The cottage

Our thoughts have been turning to the cottage a lot more of late, as we get a bit of work done on our kitchen ceiling; as we join zoom meetings about a proposed wind farm; and we chat with other folk who have family connections to our wee village.

My heart has also turned to making work about the cottage and I have returned to an idea I had last year but which has sat there, patiently waiting for me to find a way through it.

Several veers to the left, the odd dead end and the need to clamber over a couple of fences and I have begun to make some progress; in completely different directions to where I thought I was going. Such is life.  I should really remember to never set out with certainty!

Plan A was to get some aluminium plates prepared in the shape of the cottage.

Plan A also involved etching said plates with imagery of flowers. I prepared some flower tracings and then laughed at myself - thinking how on earth can you get that onto the plate in such a ways as to etch it, so that you can ink it and print an etching?

I say I shouldn't head off with certainty; but I should in fact set off with an understanding of what it might take to achieve my goal and all of the possible steps; rather than my follow my nose and see what happens. Dilemma.

So I left it for 9 months, unable to face the challenge of working all of that out.

Last month, I picked up some of the cutouts and decided I would try a bit of a ground/stop out and then see if I could use a tool to mark the tracing into the ground and create a drypoint plate of sorts. On the left I use lip gloss; on the right a waxed crayon.

Suffice to say I  felt so underwhelmed by this that I am yet to even attempt to etch them.  

And then one night for some weird reason I was awake and thought - I could emboss/de-boss the imagery of the cottage onto something else! Clearly my brain was trying to found a way to avoid all that etching angst.

So I put both parts through the etching press on different papers and thought - ooh I like that.

Something could come of that.  

So my mind then turned to what the background could be that the cottage appeared against?  Would I keep on with some sort of etching print? do a mono print? print a photograph? a watercolour wash?

I have progressed but not yet completed; but I am moving which is better than being stuck.

Liz mentioned the other week that she had never seen inside the cottage; so here are a few snaps from inside. It is tiny and cosy. On our first visit my Dad, Barry and I built every piece of furniture from IKEA after repainting every wall and the kitchen ceiling. 

One of my favourite photos - Barry's legs look so relaxed whilst he sits inside the cupboard fitting the drawer sliders!

The kitchen before.

and after.

The lounge room before.

and after.

Dad and I trying to work out the lounge room chair.

One of the bedrooms, after.

The sofa bed couch, before.

and after...

Ahhh, that gorgeous cottage of ours...