I've been home for a week now with the kind of flu that reminds a person how amazing it is that we have modern medicine...I'm sure that 200 years ago I would have coughed myself to death, or at least into some secondary infection that would take ages to recover from.  Thanks to a trip to my doc yesterday and a mittful of modern meds, I had my first full night's sleep in several days.

It's weird to have been away from work this long while classes are in session.  School board work often means chunks of time off, but it's pretty much always the same chunks of time for staff and students alike.

The last few days have left me in long stretches of low-energy consciousness...not so energetic that I could, say, do the laundry, but with enough percolation to sit and fiddle.

Of course, the foremost thing in my mind right now is the Sketchbook Project.

With a couple of drawings/paintings already ready to go for the Project, it was time to experiment with a bit of binding to see what is going to be useful and long-term functional for something that will be moved, opened, closed, shelved, packed, moved, flipped through again, etc.  I used a modified (mostly due to the size of my paper) version of Teesha Moore's Journal. My final book is pretty small, and the fold-flap pages are a bit abbreviated compared to Teesha's, but it was more about experimenting with the ideas than perfection.  Also wanted to answer some questions I had about how this particular paper would react to being heavily water coloured on both sides, and whether or not the markers would bleed (or if paint would want to creep through the stitching holes).

I used 3 pieces of paper, torn to approximate what Teesha did with her one large sheet.  My book has deckled edges on the top and bottom of each page, cover included.  The deckled edge allows for the handmade feel of the book, and those torn edges react to the paint differently, creating a natural border when the work runs all the way to the edges.

I used a waxed Egyptian cotton (not linen) thread to do the stitching, and found that I couldn't get it as tight as I wanted. It's because of this that I glued the pieces of mulberry paper to both the outside spine (as shown on the photos of the outside cover) and on the inmost signature.  They were fun, too, to play against with the paint, seeing how/if they would absorb the pigments in the same way as the rag papers, or not.  I was really quite happy with the way that the two papers complement each other.

Also, to play and experiment, I pre-painted all of the pages in random colours - just quick glazes, motley and spontaneous.  Having not painted in layers in quite this way before, it was interesting to see how the paint colour would suggest different subject matter.  The first page, with the portrait face, was pretty tricky, really.  It was my first time drawing on a surface that had nothing to do with the subject matter, and it took a lot of concentration.  All in all, I'm pretty happy with the outcome.  

The page that I did this morning shows two handmade things that are precious gifts given me by friends over the Christmas holidays.  The page colour suggested this as topic, as the plate and the background colour have the same rare yellow/green hue to them.  It was painted so that the yellow/green could glow through the  over painting and give some cohesiveness to the whole picture.

The paper held up well, and you can plainly see in the pictures the bit of bleed-through at the stitch holes on the signature, but all in all it was more successful than expected.  I'll probably bind a couple more little wee books like this to get the stitching tension ironed out better, then jump in and do the actual book for submission.

The whole thing leaves me wondering...if I weren't me, what would I do with all this time on my hands?  What do other people do when they're at home sick for long stretches? I caught up on all of my website work, wrote the rough draft of my proposal for a work thing, hammered through a bunch of email that was waiting to be dealt with, read 3 books and watched 4 movies (oh, find time to watch 'Mary and Max', especially if you have Netflix). That, and managed to sleep long chunks of time away here and there, including all of last weekend. 

Oh, and for the people in the audience who love that technical stuff, the paper is some bottom rung 100 lb rag paper, the paint is Koi, the markers are Pitt and Staedtler, and the pencil is one of those ones made of recycled Chinese newspapers.  

In better health,

Lisa

The sketchbook project

In a few moments of decision over the Christmas Holiday, I signed up for the Sketchbook Project.  I went for it, the whole enchilada...and am so glad that I did.

When the sketchbook itself arrived, I was a bit disappointed.  It's a rather small and slim Moleskine with very light paper (suitable for drawing, but not for too much more).  The paper is a nice quality, and there are only 8 leaves in the (single) signature, making for about 15 double page spreads in total.  The cover is plain, recycled cardboard brown, and it has a little bar code on the back with my name and my theme, 'The Science Of Story'.

The plainness, the thinness of the sketchbook is part of the genius.  It really does represent the 'blank canvas', the emptiness on which we participants can improvise and riff our way to a completed book.  The 'rules' of the project allow for all kinds of shenanigans.  We can alter and replace, unbind and rebind, fold, cut and burn our books into almost anything we want...as long as the final closed/storage size is the same width and length, and no thicker than 1".

Once I started playing around with actual images, doing paint sketches for the parts that were already clear in my mind, I realized that the best course of action for me is going to be to make the book as individual pages, then to assemble and bind them into the existing (or a modified) cover, replacing the existing paper.

I've rediscovered watercolour.  The existing book pages are too light to take the water and paint, and I have a block of bright white 100lb watercolour paper here to play with...so, naturally I'll be making my book from the paper I have on hand.

I could probably fill over a hundred blog posts with all the things that I've forgotten about watercolour as a medium; the how-to's and all the little terminology items like, 'grisaille' and 'impasto'.  Been operating mostly on instinct, feeling my way around the medium again, relearning all the little things (like that I should have taped the dang paper down - fundamental, Lisa!!).

 I ended up doing two parallel paintings, both from the same base image/reference photo.  I wanted to try something that used a lot of heavy black, that let it run all over, that took multiple glazes of colour to bring to life, and something completely controlled, almost 'comic book' style for the actual title page.

