Glimpses

 I have been working on finalising three verses/poems that reflect some of our time in Scotland.

I have called the series Glimpses. Each one is a glimpses of a scene I have become familiar with, and fond of, in the north of Scotland.

The chaffinches that visit our kitchen window are absolute favourites and still stop me each and every time. Yet, they move so swiftly I often only catch a glimpse. 

The changing nature of the hillsides as the seasonal colour changes take effect, incrementally, yet creating such vast contrasts, inspired glimpses of the turning.

 

Trees of the blanket bog came about following a conversation with my brother in Australia:

 

“It’s Autumn there now isn’t it?” he said; “How’s the colour?”

 

I turned and looked out the window.

 

“The colour’s more down south, like Perthshire, up here, we don’t really have trees”.

 

And I told him what we have instead are power poles. That these are our ‘trees of the blanket bog’; and how at certain points in our regular drive, we glimpse them, scratching the sky.

I have been working on them with my beautiful new typewriter and some lovely Japanese papers. 

There were typos, and layout mistakes, one time I didn't return far enough and the new line started in an indented position...so many things to focus on.

I was working towards using the Moleskine notebooks I mentioned back here...but after attempting to glue

the paper onto the lightweight page part, I was disappointed with the buckling and the way in which it flattened and deadened the lovely paper. So...B was right! And I had to ponder what to do instead. 

In the interim, I went and worked on my second doodle page - which was calming and mind-emptying, so I didn't get too het up about my failure.

I knew the typed pages were good and showed promise. I had stitched the typewritten page to another page of the same paper and they created a lovely framed/bordered look. But then what to do with them?

I tried them out on some Arches Velin paper, cut as if to make a cover. I liked the look, but then thought about attachment. Would I sew right through them into the cover? That was problematic as any sewing would cut through the words which were split over the gutter of the page. Glueing them was another option - but I really didn't like how much it deadened the work and didn't let it feel alive.

So I did a mock up in plain paper and much smaller than the real thing. And wondered how it would go if I simply machine stitched from the stitched border to the top; and from below to the bottom?

This was functional - it held the paper page in place; but also met the form requirement of letting the page have lift and life. Felt like I was onto a winner!

And so I went and folded the page and set each page into a cover and sewed from the border to the top and to the bottom. And left the threads...

And attached the title to the front of the cover. And they were done.

I have made four of each verse, and now I know what I want to do, I have the capacity to make more. But this is a good start, in readiness for the Pop Up in Scotland in August.

Back to the typewriter

 Yum! I spent the most delicious of mornings playing with the typewriter I got for my birthday. It was the first chance I have had to see what it does and how it does it and it was good to feel the keys under my fingers.

I had this idea in my head to use some of these Moleskine postcard books I had purchased a few years ago, to pop a couple of poems I had written in Scotland into.

I typed out the first poem to see how it would fit. And just like letterpress, discovered that you can't modify the size of the font/typeface, and the poem ended up much wider than a single page. I would need a Plan B.

I typed it at triple space, double space and single space.

So I started to put the wee book through the typewriter. The poor thing, its first outing and it has to handle a book! The life of a typewriter in the hands of an artist...

I typed the title on the opening page.

And then opened it up and tested how it would go typing across the double spread and the flattened spine.

It didn't work really, so that was a good test. The roller also creased the cover and back cover rather a lot.

So off I went to type the second poem and then typed them both onto this nice firm, but light, Japanese paper.

And then tore them out (with no grain to guide me) and looked at them and thought maybe yes.

So now I am drifting and dreaming and thinking and pondering and wondering how they might become part of the page...

Biblio and words

A friend recently gave me this book, and I took it along to our first Biblio session here to read. I thought it might be nice and enjoyable; I didn't think it would inspire me and get me excited!

It introduced me to the notion of ekphrasis - "a literary device consisting of a vivid, detailed description of a visual work of art". Being a pretty much self taught artistic type person I am often rather late to the party when it comes to well understood notions in this world (strangely my degree in physiotherapy and post grad in public sector management never mentioned it!).

And I got excited and wrote notes.

I read the poems and then spent the rest of the time investigating this new word and looking for exercises to take me through the process of doing it. I read lots of things and wrote lots of notes.

