In the Studio

Lee and I went out to gather anything that would make a spring bouquet today. Then I added in the last of the Eucalyptus from doing some additional contact printing. I took the two long concertina folded sheets, removed two pages after folding to make it two sided. Then used a taupe colored thread to tie off in two places where the valley folds are on each side. So the book is two sided with two sections tied back to back. I will figure out a cover later when I figure out what to draw into the contact prints. And here is my latest attempt at a Mountain Laurel stem for the six way wildflower book. I might have to come up with another name for it because I will tire of wildflowers long before I finish this one sixth of the book.

Also keeping up with drawing a day.

A little spreader

that’s made from birds eye maple.

Hardly ever used.

 

Laser cut designed

little spreader that came with

a small matching board.

 

Interesting grain

patterns on this cheese spreader

of lovely maple.

 

Another paddle –

this one is a dark walnut,

not used for some time.

 

And the latest double page of wildflowers before the mountain laurel page.

Just when I think I am getting better, the paintings look pitiful again. But I am keeping at it.

And because friends are now taking workshops in Australia, I am surrounding myself with things to stay in touch vicariously.

Used Eucalyptus leaves because they still smell divine along with the dyed strings. And of course, Yellow Tail Chardonnay for old times sake. And just this morning, my malted cookies that I will savor as they gather together later to munch on the Very Best Malted Cookies I Ever Ate.

Have a great time, girls, and send pictures when you can.

Til later.

When Lee was first diagnosed with dementia I knew that my life had suddenly changed. I sat and folded folios like this one and gessoed them, drew images of how that felt and then stitched around the edges to keep myself centered and contained.

I colored them with the earth pigments from my home and tried to draw how things were going with my emotions and the sudden knowledge that my foundations of home, fifty year relationship, artwork, all of it had shifted.

I made several of these and then folded them up and put them into a wooden box with many more that never were gessoed or drawn on or stitched.

I need to get them back out and pay attention to the marks that could inspire words. I can still write. Words on a page will be something I can do on those legal pads I keep down in the studio to write poetry, or a story. The pads will be moved upstairs with smooth, fast writing ballpoint pens that can keep up with me.

In the past two days I have picked myself up and got on with it. Friends have sent nice emails and messages. And almost everyone of them made no assumptions or judgments on how I am floundering about at times. I am in pretty deep waters here. Lee and I will be fine. It’s my job and three times a week I get some help. Like right now a very young blue-eyed blonde girl has shown up to be with him, and I am not sure he has stopped smiling.

And tomorrow is our day for lunch at the brewery.

Today he helped me unwrap a second bundling of Eucalyptus leaves and seeds from more of the silk shirt and good paper.

The colors are not as rich as before but fine to work with. Not sure what I will do with them but for now they are so soothing in their wonderful smells of down under. In not too many hours my friends there will be unpacking workshop essentials at their accommodations at Halls Gap in the Grampians. Then heading off to dinner and loads of hugs. I send them bunches of mine.

Besides being emotionally all over the place this week, I finished this piece of lino carving.

My plan is to ink this up with a very soft light grey and then overprint it in a black stark image.

Now that caregivers come it is safe to spread out the inks and stick with the process for hours at a time. I will post pictures of how that goes. First thing is to make up several of these “backgrounds”, hang them to dry while I carve the bold images that go on top.

Another friend will arrive soon to manage her partner’s property here. She asked to buy a copy of my poetry book, Distance Matters, for someone who liked hers. This is the poem that helped her deal with her loss and I am going to read it more often myself.

Inner Navigations

We do not plan 

the journey of our interiors,

but hold steady, go slow,

and ride the tide

into harbors of memory.

 

More later.

 

These are the three strips of Fabriano paper that were placed between tiles, then bundled with muslin and tied. The muslin is mostly mottled grey patterns caused by the resist of the string and wrapping.

I treated myself to the only bunch of Eucalyptus at the grocery store just so I could feel closer to friends down under this week and decided to go further and do some contact prints on the paper and the old silk shirt that has now been ripped into useful pieces.

Pretty nice aren’t they? Thank you Lorraine for your suggestions to get a better contact on a better quality paper. Right now the pot has more of the silk shirt pieces and another full sheet torn into five strips. I cook them in the same water I added onion skins and Eucalyptus leaves and stems to for two hours and then take the bundles out to sit for another forty-eight before unwrapping.  I did reuse all the leaves and seeds plus a few fresh ones in today’s bundles.

It smells like Australia in here and makes me very happy.

Here is the Bush Book all covered and with a contact print collar to keep it together.

And the drawing a day haikus.

I am now onto

little spoons in the drawer.

This one fun to draw.

 

Here’s another spoon

and it has a matching fork

that’s on the next page.

 

Another small fork

found buried under other

very useless things.

 

Simple Saturday

drawing of just one silly

collection of knives.

 

And a couple more watercolors in the six way book.

That’s enough for today. I am going to now bury my nose in the dyepot results.

Til later.

It has taken a couple of weeks to get the first set of Bush Book prints from the printer. Making color corrections takes time, communications between computer and printer also takes time. Then there was a scanner break down and Lee had little patience to sit in the car and wait it out. But yesterday it all came together. And because Lee had his helper company in the afternoon, I got to trim all the pages, crease folds and assemble the book.

You can see that the copies are just a tad more pinkish than the originals. And of course there is no pocket at the bottom of the pages…only the image of that pocket.

I am going to ask the printer to resize the saved images to one half inch smaller in each direction. It isn’t much but will “tighten up” the images and make the very long book just a bit easier to handle. I thought of binding it in fifteen single folios but the fun is stretching it all out. And then I would have to paste the white backs of the pages together. That could get messy!

I will ask him to just do ten sets of pages and take his time because I know he is tired of looking at them right now. And I know he must be tired of me saying, “Can we make another one with a better brown in this section?”.

But today I will find a good paper to make the front and back covers. Yesterday I had to order more book board, gesso and a recommended printmaking paper in case I want to try contact printing again this Spring.

Thank you for the positive response to my last blog about Lin and her work. I will do another one about an artist and what they did that stuck with me later on.

Here are the last four days of Drawings a Day.

Who really uses

a heavy steel nutcracker?

Buy nuts without shells!

 

One more nutcracker

for crushing the shells into

desired nut meats.

 

Hor d’oeuvres utensils

used to be so important.

But now, not so much.

 

What appetizers

were these tiny forks supposed

to bring to our plates?

 

I moved from the kitchen drawer into a dining room drawer. More interesting and full of the memories of dinner parties around the table here. And I have not thrown one thing out…just tossed it back in after drawing. I will need help in disposing of things.

I am not holding things up and asking myself if I love it. Even though I do have the book telling me to do that. I don’t love the nutcrackers and appetizer forks. I tolerate their presence as long as they stay out of sight. Closing drawers and shutting doors is therapeutic.

I am in therapy right now and will catch up later.

Til then.