What Have I Been Up To?

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It's been fairly productive in the studio the past few months. Here's a roundup of some of the projects.

Like many of us socially isolating during the pandemic, I amassed an embarrassing large stash of brown paper bags from too much take-out! Nothing to do but chop them up and stitch a lovely stash of blank booklets.

These booklets are fun to work into and, except for a little time, cost nothing so it's easy to experiment and, as interest wanes, simply start a new booklet.

One thing I did find, though, was that many of the bags seem to have been treated with a type of waterproofing, which created a resist with some art products. Below, you can see the effect of the resist. I quite enjoyed its splotchy and unpredictable nature.

I took a few free online workshops, including one offered by Winslow Art Center in Washington state with art teacher Amis Balcomb (she doesn't seem to have a website). 

 https://winslowartcenter.com/past-free-classes/amis-balcomb-the-embellished-simple-sketch/ 

I'd taken another of her classes and she is big on using water-soluble crayons and pens to elevate simple landscape sketches.

These chunky Lyra brand graphite crayons are great. As well, the ink in many office supply fineliner pens is water soluble. Who knew?

Here're a few with added colour -- ochre acrylic ink.

A stack of postcard blanks at the ready is handy for a bit of quick gel plate printing, like these moody landscapes:

I also got back into the habit of a daily (almost) sketch. The first one below is a tissue paper monotype collage with a bit of rubbing. I love adding text to a sketch.

The two below are examples of some larger sketches (11x15-inches) using an idea from  the YouTube channel Yeates Makes where you first create a random background and then sketch on top. Somehow that technique is very freeing!

I'd also been casting about for a textile craft I could do in the evening while watching TV. Wasn't keen on crocheting or knitting. Cross stitch was out. For a while, I hand-stitched small fabric collages (about 6x6-inches), like below.

But they required a certain amount of pre-planning. I wondered if weaving might be the ticket... Got a stack of books (love, love public libraries), showed my ever-accommodating husband (who, from now on, shall affectionately be known as EAH!) a photo of a simple frame loom. Soon after he returned from his workshop with this beauty:

The book is Weaving by Mary Maddocks. Here's the first little sample (made with $4 worth of thrift store yarn).

Enjoying the meditative quality of over and under -- simple weaving is proving to be the perfect evening companion. Along with EAH!

I also got back into a good routine in the studio and have been warming up with some 9x9-cm prints, which I'll show you in the next post. Meanwhile, all best to everyone!