Trying to get organised

The posts on this blog have been very infrequent and haphazard.  This is mostly due to the pressure of working a painting a day plus the Jane Davies workshop that produced around 150 pieces of work over the six weeks it ran.  I wish there was something similar for textiles as she is such a positive influence.  If you would like to see some of that work, visit my other blog, lynneporterartmatters.blogspot.co.uk

I have booked a further two workshops with her this year, and I also have several art and textile workshops coming up this year, in the real world rather than online.

I need to blog here at least once a week, and Saturday seems as good a day as any, so hopefully this will be a regular slot.  In order to have something to blog about, I am also marking Friday down as a textile day.  I will also do some mid-week, perhaps Wednesday afternoon.  I have also decided to concentrate on 'Coast', and look at landscape next year.

I have been fitting in tiny slots here and there, and managed to do some work on the embellisher machine last week, and am in the process of forming the pieces into vessels.  The pictures below are of the first bowl, made a couple of weeks ago.  The bowls have a lovely translucency which I couldn't capture in the photographs. I have three more bowls to finish, hopefully by next week.

Felt bowl

felt bowl side view

I have also been experimenting with book forms, and the photograph below shows a small sample.  The binding method is over cords, and it was then dipped into Quink ink and then watercolour.

Book Form 1

More experimenting with book forms.  I made the strip about a month ago, and have now started to add photographs of the beach near my home, which I have altered in Photoshop, printed then stitched and finally dipped into wax.

I have yet to decide how to display this book form.  I like the scroll format, and may make a rod on which it can be wound.

Book Form 2

Hopefully I will have more work to show next Saturday.

Slow progress

It's over three weeks since I last posted here, mainly because I have been doing a very intense online art course, as well as keeping up with a painting a day!  You can see some of the results over on my other blog

lynneporterartmatters.blogspot.co.uk

I have been doing some work on my textile project, but sadly I have decided to put the 'Landscape' theme to one side for a while and concentrate on 'Coast'.  At first it was easy to run them in tandem, but I have so little time these days that they were both suffering inactivity.

On a more positive note, I am feeling more and more excited with the 'Coast' project.  I am finally coming round to have some belief in myself and my ideas and abilities, which in turn has made me more relaxed and free with my work.

I am working in several different sketchbooks.  The Coast workbook is the main book.  I write notes, ideas, poetry, and anything else relevant in it, and also paste photographs of any work I may have done.  I have an extreme format sketchbook,  12 inch x 5 inch, which I work open so as to give a 24 x 5 inch spread.  These are loose, mark making exercises, trying to capture the SENSE of the coast.  I also have a small sketchbook 'Coast, Fractured' in which I tear photographs of the coast I have taken, then work into them.

I also occasional work in an A5 landscape format sketchbook, titled I'm Searching, which is mark making with no particular theme.  And I have been reworking into two older sketchbooks, 'The Sea' and 'Coast' both of which are 8 x 8.  These are again very loose, some drawing, mostly mark making.

I have also done some 'painting' on large sheets of paper, with long sticks, brushes and squeeze bottles containing paint.  I love doing these, the action is so free but positive, almost like the sea itself.

As a consequence of all the above work, I am gradually finding my way.  Words and phrases such as TIMELINE,  SENSE OF PLACE, and SENSES, re-occur, together with CONTAINED, COLLECTION, LAYERS,  and HELD.  I don't want to write more at this time, but I feel I am beginning to find my way.

I am also feeling content with the way things are going, an unusual state for me.

Haven't managed to do much work since my last post.  I started an online workshop, Extreme Composition by Jane Davies, and it is really stretching me, mentally and physically.  I'm also trying to do 'A painting a day', to post on my other blog 'Art Matters', so at the moment, sadly there isn't much time left for textiles.

I  did get an afternoon working on the embellisher.  I still think it has lots of possibilities.  Broke another needle though, so I need to learn to keep my foot down whilst moving my hands VERY slowly.