The photo of the black and white self above and the one above left are two stages of the same painting.  The one above right is the grisaille, the one at left is after multiple washes were applied and let run around, doing their wonderful damage to the base image.  The final painting is very gestural and warm, with a lot of dimension.  It was a good way to play and loosen up so that I didn't get to tight doing the other image, the one that will probably end up being the title page of the book.

 This one had more steps and stages, and many, many more washes.  Using a totally different approach (but one I'm far more comfortable with), this one began with dropping in the shadow areas of the sketch.  Each layer applied overlaps and deepens the colour of the existing layers, while is translucent on the paper and other exposed areas.

If you've been reading this blog for a few years, you will remember that this is the same method used for 'Bacchanalia' and 'Blossom Lady' quilts.

I love the under painting stages every bit as much as the finishing, when it comes to this method.

The second picture is an intermediate stage that shows a few more layers dropped in.

The last photo here, at right, is the finished image.  Once the painting was all done, I went in with some fine tipped markers (black and brown) and tightened up here and there, creating greater definition and doing the lettering. This one will get a little work yet, as I need to balance the composition a bit more.  I'll probably do some nice lettering borrowing from what the project has already established, dropping 'the sketchbook project' into the upper left hand corner.

Next, I need to make some real decisions about how this is all going to go.  I have a loose idea, but am at the 'rubber hitting the road' stage, and need to just get working on the more difficult stuff.  Can't wait.

:)
Lisa

I woke up this morning to the sound of a cricket somewhere nearby in the house.  Every so often it chirps and chirps, but I haven't been able to locate it yet.  I'm always surprised that critters like this - especially crickets - can survive in a house with boys clomping around, two cats, and a large dog who quite likes to snap at insects.

It's really quiet in here this morning.

Randy has gone back to work after his Christmas break, and the boys are away at a friend's house for a couple of days.

Maybe the cricket has been chirping for a week and this is the first time I've heard it.

Last year around this time I took a few days and made myself a planner for the year.  It stemmed from having used planners for 20+ (gulp) years, and not really ever having one 'fit' my life.  For a long time I loved the Polestar Family Calendar, but found that it had more pages than I needed and whole sections that I didn't use, year after year.

The one that I made last year worked really well.  There was enough room in it for all of life's unpredictability, and for the rhythm of the week.  The boys could add important (and goofy) messages to it, and it spent most of last year firmly parked on the kitchen counter within 2 steps of the whiteboard that we use to keep our whole family's week straight.

By some miracle, I kept the template from last year with the stamps, and was able to put the one for 2012 together without much fuss or bother.

There are a couple of modifications, but not many.  The main one is that I made the date numbers substantially smaller, and the month itself doesn't take up quite so much room on the page.  The basic layout is the same, with a week per page, and all the page's dates close to the spine.  I cut the corner off the pages last year as the weeks went by, and occasionally lost part of a phone number or name, so this year will be a bit more mindful about where things will be written. The new book has a 'contacts' area, and a 'frequently used numbers' section, as last year's did.  There are dividers with pockets at the point at which the school year becomes summer, and where the summer meets the school year again.  There is also a pocket divider at the very end of the year (this was really handy for receipts and other papers that had a longer shelf life than a week or two, but not a long enough one to warrant filing).

Once again, I used stamps to show certain things...days with a bird stamp are loved ones' birthdays, and days with a peacock feather stamp are anniversaries.  The above photo shows the week of Randy's and my anniversary last year, and in the year to come. It would seem that summer is not about relaxing!  Last year I pasted little things into the book throughout the year (pictures, fortune cookie fortunes), and doodled. I can see that this year's will be the same in that regard.

 I've been pretty decadent about my time over the holiday.  I found time to finally finish the sweater that was started in the summer, and to start another sweater.  Nelson's needlework and craft store closed this week (sniff), and I bought myself a little cashmere yarn as the doors were closing.

I still need to buy proper clasps for the completed sweater (the photo here shows it being held shut with stitch markers), and block it.  In the meantime, the new sweater I'm working on is coming together rather quickly as there is plenty of sitting-around-in-the-evening time right now.  The new sweater is acid green and seafoam stripes...mmmmmm, cashmere......

Randy has been finding time during the holiday to work on the house.  He built doors for the boys' bedrooms, (yay!) and the caps for our posts.  Bit by bit, the house is coming together.

We're all getting ready to jump in to the new year around here.  Last year my resolution was about drawing, and I managed to keep it going in the intended way for about 3 months.  After that, I started including drawings I was doing for work or other purposes as my drawing 'resolution drawings', but knew that I was cheating myself!  It's funny how we can convince ourselves of things that are so contrary - part of the point of that particular resolution was to ensure that I had a place to invite drawing back into my life in creative, non-commercial ways...and promptly started mentally using my 'work' drawings as my 'recreational' drawings.  Hrm.

So this year I've opted to do a similar (non-commercial) thing in a new way.  I've joined the Sketchbook Project. The whole works has to be wrapped up and sent in by April...and that's about as long as I was able to make my resolution stick last year.  I have to pay to participate in this one - hopefully that will help with my stick-to-it-ive-ness...and at the end of it all the book will be available online for all to see, and in their library in Brooklyn.  I like the idea, too, that all the books will travel around the US, and that someday I or people I care about could go and view the book in it's new home.  I loved the themes and was able to choose one that has a lot of meat on it's bones for me, and can't wait to get in there and start working on it.  I've already been doing a bit of research and getting some ideas down.

Now I'm off to tidy up and reorganize my workspace...my little corner of the loft is completely torn apart right now as I prepare for the art-ing and craft-ing year ahead.

Cheers!
Lisa