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 Resolution Bandwagon

Yes, this year I'm on it.  The resolution bandwagon.

I don't think I've ever had a formal 'New Year's Resolution'.  In fact, for years, I rather turned my nose up at the whole idea.  What a silly girl.  I used to think,"if there's something I want to change, I will change it' - and, for the most part, that has been true.  I quit smoking without premeditation, cold turkey(16 years ago this month!).  I went back to school, grew a business, sold a business, and made other major changes in my life, all without joining into the western-culture-resolution-thing.

This year I really had a feeling that the only thing that I really lack in my life is the time to do more drawing. Actual drawing. Pencil to paper, no net, no parachute. I know that nothing in my life happens unless it is scheduled in, I have decided to actually TAKE those Illustration Friday challenges that roll into my email inbox each week.

Surprise, surprise.  This week's challenge word was "Resolution". 

Now, I've taken IF challenges before, but never religiously.  I've read them each week for the past few years, and often had an idea sparked from the suggestion of the topic.  I've just not often made good on that idea and actually sat down to make something happen.

Today, I did.

I paid a lot of attention to the process:  all the little things that I did to procrastinate vs. the actual time spent drawing. (I'll give you three guesses which took longer....the procrastination part or the drawing).  It was good for me, as part of my goal setting for something that I enjoy and welcome in my life, to look at all the ways that I put it off - that I avoid that moment of commitment, of putting pencil on paper!  I know from all the schooling I've done over the past few years that the main things that need to be in  place to make a goal happen are to be able to visualize it completed, and to schedule a time in daily life to ensure that the goal is done and not forgotten. My goal is to do my drawings on Saturday mornings (scheduling - check), and my first drawing is a self portrait of me drawing myself doing my drawing (visualization - check).


Not the greatest scan of my drawing, but it's a start.  I realized after doing this that my last couple of self portraits have been my early morning hair, comfy sweater, just-got-out-of-bed-clothes.  I may have to consider (if self portraits are going to become a habit) waiting until later in the day to make the drawings happen!
:)
Happy New Year to you, whatever your resolutions be.  May you hold to them all, and be a happier person for it.

Lisa

Unable to leave well enough alone

 I tried to be happy with the way the beginning of the book was...but I just wasn't.  January was messy...as any learning should be...and the rest of the book was clean and lovely.

I woke up this morning thinking,"I bet I could disassemble that book, print a new January, and reassemble it again". As it turns out, it's not so hard to take apart a coil bound book, if you're careful and don't try to take out too many pages at once!    I carefully slid the pages out, printed new ones, then put them back in.

You'd think I would have been happy with that.

But that's where you'd be wrong.

I kept thinking...it would be nice if there were some contact pages at the beginning for all those numbers  that our family needs to have close to the surface.  And some more pockets would be nice.  And some dividers - one at the end of June, one at the beginning of September....

I took it all apart again.  I folded and punched, stamped and glued, and put it all back together again into a really lovely book that I feel very good about. If I'd left it as it stood last night, I would have thought - this could be better... and never felt quite right about using it.

All things considered, it went together rather well.

Fave details:

• It doesn't necessarily look like a homemade planner, but definitely has a hand crafted feel
• It has pockets and dividers where I want them, where they will be used
• room for notes and miscellany in the back (no doubt also for notes on how to make next year's one even better yet!)
• The heaviness of the sketchbook paper
• The portable size
• The colours
• Little reminders here and there to 'do art'.  That's my main goal for the year...to do more art.

Cheers,

Lisa

As the year closes

 The last couple of months I've been rolling around an idea in my head. Well, okay, more than one idea...but this one is about my day planner.For the last several years I have bought the same planner - and loved it.  It has room for all the things I need, and more.  It's the 'and more' part that got me thinking. Much as I appreciate the organizational brilliance of these books, I rarely use the family profile pages, note pages or contact pages (except as grocery list paper).   After all these years of planner use (at least 20), I know what I need from a planner.  

So, typical of my personality, I decided to make one myself.  

