Journaling the Journal

Starting Work for Art Week Sales & Exhibits

2012-01-21T13:11:00.000-08:00

My notebook box

On the assumption that our Village Art Week will be going ahead at the end of June, I need to begin creating the paper and textile books I intend to demo and sell. I need to plan what I am going to make, and when. I am notorious for writing lists and ideas and not seeing a complete project through; so I decided that initially on each evening in January, I would jot down my thoughts - for I could visualise what I wanted to do. Most evenings I have managed this. I brought my 'quilt journey' box into action, moving into it my current notebooks and word-whispers, a small box with pens and tiny paint box, my 'burnt sugar diary'. 'Quilt Journeys' (my 12in x 12in pages that will be linked into booklets) are ongoing, but my workroom is out of action, noted from time to time on Facebook. I suddenly realised that making sufficient textile books of this size was impracticable, they would take too long, cost too much and in any case are a personal record of aspects of my life.

One of my finished fabric books (a gift for a grandchild in 2009)

Far better would be 6in x 6in (15cm x 15cm) which is a size I have frequently worked with. I had my theme - landscape and gardens, using my photos and my own word-whispers but adding collage from old books. Notes proliferated but gradually some parameters emerged, stimulated by the arrival of a catalogue from my favourite second-hand bookseller who specialises in my chosen subjects. Her special offer was enticing and a parcel soon arrived (I was determined that pages from these would be ripped up and used for stitched collage, but now they are here I just may have to keep one or two intact!)

Second-hand books purchased for collage

I am keeping a diary, and have prepared a series of A4 cards outlining themes and tried and tested methods that will save me from endless experimenting. Time to begin - and then on Monday evening came a breakthrough: in searching for photos to match my poem-spills that I intended to use, I came to the conclusion that I find it easier to create words to match an image than the other way around. (Though it is immodest to say so, this ability comes from endless exercises when I was young, a technique I subsequently used when teaching my classes of eight-year-olds. Here's what you do - select an image or object at random and without thinking jot down some words, adjectives particularly; just whatever comes to mind.) I rarely change my poem-spills and word-whispers, though I may tweak them slightly for their look on the page.

Tree image, cropped from a larger photo

Today I set this in practice: my dear husband Raymond and I took a picnic and drove a few miles in search of the images I wanted for a 'Winter Trees' book. Previously we would have sat eating out picnic and I would have looked at the scene and words would come into my head. Today I started from the visual aspect, looking for trees that could be cropped out of a larger picture, leaping in and out of the car into the strong wind, taking a photo and using the 'enlarge' facility on my camera to view where I could enlarge a section, even though the image was a long way off.

Top road into village

I scribbled a few words, but will probably 'write to fill' - i.e. print the image I want to use, collect pieces of collage and any ephemera I want to use, arrange them speedily on the fabric background and assess how many words will be needed to fill whatever space I allocate within the layout for text.

Enlarging part of the tree

I have already today taken sufficient images for an eight-page paper and fabric book, and this last, as the light began to fade and we dropped down the hill into the village illustrates my point of 'photos first, words afterwards'. Click on the final image below so you can see it full-size - look at the horizon, can you see the portion I will crop and enlarge? And this is what I wrote: "Trees in groups, on the skyline, at a field's edge, in copses; bird-haunts, shelter, and fuel to keep us warm." I type the text into a word document, click 'file, print, save as pdf' and then convert the pdf into a jpeg using Photoshop Elements. A sheet of images are assembled in another Word document, and printed in reverse onto 'Epson Cool Peel' image transfer paper. Look back through this blog for posts where my word-spills appear, and you will see what I am referring to.

Down the hill into the village
Dusk is imminent, but trees on the skyline can be cropped and enlarged

Here's the final image, trees on the skyline; I took lots more, but these that I have posted best illustrate what I am talking about, and the method that I will be using to put these first books together; not just one but three or four the same; batch-production saves time but each will vary slightly. And that's just one theme. I have others lined up.

All work and no play ...

2012-01-08T13:39:00.000-08:00

this part of the landscape took my fancy - I so love winter trees; you can do so much with images such as these

Last weekend, Raymond and I went for a winter picnic; I journaled a word-whisper and sketched; and posted about the experience. It was a revelation, had me determined that I would play a little each evening, creating hand-made books of these special moments, for even essential and much-loved office work can pall when there is never enough time to stop. That was last Sunday, and we decided this morning to drive out with another picnic - only a few miles; find a gateway in which to park the car and out with the journal and pen.

Cropped from the main image, played with in Photoshop
(when we arrived home), I could zoom in closer, a machine-embroidered image, perhaps

Last week was spur of the moment. This, today, felt forced, rushed. But I was determined. Down local lanes somewhere in forty years we had never driven. "If we don't stop now, it will be dark," I said. So we did, and I looked at the landscape: bare trees, a field, a far-off and somewhat insipid view. My muse had vanished, or were we so hungry, 2.30pm of a Sunday afternoon that home-made bread, salad, prawns and ham, with a flask of hot, hot tea overtook me? First, whilst the light was right, I took a photo, and started writing, visualising the textile page that would emerge: word-spill transferred to fabric, photograph patchworked and stitched, embellishments added from my stash (collected and hand-made).

