Playing with those cotton reels

 I have managed to take some steps into making - at least the initial play and explore phase, which is at least something.

I had been pondering what to wrap around the cotton reels that could unfurl. I searched online for Vintage muslin, for vintage linen, for vintage table cloths and runners. I hummed and I hahed.

And then in a spark in my head came a couple of old teatowels we have here.  I oftentimes take the linen sheets we are finished with for sleeping, and cut them down into tea towels, and further down into serviettes.  I also have this old wheat coloured tea towel that has some stains on it, but which is made of firmer linen and I thought I could re-use it possibly. 

So it got washed, I sat quietly and unpicked the hems and then measured the cotton reels. The strips ended up being quite thin - maximum of 3cm with the narrowest being 1.5cm. I pull a thread at the measured mark and then used snips to cut along that line. I thought I would simply tear it; but it was too tough for that!

I wrapped the length (the width of the tea towel about 53cm) around one cotton reel and played with it.

And then I wrapped all the cotton reels with their bits and thought maybe I have something, maybe.

These three show the 3cm, the 2cm and the 1.5cm widths.

The play continued as I thought about hanging them, and one of the things I had to hand was a coat hanger, so here are a few iterations with the reels at different distances from each other.

I am not sure how you would describe this part of this process. It is definitely in the exploration and testing phase. It is almost a proof of concept and it is definitely about pursuing ideas and not deciding too early what they will be or how they will be.

I oftentimes can rush to a conclusion - my brain sees the whole thing finished before I have even sorted out if any of it is possible; so I am trying to slow down and follow this path and that, keeping an open mind.

Must admit I like the look of the reels on the coat hangers! They would of course need to be threaded on somehow and held apart by something if I didn't want them slip sliding all over the place, but visually I am quite happy with this beginning.

Flowers

 In the last little while, the winter blooms have blossomed a bit and I am making haste to gather some into the house.

I always feel happiest when here are fresh flowers inside with me. I always used to think that if I won the lottery, my big indulgence would be to have fresh flowers delivered every week.

I still try to have fresh flowers every week, despite no lottery wins.

Dad brought me along a stem of his orchids and suggested I could cut it down to make several vases. I love the angular nature of them here on the kitchen bench.

Our irises are just beginning to show their shy faces and I managed to gather a couple for inside

We helped a friend with some gardening and she gave me a couple of her early freesias - the scent! And so I collected a few of our remaining snow drops and some violets and made a posy.

Outside in the late afternoon sun - I love the low light - this lone camellia sat shining.

And gardening mid-morning, this frail and persistent hydrangea gave a smile.

And more late afternoon sun - picking up the first of the blossoms on the cherry tree so vibrantly.

And along the way, I began a rainbow doodle. 

Life is good.

Doodling along

 I mentioned back here that I had set up a wee doodle practice because I thought I might enjoy having a very small thing to turn to each day.

So far, I have done pretty well with it - I think I have missed one day (so did two lines the next day) and one evening I realised I hadn't done it, and with only ten minutes to go before dinner was ready I thought let's see what I can get done - and I managed half a row.

It's been interesting to notice how much I have enjoyed the maybe ten or 15 minutes I spend each day doing what is really, a fairly mindless task. I think it has enabled me to empty my mind and simply focus.

It has been little bit like a circuit breaker and then of course there is the lovely simple feedback loop that shows me that I have done a little something.

I looked at my container of watercolours and just went - I don't ever use the browns - now is the time! I had five to choose from:

And so it begins.

Rather than simply paint directly into the shapes, I decided to try a bit of that watercolour thing of laying down the water first, then adding the pigment to it. Clearly some work better than others!

Some days the rows happen quickly!

The day I did two days in a row, in one sitting.

I think I did two rows in one day here because they were so tiny.

The ten minutes before dinner day!

And the next day.

And where I am up to now. Nearly time to draw up another one I think.

I have absolutely no purpose with this except to paint some shapes each day. It is proving to be both simple and soothing.

Doodling, lettering, colouring

 I am keeping pretty busy on return and have lots of arty things on the go.