After surfing the web looking at endless templates that weren't quite right, I decided to draw my own. Rather than attempt to print out all the pages from my computer in the proper order, double side them accurately and collate them, I opted to buy an existing book and play with some ideas.

The things I liked about the purchased planner were the hard cover and the coil binding (can't beat a book that will lie flat!), so I bought a 5.5 X 8" sketchbook and made a stencil template to rule the pages.  There were a bunch of letter and number stamps kicking around a drawer upstairs begging to be put to good use, so I employed them as my typeface.

It probably took me about 4 hours to print up (to be honest, 2 of those hours were spent watching a spaghetti western movie with my husband, and the other two listening to a Jeffrey Archer book while printing).  I learned a LOT in the process (for example, mounted stamps are far easier to handle than unmounted ones...it took until about June to figure that out!).  My later pages are far prettier than my earlier ones, but that is to be expected, isn't it?

And here, my final picture of my sample page, will not load the way it should!!  This is my 3rd try to get this particular picture to load...and it will remain rotated, as I can not get it to go any other way.

It made most sense to put the month on the right page.  My weeks are all Mon - Friday on the left, the weekend on the right.  The lower right divided area is for 'to do' lists, and telephone messages.
My planner tends to spend most of it's life on the kitchen counter being consulted daily for meal planning and open for use and referral by other family members, so the loosely divided space on the lower right doesn't get formal designation...

It's hard to see in the picture, but I've put big gold stamps on family birthdays (Youngest's is Sept 29, shown at left).

 After all the stamping was done, I added some expandable pockets for receipts, etc. The whole works is sitting under a pile of books upstairs while the glue dries.  Tomorrow I begin the adventure of writing in all the different things we have already lined up for the coming year...not the least of which involves speed skating.

It's silly, but every year I have the same satisfaction with closing the previous year's planner, and opening the new year's one.  As we get older there are fewer milestones - and the ones we have tend to get further and further apart.  There's something about the ritual of literally closing the book on one year and opening a fresh new book on the new one that's so appealing.  All those blank pages will be filled with the story of our lives... the literal story, the minutiae. We have the stories we tell about our lives, the love, the memories, but these planners end up being the record of how we get from one day to the next.

Enjoy the rest of the year.  I hope your next year's book is filled with lovely things.

Lisa

Back again! With lots of knitty content!!

I guess the boys and I didn't get enough of camping with the family and had to - just HAD to - go back for more.
Much as we missed all the cousin action and the laughter, the lake was pretty tranquil with just the boys, one of their friends, and me.




The weather was gorgeous, not too much smoke made it down the valley, and we all got a lot of swimming time in!


When I wasn't swimming, I was beach sitting.  It gave me a great opportunity to get some knitting, journal writing and drawing done.   Every year, at least once over the past few years, I've drawn Saddleback from the vantage point of the beach.

Typically I've got watercolour pencil crayons in my bag, along with some coloured pens.







This year I also brought some pre-cut artist trading card sized cards of different weights and textures. 

And, because I'm that knitterly kind of girl, I finished up two projects that I've been working on for a while.







This shrug, from this pattern, has been on my needles for only about a week from start to finish - pretty big project considering the gauge!  The yarn is one of my all-time favorites, Noro Silk Garden Sock. It's a blend of wool, silk, angora and nylon meant for sock knitting, but I think it's far to lovely to hide in my shoes.

For the curious, I used colourway 268 - colours that coincidentally completely match this season in this area.   Something that doesn't really show in the photos is the beading in the cuffs.  This was my first adventure with beading in knitting, and it's spawned loads of ideas for my next projects.  Now if I could just settle on one and get started!

The other major project that I finished was this big red cardigan.  It was originally started as something to keep my hands busy while I sat on my rear recovering from my broken toe.

Please excuse the cheezy self portraiture - it's hard to set the camera, run around to the front and quickly look natural!!

For those who are interested in the process and modification notes of either sweater (or in seeing more photos of how they go together), there is a great deal more information on my Ravelry page.  Look me up, if you care to - you'll need to be a member or become one to sign in - you'll find me there under the username Threadsongs.

