Month: November 2011

tree portraits

November 9, 2011

portraits; elm, oak, sycamore

Using the (extremely smart) cell phone, I can take pictures of things even when I forget my camera. These were taken using a cool app that emulates old film cameras: a Brownie ( got one of these for Christmas one year, I remember it with great fondness), a Russian orange box, a Polaroid (of a vintage I recognize from my childhood) and a pin hole camera. I particluarly like this format, from the strange Russian orange box. 

I'm working on several folios at once, experimenting with things that work, and things that don't.

The leaf prints from yesterday were made by coloring on the back of a leaf with oil paint sticks, and then ironing it, paint side down, on the page. It hightlights the veining in the leaves, and some of the edges, it keeps paint form going everywhere on the workbench, and ironing leaves makes the most evocative smell.  

 

elm leaf, sycamore leaf

November 8, 2011

elm and sycamore leaves

I'm making a set of pages for each of a series of trees. You've already seen some of the pages for oak, these are leaf prints for sycamore and elm. I think I am working from an individual tree for each set of pages. Each bunch of leaves came from a specific tree. 

I made a lovely discovery: after calling the set of pages the oak folio, I thought I should go look up folio and make sure I was using it correctly. To my delight, I was.  Wikipedia says a folio is a pamphlet or book made up of full sheets of paper folded in half, printed on each of the four pages that result. Folded sheets can be nested to make gathers, and the gathers can be stitched and bound as signatures.

Since I am working with full sheets of, well, sheet actually, and folding them in half and nesting them to make signatures, they really are folios. The pages are old sheets ripped to a reasonable size, and painted with accidentally colored gesso. 

leaf on leaf, oak

November 6, 2011

leaf on leaf, oak

Thinking on more ways of showing what is interesting about this oak tree. This is a print (two prints actually; one on silk, one on cotton behind it) of a leaf, taken from one of the branches that broke in the recent storm. 

sketchbook beginnings

November 4, 2011

oak folio

I realized I was overthinking the sketchbook project. Since I draw with thread, all I have to do is sketch with thread, and then think about how to make it more book-like. So, above is an oak, and the beginning of a set of parts of an oak tree (bark, leaf, seed, maybe something else). I have three more sets of fabric pages, which I think will be dedicated to three other trees. 

Sounds like a plan to me.  

past the weather

November 2, 2011

We have power again, and have gained 100 years of technology more or less, overnight. Al was trying to figure out how far back in time we'd gone when we could cook on the stove, and the water ran, but there was no heat except from the stove (and the people, and the candles) and no light and certainly no internet. It was his thought that we'd lost 100 years of progress in one quick blink. After we regained power, and before friends did, we hosted many people for eating, cooking and several showers. The best comment was from Rachel exiting the shower. She was asked "how do you feel now dear?" and answered "cleaner than you" which brought down the house.

The town and the power company seemed to communicate well, and they got us power back well before their first estimate. I am thinking we owe a lot of thanks to the crews that came in from other states, like the man from Oregon that Cathy was talking to at the top of a phone pole, or the guy from South Carolina who was taking down a tree in Montague.

I successfully delivered two original works, and 10 photographic reproductions (mounted, signed and shrink-wrapped) to the Crane Estate on Monday. The driving got more and more normal as I apporached the coast – fewer trees part way across the road and leaning precariously on phone and power lines, fewer branches blocking off half the road. Mum and I had a lovely lunch (thanks Mom!!) and I drove right back home again.

After a day of breathing and not-driving yesterday, except for a really good lesson on Image, I realized I have to think about November.

Historically November is NaNoWriMo which is short for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is simply to finish a piece of work that you've been hung up on, or have started but haven't finished, or have thought about but never started. The rules can be summarized as: "write, and don't look back." The theory is that once you develop forward momentum it is easier to keep going. The general advice is to write like crazy in November and spend a month revising (like, say, December) and then if you think it is worthwhile, send it out to someone. Not everyone is working towards publishing a book. Many people join simply because they want to have written a book, and this is a handy support group for doing exactly that.

Last year I joined some people working on a craft version of this, called NaNoCraftMo, where we tried to work on something every day. That was when I started trying to capture the pond I am so enamored of in fabric, and produced a series of pieces my mother loved. You can see those here, here and here. Those helped me produce the pieces I just handed in to the ladies in Ipswich. So NaNo was a useful exercise, and I am going to do something again.

Several months ago I joined the World Sketchbook Tour, but I have had trouble focusing on the sketchbook. If I work every day in November, it will be full, and interesting and done. And then I can mail it. My theme is A Path Among Trees which is perfect for the things I've been noticing lately. All I have to figure out is how I can make my fabric things work in a sketch book.

And then I can spend December doing something completely frivolous and foolish that I can choose from a list of frivolous and foolish things I've been keeping for moments like that.