The other morning at Biblio I started playing around with ideas about how to write the 5 'S' words starting with Stillness, that I blogged about on Sunday.  I am thinking of making maybe five small pieces that would fit in a frame similar to the black one I tested them in when in Scotland.

I wrote the word love out by hand in green; then used pencil to create perhaps nicer letters; and went over it with red. However, and no real surprises, the pencil stayed under the red even when I rubbed it out, and it looked a bit iffy (photo 2). And for comparison I wrote direct with red and the colour stayed much brighter, even tho the photos barely show it!

I then gave myself a little task of creating a small sampler of the pens I thought I could use to do these small works.

And it worked out well.

And then for the first time in days the sun came out as it set, and caught the page and looked beautiful!

And for no good reason other than I am doing so many small things towards bigger things I thought I might try a doodle a day kind of thing. It was more about doing a small thing each day if I can. And by small I mean really small, like simply filling in a square or a few colours on a mixed up kind of grid. Who knows if I even do it; but it was meditative to draw things up.

I tested the idea out in my journal.

Decided the X was too distracting and added a few more of this and that, here and there.

And then went and had a play on a piece of watercolour paper 10 x 15cm. And inked in the lines. 

Now...to colour them in!

I am trying to stay away from over thinking it...but I doubt I will.! I will select  series of colours to use and try to stick with them.

Kilian Capitals

 There have not been too many moments to play and make and create, but I have been thoroughly enjoying my time with Kilian Capitals!!!

My photos are not transferring properly for some reason so I am frustrated by that; will do my best to make things look reasonable, but that is the best I can hope for I think.

I had drafted three words and practiced a few different layouts here - the missing word is stillness.

I transferred the single line version of the words onto black - looks grey here but is really a nice black.

And gradually filled them out in pencil as I went. I have mentioned my issues with writing the letter S - and boy what a delight it was for me to have all these opportunities to practice!

The finished 'piece'.

I continued on my merry way wth another short piece of one of my favourite quotes, but along the way I caught sight of a folded 'book-et' I had sitting alongside me and wondered if I might be able to bring things together somehow.

And so here it is!

I thought it would make a two-way sample book. I had loved this series of folds (inspired by Annwyn) and I enjoyed finding proportions I liked. I had written the lengths on the back of it, planning to use it as  resource. And then I realised that in fact, some of my Kilian sample pieces would fit within the folds. how excitement! and so then it could be my fold sample as well as my Kilian sample!

It incorporates black on white vertical writing, vertical writing white on black, pencil on white, pencil on black and white on black.

I got an extraordinary sense of satisfaction and achievement doing this small, play piece. Funny isn't it how you just play around and make something for yourself and it is joyous!

Kilian Capitals

 I have long loved the look of this lettering style, and before we came away I discovered a short online course about them. So, I signed up and during our first week here have managed to sit down and watch the lessons and do a bit of practice. Such fun!

The view from my 'studio' desk.

I did lots of practice of individual letter from groups and letters.  It is funny how after years of writing, your hand wants to do certain things when forming a letter, and yet this style forces you to do different signs and go in different directions. I had to catch myself quite a bit and slow down and focus on doing what felt a bit unnatural.

One of the things I like most is how he knits and weaves letters; and allows them to cross over into other letters alongside, above and below.

Lots of notes to self!

I then began practising layouts for a phrase Peace is Every Step. For the life of me, I couldn't remember to not make the second bowl of the S equal to the first one - it should stop well before, making the letter quite top heavy.

The advice is to do the layout in pencil first, to work out your ligatures and spacing and placement; and then go on to do the proper lettering. I think in time you could probably commit in one fell swoop - but in these early days it is good to have the opportunity to rub out and try again as the planning of the letter placement takes a bit.

I think I like the last one best - where I have made EVERY a bit bigger, but need to move the E to the left to balance things out a bit.

And then I distracted myself with this pile of scraps I found I had left here last time.

Clearly they had bookmarks written all over them! Just waiting for me to transform them.

So I had a play around which gave me inordinate pleasure, and made four bookmarks!

I will get back to some more quotes and layouts and practice, but this was fun to do.