I have since experimented with one felted piece,  a sort of semi-felting around a mold.  It's very soft and unstable, and needs more work, either felting or adding another medium to the equation.   I like the idea of it being like translucent porcelain, either very smooth on the inside and felt-like outside, or the reverse.

I recently found a blog,
http://yearsrisingmaryoliver.blogspot.co.uk/ by Lorakim Joyner.  A poem from Mary Oliver every day.  I like many of Mary Oliver's poems.  The following poem struck a chord, as did Lorakim's words

I go down to the shore in the morning

and depending on the hour the waves

are rolling in or moving out,

and I say, oh, I am miserable,

what shall-

What should I do?  

And the sea says

in its lovely voice:

Excuse me, I have work to do.

-Mary Oliver

"I think God knows no particulars of this and that work.  That is a box we humans create, and into which we attempt to stuff as much activity as possible. What's the use of damning the river, caging the bird, or boxing ourselves into this or that?  

We are here to be beautiful useless." - Lorakim Joyner

I would like to be able to make things which are 'beautiful useless'.  Made only to fill someone with joy for a short span of time.

I wonder, sometimes, what it would be like to be filled with confidence, like a strong, rushing river, to know where you are going, not adrift, floating like an empty seashell, at the will of the tide.  

Of course, neither the river, nor the seashell, nor the tide care about such things.

Landscape monoprints

I enjoyed working with the Coast theme and monoprints so much that I did some on the Landscape theme a few days after.

I used acrylic and retarder for these, its not as spontaneous as using oil paint.  I had to add a little water and more retarder half way through.

Landscape monoprint 1

 I had in mind a photograph of a barn in Wensleydale,  but didn't have any source material in front of me.

Landscape monoprint 6

Turned the format to portrait, much looser.

Landscape monoprint 10

I like the flow of this one, and can see it in stitch.  Will do some on fabric next.

Experimenting with monoprints

I'm trying to find the essence of the subject,  and making several monoprints help to loosen me up, the mark making becomes less about realism and more about form.

I use either oil paint or acrylic with retarder.  Oil paint gives a better result but does mean that I need to leave them for at least 24 hours before I can work on them again.

I roll out the paint onto a glass plate then place my paper on top and draw with a pencil or my finger on the back of the paper, making sure that I don't rest my hand on it.  I have an image in my mind, but I don't work with either photographs or drawings.

first print in the coast series

For the coast series I had in mind a painting I did some time ago of boats in Bridlington Harbour.

coast series, print 5

About half way through there is less detail.  I like the way that the marks from previous prints show on later ones.

Coast series, print 11

Less and less detail, I have added the net, inspired by the previous print marks.

Coast series, print 12

When the oil paint was dry, I added some collage and gesso.  It's still not quite what I want, but I'll do some more monoprints onto fabric next time.

A New Year, but following the same themes

I have been exploring the themes of 'Coast' and 'Landscape' for several years (probably at least ten).  I still find both of them an endless source of inspiration. I live within 100 yards of the North Sea, and am surrounded by the diverse and beautiful countryside of Yorkshire. 

I took a Fine Art Diploma a few years ago, and found myself doing more painting than textiles because of it.  This means that over the last couple of years I haven’t done so much on the textile side. I now want to redress the balance.  I hope I can run the painting and the textiles alongside each other, particularly as the textile pieces I have made in the last couple of years include painting and collage.

I find it difficult to know what to call the work I do, as it can be made of anything which seems appropriate, and may not contain any fibre at all, but for want of a better title, they are textiles. 

I also make Artist books; enjoy printmaking, photography and basic digital art, and these are part of the exploration.

Time and place are important in my work.  I see history as a series of transparent layers, although some layers may be blurred; accidentally or intentionally, obscuring what lies in the past.  

It’s essential for me to have a sense of place. Although this expression is rather hackneyed, I mean it literally.  To stand on a beach; to be still, to take in with one’s sense all that is happening around you, that is what is important.  To smell the sea, hear the sound of the seagulls, to feel the touch of the wind and taste the salt.  Most important of all is that inner feeling you can only get by being there, connecting with the place.

That is a challenge.  I hope to post at least once a week, chronicling my progress.