Ciao!
Lisa

Reflecting on the last week

I spent most of this week in a workshop on Applied Behavioural Analysis...and it reminded me of how much B.F. Skinner contributed to the whole field of psychology. I recently read a book that talked about how true Darwinian philosophy (extrapolated into modern day) was anti-Skinner: that behaviouralism is a crock of s****.

I found that point of view to be pretty darn shocking, considering that my whole education is predicated on the idea that as individuals, we can learn new things based on the way these things are reinforced. If I were to stick with the idea that our genetics are all that makes us who we are (considering I've been a life-long evolutionist), then there is no reason to do the type of work that I do.

I'll have to spend some time thinking about all of this.

Maybe it's about the idea that the individual has potential, within the parameters of the genetics. Maybe we can each learn to be the best potential self we can be...but then we can not pass that down through our genes, only through our memes. Hmmm. Yes. I will have to spend time thinking about this.

:)
Lisa

Beginnings and endings

Let's start with the endings, shall we?


I realized as I was starting my new journal that I'd not yet finished the last few pages in my old journal...something I'm notorious for. I have many, many journals that don't end, but rather sort-of peter out. In my mind I rationalize that it's because the journals themselves really are only sections along a continuum, not fixed points, and that to have them end would mean that I ended!

This last journal, the one I finished yesterday, is especially close to my heart. In it are recorded the last 3+ years, and it was a gift from my Oldest for Christmas, 2006.


These have been some busy years, on many, many levels. This book travelled all over with me (even to New Hampshire and back, twice) and was comforting in it's weight and heft as much as in its pages. It deserved a proper ending.

The pages are creamy and thick, I was able to do almost anything to them. To close out the book, I did several pages of quotes about endings of various sorts, and this is my favorite. You can click on it to see a larger version (that goes for all the photos).




I couldn't leave yesterday's page alone (it just felt 'unfinished') and went in with one of my sepia toned pencil crayons with dictionary definitions of and synonyms for 'begin'. It's a good exercise to meditate on one word like that, to explore it fully. I'll have to remember to do that if I find myself in need of creativity exercise.

The page feels much more finished now, if still a little unbalanced.

And (because I'm completely hopeless once I get going) I added a bookplate page to the new journal. This piece of paper has been kicking around for at least a year, and it's high time that it found a home. It's in need of a much more elaborate frame than it has right now, and that is coming. I learned a little with this page (don't paint over glue, it cracks and then can't be written on), and am looking forward to working it up into something much more elaborate over the next while.

Oh yes, and I finished both of my school papers yesterday and sent them off. Whew.

I'm losing my steam for being a student right now, mostly because I'm not all that well suited to being an on-line student...there's something about a classroom full of people that makes it all more interesting, makes the subject matter make more sense. I'm a little past halfway on my current courses, then one more and I'll be done!

Happy Sunday, happy end of February. Bring on March!

Lisa

:)

Begin....

A gift recently got me going on something that I've wanted to get back to for a while now: journaling.

I spent a little quality time (in between working on the papers that are due this weekend) painting up the first pages. I find it's hardest to start, and I really didn't have a direction for this page until I got really going. It seems to reflect a lot of things that I have going on right now:
my work, the academic work, and the learning I've done in the last years about myself. Every day I have to remind myself to begin, not to avoid.
I've also recently had an opportunity to do a little illustration, which makes my heart happy. The little detail photo below is from a doodle I did during some quiet minutes at work yesterday - while thinking about the illustration op.




The piece ended up being about starting the new journal (and ending the old one), but also about many other starts...the commencement of learning to read or count, the start of the day, the movement forward, the taking of risks.

From a technical point of view, there's a lot more I could play with (and perhaps will, over the next day or so). The space in the final piece does not quite seem to be effectively used, and I would love to have a sepia toned pen with which to fill in more of the background. Perhaps the art supply store is not yet closed......?

Cheers,

Lisa