Playing With Cara...

...as I did on Monday (school holiday), resulted in Granny's Magic Crayons.  She likes drawing...here's my favourite of what she produced. 

So, when she got fed up, and moved on to something else, I had a turn.  'Oh, that's beautiful, Gran', she said, 'It's awfully big, though'.  Err...it's A4... everyone's a critic...

It's really just a doodle....so, when I wanted to refresh my memory as to how to make a slightly different folded book, this was what I used.  First, though, I had to draw on the reverse...

You can see the difference adding water makes; it softens the lines, and spreads the colour over the piece.  So... folded once down the vertical centre line, and three times, equally, across the horizontal, then flattened out, plus a single cut down three quarters of the central line...and hey presto!  a folded book.

I find it intriguing, how the pattern, already abstract, becomes even more so, once folded.  It's unpredictable.  I have to say, I prefer the blue side, rather than the yellow, but they sit well together.  Shall I add words?  Probably not...not convinced I have anything to say about this piece, just a bit of frivolity, really, to remind me how this particular book sits. 

Sew...

...more stitch on the book I'm currently working on.  Here's the progress.  I've finished the front page now...I think... I'm never entirely sure until the whole thing is done...

You're going to have to imagine it folded, admittedly...but this is both sides.  I'm intrigued by the reverse, because, of course, the stitches don't look the same on the back, as on the front, so things get a bit more abstract (or should that be random?).  So...that's the front and back of the book (as well as both sides of the paper, if you see what I mean)....now here's the central pages.

The central motif is stitched with a rayon hand dyed, corded thread (the rest are cotton), which proved a pain to work with, but its sheen goes nicely with the metallic paint that was used.  As this isn't a colouring book (and don't get me started on the point of colouring books, or lack of it...), I didn't feel the need to continue the stitch so that it filled the entire motif.  I decided I wanted to have large vertical stitches on the bottom dark section.  Blanket stitch, I thought.  Ha ha ha, said my memory.  I know you've done it lots of times, but I don't remember how you did it... ME affects memory, and a lot of what I used to know, doesn't come to mind easily.  In this case, I could remember how the stitch works, but not how to start it.  Got there in the end, though, by process of logic.  Just as well that hasn't gone, too...

I did briefly think about swapping the front and central pages round, but decided not to...they've been trimmed to fit the way they are, swapping them round would require a further trimming, and I want to avoid that.  Given that no real narrative for the book has yet emerged, it wouldn't have affected the flow or meaning of the book.  That's unusual for me; usually there's a story, a meaning, a sense of how things relate to each other, that requires a particular structure, even when the work is largely abstract.  I think that's why I'm drawing a blank on writing a poem to go inside the book.  Perhaps something will emerge...that often happens with titles and concepts.  I start with one thing, and end up with that thing, but also with other meanings and ideas.  That's what I like about making art.  I'm not following a pattern or a template; each piece is unique.

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...

An Unexpected Find.

While unpacking boxes in late January or early February, I found a roll of hand made paper, which I put aside to bring downstairs to my workroom, with some other art stuff, but somehow never got round to it.  Yesterday, before returning to bed, I went to get the paper to have a look...and found that two of the three pages already had sketches on them.

These are pastel drawings, made around 2007, I think, when the ME wasn't quite so acute.  Doesn't time fly, etc...  I got interested in semi-abstract landscapes, and these are examples.  I was using a lot of pastels at the time, and going to a drawing class, mainly drawing faces, but playing around with the pastels in general, seeing what might be done with them.  I really enjoy working with pastels; there's something very direct about them, applying pigment directly onto paper, using fingers when necessary to blend them.  They're a bit messy, as they generate a lot of dust, but the mess is worthwhile (well, ok, I would say that, being the queen of mess). 

And as soon as I looked at them, I thought...book... a different version of a folded book.  First, though, I'll need to make drawings on the reverse of the paper.  I did, though, make a mock up of the folds required for the book, using the third piece of paper, which doesn't have drawings on it.  This, too, will be drawn on eventually, a different approach to the same thing (see below).

The folds indicate the size of the pages...I won't try to explain further for now.   I do think that it'll be interesting to take a pair of large scale drawings, like the ones I've just found, and divide them up, through folding and cutting, so that they present in a different way, each page standalone, the two drawings interrelated...and yet be able to unfold the book to see the whole thing united again in the original way.  The third book, though, will, I think, have individual drawings like these large scale sketches, option upon option, sixteen in all, relating back to the original drawings, but quite different in approach.

And that's it for today: energy finished.  It really doesn't take much...sigh.

A Leap Of Faith.

Sometimes only stitch will do.  So much of my work is about responding to things, seeing something interesting, if only to me, and working with it, to see what can be made of it.  Way back, in the days when I was still dyeing to sell, I used a dye catcher in what I thought might be a final rinse, but proved to be otherwise.  The resultant dye catcher was interesting, so I kept it.  Then I paired it with some lutradur and forgot about it.  For some reason, it survived The Cull (probably because I still find it interesting).  So I decided to stitch into it, thinking that it might make an interesting book, if I could get it to fold well (the jury's still out on that one). 

The first image shows the cloth as it came out of the washing machine; if you look closely, you can see it has a sort of dappled construction, presumably to strengthen it to keep it intact through a wash cycle.  It also has a strange, almost greasy feel to it, not unlike a dryer sheet, but it is far more robust than that, and is slightly scented.  The second image is the reverse with the lutradur added; it immediately adds colour and visual interest. I decided to stitch in circles, respecting and supporting the blob-like way that the colour had transferred onto the cloth, and attempting to link the dark areas together. 

I then started to meander round the lighter, background areas with a matching thread (both threads used here are variegated, surprise surprise). 

You can just catch glimpses of the pale stitch in the first image; it's clearer in the detail shot that follows.  I still have a fair way to go with the pale, background stitching, but I've not been well enough to do it...perhaps today. 

Were I doing this as a flat piece of embroidery, I don't think it would be interesting enough, even with all the stitch in place.  I suspect it would be a rather ornate background for something else, perhaps an applique.  However, I want to turn this into something three dimensional.  When I do, the surface will change completely (duh...); lots of small units, juxtaposed one on the other.  I have no real way of knowing if that will be successful.  Maybe, maybe not. And I suspect I will add words, somewhere, somehow, probably printed on paper, cut out and stuck, a poem, probably, written for this book. 

Sometimes...actually, more often than not... making work in this way is a leap of faith.  I have to believe in my own ability to take something relatively unprepossessing, and turn it into something special, through the application of ideas and technique.  I have to believe that I will choose the right ideas, the right techniques for this particular piece.  And that I won't stop until the piece is resolved (well, okay, there will be rest breaks...it may take some time).  I may doubt myself (may?  probably will) as to the quality of the finished piece, but I rarely ever doubt myself during the process.  Process is just a series of choices, and I can make those choices, even in this situation, where the piece is a one off by dint of the way it came about, meaning that I can't just make another one.  And even if the book doesn't turn out the way I think it will, that will be okay, because I will have learned something, and can probably turn it into something else, instead, which will be more successful.  And at the end of the day, it's only fabric. An individual piece of fabric is much less important than process, and another interesting bit will be along in a minute.  It won't be the same (thankfully), but it will have potential...and that's really all I need.