This week at Biblio I decided to try out the exercises on a painting we have in our bedroom here. I love the painting and thought there was so much in it.

We purchased it nearby, and it is called Night Swimming by Rhona Graham. Luckily I had forgotten the title as I was doing this work.

I began by letting my eyes rove over it for 5 minutes, looking at what caught my eye first; what I noticed; where my eye went next; the different things I saw.

Then I simply wrote for 10 minutes and was intrigued where my thinking began to go.

After those 10 minutes, which were pretty descriptive and literal; I turned to do 10 minutes of creative writing, trying to loosen myself up to find words and rhythms and meanings. Some of the prompts were to consider the point of view you might write from, take your observations out of the frame and so on.

After those 10 minutes I went away and thought about words a bit and rhythm. Then the next step was to cull these words and to simply write 10 lines.

It was such an enjoyable process and exercise. I melded steps from all sorts of sources and mixed and matched and changed the process half way through but ended up doing something I really enjoyed and that got me a lot further down the path towards a poem than I would have had I simply looked at the painting and written "an ode to a painting".

My ten lines at the end of it:

Safe harbour, amongst the many moons

All the moons

Expanding to an infinity of stars

Water settles into permanent night

Serene, secure, safe

Ways in and ways out

Steering clear of worries

Breathing in the dark sky

Drawing in the moon glow

Releasing the deep water.

There is more to do in refining and working on rhythms and culling and re-arranging, but I am so pleased that I have the kernel of poem sitting here, speaking with me.

I do love learning!

Still Looking Slowly

My work is slow. It takes time. There are so many choices and decisions along the way; most of which need me to test them or trial them. And so we are still looking slowly...

I like the cards, I worked out where the masking strip for lettering would be, I knew which tape worked. I had chosen the pencil and the white pen (tried a silver one but it just looked like more pencil). I had my watercolour palette worked out and I worked out how many pebbles and broadly in which positions.

I kept going back to my 'recipe' and trying to work out how I could include transparent or translucent paper.  It's not easy with an accordion stitched book, but I checked out whether the 10gsm Tengucho could be glued over an area.

I tested the Spray adhesive - but it left a rusty brown mark which wasn't going to work. Then I tried a plain old Blu Stick and you can see this was not yet quite dry.

I thought that gluing the whole piece of the Tengucho down really flattened it, and took away the look of it, so tried just gluing at either end; leaving the middle part of the paper 'free' and so you could see the texture better.

I quite liked it and was almost set to do it, when I wondered as the book was handled, would the lightweight paper lift or roll? And yes you can see that it does, so it was back to the drawing board for the transparent paper. Sigh.

I began to think other design elements and piercing came to mind - not outlining, just in a few places around the pebble forms. This was tested on a piece that had worked up until the moment I had to remove the tape, and a fair chunk of card came with it.

I wondered about blind embossing and embossing and found the small pebble forms I had used to blind emboss the covers of my Grief is A Stone book-ets back here. And I really like their subtlety and the way they simply hint at the forms. 

And so we continue. I have now painted and drawn all the cards for the books. I have blind embossed all the cards, and pierced all the cards. With wisdom I have decided to ignore the recipe because in the end, if the recipe doesn't serve the book it is not helpful.  I am still looking at ways to incorporate transparent or translucent paper, but it won't be on the pages.

I have started to plan the covers and am beginning to play with the title page. I think I have chosen the thread for stitching, but am yet to decide on a container. Still plenty to go on with - and of course I still have to write the words!! I did do a trial of each of the pages and the size of lettering that would fit, so that is something. I thought I had lost it, but found it under a pile of paper today so at least I don't have to repeat it.

And just for a break from thinking about the book, I did some more swing tags for Barry.

 

Still trying, but now with some words

 So after making shapes and blobs and drawing some lines, I began to try to work out how the words might work with the imagery. 

After I had fiddled and played and tried and tested things, these are the notes I wrote on the back of each page.

The black pen is too harsh. Writing over the shapes and lines feels the opposite of the words. The writing style feels complicated.

Wet on wet doesn't work for. The lettering across the top still looks too complicated. Pencil is better than black ink.

