at the way the pages would combine in the unfolded book.  They occur in threes within this particular folded book structure.  You'll notice that at this stage, the blocks I've sketched out aren't particularly carefully done.  This is an idea; as long as I can get a rough idea of how things will work, that's enough.  I prefer to develop on the actual piece, or on a facsimile thereof, rather than in the journal...see what I mean about a *working* document? 

I started on the bottom page, top row.  Three semi abstract landscapes.  As I thought that having them all aligned in the same way was boring, I tried changing the orientation on the bottom row.  That seemed better, so I looked at what that would be like in combination, on the page above.  I'm happy with that, and will try it in real time.  And, as the doctor was running late, that gave me the chance to sketch out an idea I had several days ago, for a shaped book based on a tree.

This one will be all about the cutting, using the same approach as for a doll paper chain.  It won't be possible to stand this one up, but I still think it'll be an interesting thing to do in either paper or textile.  And that took me to leaves, a visual pun on a 'leaf' of paper, using the same technique.  You'll notice I write myself wee notes (and often I never refer to them again...go figure...).  Incidentally, I went back to the original post and made some more notes; the drawings of individual pages made me think that it might be interesting to make some single pages like that, and join them using some wrapped twigs.  I'm not sure if this one will work, particularly not the second leaf shape.  Though the second one might be interesting as a chain that I could drape around a larger book...it's a thought...

So, where does that leave me?  A couple of ideas confirmed as doable; another as a possibility, depending on size, and a further idea for a 'garland' of leaves, possibly made from burned out lutradur and stitch.  Not bad for fifteen minutes of thinking and drawing. 

I hope that demystifies the making of sketchbooks, and proves how useful they can be.  I started with no idea whatsoever of what I was going to do, but the process of doodling reminded me of things I could be doing to develop a couple of existing ideas. 

I said that I'd mention the doctor's appointment.  The ME ( I refuse to call it 'my' ME) has deteriorated quite dramatically over the last couple of months, and I can no longer stand long enough to work. Plus, I will be having minor surgery next week, which has the potential to make things even worse.  As a result the blog will be significantly less frequent.  I'm really sorry about that, but there's a limit to what I can do from my bed, and that's where I've been more often than not this past year.  I'll do my best to stay in touch, though.  Fingers crossed that things improve.