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.

Practising stillness

In the last couple of days before leaving the cottage I got to play around with some words. I had previously written out the words Stillness, Silence and Simplicity and the wonderful Robyn Gordon had commented that she also loved Solitude and Serenity. I thought to myself they would be delightful additions and set about seeing if I could bring together a composition of sorts.

Using Kilian Capitals, it looks like it could be possible. 

I then returned to another form of handwriting I had used many many moons ago, and thought the simplicity of its form might also work with these words.

I picked up some tracing paper I had to hand, and wrote with a white gel pen.

There are things to think about with the layout; and much muscle memory that needs to be returned and reminders of which letter forms do what, but it has potential as well.

I placed the tracing paper over white paper and over black paper.

And greyish paper...

And then I popped all the tests into a black frame, to see if they worked.

I think there might be some places to take this...

The second book of silences (2)

Once again, the light is hard to get right here at home and the book looks duller here than it does in real life. In real life there is a softness, not a heaviness.

 And we begin again from the middle - where the silent pages rest quietly.

This spread gives such contrasting silences, with much to ponder.

More silent pages, slowing us down, making us feel and listen to the silence.

And yet more silences.

And yes, much gratitude once again.

I like how the soft Japanese paper almost muffles the book at the ending.

And further evidence of the lighting issues - here is one packaged looked light and bright and beautiful!

So, the books of silences are complete. I have enjoyed having a self-initiated, not-for-profit, community collaborative project to pursue for the past year or more.  It has been a gentle thing to be doing; it has tested my brain and made me practice a lot of things which now feel less daunting each time I do them. I will take a break from this sort of project for a bit now, and turn my mind back to making some jewellery; and a couple of ideas and works I have had burbling away in the back of my brain. 

The second book of silences (1)

 So... the second book of silences is complete!

I have also managed to wrap, pack and post those that need posting. Once again, posting to the US proves challenging as we negotiate tariffs, non tariffs and all the rest, so I have sent them off with my very best wishes and hopes!

I wanted to show the books in full, so have created two blog posts; this one and the next one so that all of the pages can be viewed without creating a single, huge post of almost 30 images!

This is a book of silences and a second book of silences, side by side. I had thought at the last minute that I might add a second line of pen 'stitching' to the bottom (or the top) to differentiate them, but when I tried to do it it looked really awful, so I quickly retreated from that thought. Instead, they look the same on the outside, but differ on the inside.

Siblings.

I tossed up between a book of silences ii; and a second book of silences and went for the latter. So many decisions.

And straight away, the book offers you silence.

And little bit more silence, then a perfect silence.

I can feel myself in so many of these silences. Either acknowledging a shared silence; or seeking one I am yet to experience.

And we reach the middle of the book, we pause, with silence.

The rest of the book can be seen in the next post. It is nice to take time and read the silences slowly as well.

So many steps to a book

Well, in between rain showers and storms I have been slowly pottering along progressing a couple of things. A calligraphic commission has been posted, the book for Narratives is edging closer, and the second book of Silences is oh so close to being finalised!

Here I am creating a prototype to double check that the pages I have printed are in fact the pages I meant to print; and that they are in the order in which I planned it. For some reason I reached the end of printing and worried that I might have forgotten something, hence the double check prototype and the good news was that all was on track. Tick.

Laying out all the printed pages ready to fold.

Folded.

Collated 

The delight of a deckled edge on the cover.

The task ahead after stitching - trimming the pages down. At this point I felt a bit sad we no longer had a guillotine; but I knew if I took things slowly and had some rests in between times that I would be able to hand trim the 21 books.

Evidence of ongoing trimming. I actually took this shot at what I thought was the end of the task; only to discover a bit later that there were 5 books hidden under a sheet of paper that still needed to be stitched AND trimmed! Laugh.

Now just some lovely closeups of the spines and the edges.  I never tire of looking at these.

And then I began to tag them and make piles for sorting - which ones get handed out; which ones get posted within Australia; which ones head to the UK; and which ones go to Canada and the US. I think I have it all straight in my brain.

Now to wrap, pack and post and take a walk through all the second silences...