Nice layout. Nice colours. Caps work well. Not sure the image and the words feel connected.

I like the way the words appear to bust up the complexity and create a little oasis. Pencil yes. Caps yes. I don't think the extra colouring works. I don't think the white elements work.

Barry's Washi tape worked beautifully. I like the oasis of lettering. Caps tick. Pencil tick. Simple/elegant.

Love the colours. The Japanese card is smooth. Pencil tick. Caps tick. Washi tape tick. ?My favourite?

A compilation of my three favourites at the end of the day.

After an overnight test, I came back and tried to add some extra interest in to a couple of favourites, adding layers to some of the shapes formed in the stones to see if it made them more interesting. Using lead pencil, and then watercolour.

The jury is still out for me on that!

I remain somewhat unsure aa to how I might bring transparency into the mix but I'm hopeful that it might linger at the outside edges of my thinking and work itself out and let me know!

Generally speaking I think I have got some good guide posts - the smooth Japanese card, the washi tape for masking out, the masking out itself as part of the design, the pencil, the capital letters, and the white pen. All good to keep going with. I think also the cooler greys. Maybe adding some extra dimension to the shapes? Still not sure!!!

Next question to ponder - is each page done in the same colour way and tones? Or does each page have its own colour? There are seven so...???

Trying something out

 As mentioned previously, I am really hoping to make a book sometime using my seven sets of words that began with walk... and look slowly

In fact, I went to Julie Chen's Artist Book Ideation cards and captured some goals and guides for making the book. I thought if I took away the structure and techniques issue and just worked to a set of guidelines I might get myself closer to just making the book, given that I have the words, rather than face three more years of pondering...

I find the cards a marvellous tool for breaking through road blocks - they are a bit like the Nike tag line and get me going to - just do it.

I don't often work with the accordion structure so that will be a bit of a challenge. (You can see some testing of ideas and counting of pages coming through the page from the other side!). Mixed media I think I can work with, the translucent/transparent paper is yet to be worked through, but I was happy I got to work with my favourite colours! I have to design an enclosure or box as well. So,  these are my parameters.

This was all done a few weeks ago, but on the weekend I collected some watercolours and cards from the studio and brought them home just in case the mood or moment arrived where I felt up to doing something with them. Mindless blobs of watercolour seemed perfect for my brain fog.

And then I began drawing onto them a bit. Not quite sure where they are going but... maybe somewhere.

Not much to show for it yet, but this is further than I have gotten before with getting these words turned into a book, so it's progress. All very slow at the moment, but going gently is the thing.

Words at play

 Looking back through my journals and notes it seems like I started to write these words about the way life flows when at the cottage back in 2019...

I did nothing with them, but by 2021 had thought I might add another verb into the mix.

Whilst we were away I had another think upon the words and started to draft some ideas. Here I was working with 5 sentences. 

But this is what I found in my phone and added to last month. I had found 6 in another journal somewhere and written that into my phone, but forgotten I had. So clearly my record keeping needs tidying up.

By adding the dates I tried to firm up the chronology.

This morning I sat and went through them again. I realised I have created six short sentences, and wondered to myself if they wouldn't be better as seven? Seven is a much nicer number.

Rather than revert to five, I went for seven and this is what my book looks like this afternoon after a bit of a play.

And then I tried to be ordered about things and wrote three columns - two verbs and one adverb - and wrote the different words in the columns thinking I could play with this and that - join them up this way, try them that way...

Half way through I then thought to analyse what I had written thus far - hence the bits about syllables. I figured the rhythm should be pretty much the same across the seven sentences.

Clearly nothing is resolved, but the idea of seven works. My understanding of how they are written is better. The direction is underway and soon I shall have my seventh.

Then of course to work out how to present them - but that will emerge. Given it has taken 5 years for the idea to get to this stage, I really hope this is the time to complete it.

I have written notes to myself to stop directing the work, and let it emerge. I had drafted outlines of the book, and the size, and the placement of imagery, and the where the words would go on each page and what typeface I might use, and I just said to myself STOP. 

I hope to now do some playful experimentation and see where the words and possibly the imagery from the previous post take me. Let the words and the work lead me, so often better things emerge that way...