And so we sat, and ate; I played with my camera, and words fell out of nowhere; and I found I was somehow absorbing the landscape, the sky, the silence; and the task I had set myself was done.

And I have to explain that I so very nearly abandoned this, my Journaling blog, at the end of last year, felt I was going nowhere with my paper and textile creations, my experimental pieces, and all the finished pieces for which they were but forerunners. I felt I would never have the time to achieve all that was in my heart and mind.

But after the village art exhibition in October 2011, some of us talked about participating in Warwickshire Art Week Open Studios in June of this year; and I thought, "yes, I'm ready for this." So any spare time is now devoted to working-notes on what I will make and hopefully sell, from map-trails to quilt-journeys to textile poem-spills - and actually creating them. My journaling / sketchbook pages progress (must do, or I forget how to pull it all together), and thus this blog WILL continue, and I will post thoughts and sketch pages and finished keepsakes; and I hope the Sunday picnics will become the norm and a happy escape, and the catalyst for a portfolio of pieces.

Journal spilling again

2012-01-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

Anyone reading my new-year's day post on my 'Wild Somerset Child' blog will have realised that 2011 was my annus horribilis, and it would seem from the comments already kindly posted by blog followers that it was likewise for others. I am not here re-visiting my feelings - or lack of them - on 1st January, other than to say that the winter picnic my dear husband made for me, his kindness in driving me out of myself, and my deliberate snatching of my Journal Spill notebook and camera, catapulted me into 2012. Description of the day, and photos, can be seen here: I mentioned that my journaling word-whisper would appear here in due course. Here it is, and I apologise that my blogs are all interlinked. That's the way I am.

So I sketched, and the word-whisper fell onto the page, not in its usual format - that will happen in my 'Quilt Journey Word-Whispers' (have I lost you? Sorry). I turned to the back of my fat notebook and spilled some more: a little more coherent, a finding of something that I was afraid had been lost, though maps are so often a trigger. My perceptive husband knows when work has overtaken me and I need to be 'taken out of myself'. And here is what I wrote at the back of my book, subsequent to my poor sketch-spill:

"Ilmington Hill: the names alone speak history. Compton Scorpion, Cathole, Foxcote, Woodmeadow, Lark Stoke, Goose Hill, Ebrington. Fields evocative of past lives, villages long gone; only the names and the marks on the landscape reminding me of what once was; hedge and ditch and furrow, barn and byre .... a sparrow-hawk alights on the roadside hedge, steel-blue back; pauses just a few seconds, then swoops low past our parked car, and is gone."

You can double-click the journal image to read the words I wrote 'on the page'. Thankyou for visiting.

And now another thing ...

2011-12-07T13:01:00.000-08:00

past, present
and future

Last night, some of the participant exhibitors from the Art Exhibition (mentioned in my last post) met to discuss how we felt about its success or otherwise, the outcome, and a move towards the future. It was mostly positive, but in any local community, there will always be a range of opinions, which do not matter too much if one can progress. A certain amount of treading on toes! The good news was that the suggestion for a village arts group was mooted, with the immediate goal being to participate in Warwickshire Open Studio Week 2012 next July. The creative souls amongst us can focus on what we each individually love doing.

Well as far as I was concerned, participating in the Exhibition has focussed my mind, both personally and professionally. I posted about my 5ft x 5ft 'Castle Turret in a Church' on my 'Wild Somerset Child' blog so will not replicate what I said. And after living in this beautiful part of the 'forgotten triangle' for over 40 years - now very much discovered - it would mean so much to me to discover the kindred spirits within our rural community. Double click on this or any image in this post to view at enlarged size, and be able to read the details.

past work: word-whispers, image transfers, hand-made textile journal

I have not yet come to the point: journalling in my various genres has brought me to the day where I suddenly realise that all my experimentation over so many years can move in any direction I want. Oh! My recent months of 'Map Trails' - and years of patchwork, sketches and scribblings, embroidered samplers, theatrical costumes, word-whispers, leaves, flowers and stones - can branch in any direction; and, so long as I record what I do, can be replicated. 'Illustrated Journals' are well under way. North, South, East or West; any compass point can take me wherever I want to go. A personal geography; a trail seventy-plus years in the making.

Beguiling: one of those 'must have' moments; money changed hands

So a leap forward, wanting to move on but not ever losing what is past, present, future or maybe. I walk into Whichford Pottery to buy warm alpaca socks (really) in their Octagon Gallery, and light upon a hand-made journal; beautiful, tactile, the cover using techniques I want to explore and adapt. For what it is, not expensive, but beyond my normal budget. And then I remember the proceeds from my exhibition sales of the week before, and am beguiled, and it is mine; and already a part of my creative life, my 'moving on' whilst encompassing the past. And that is another thing ....

Map Trails in progress (this a part of 'Malvern') are already moving into phase two
and three, with determinations on long trails - Somerset to Wales to Shropshire
to Hereford and back to Somerset; and in 2012 to France and Germany.

Getting ready ....

2011-11-17T13:56:00.000-08:00

Needing to create in whatever spare moment becomes available (to retain my sanity), I accepted an invitation earlier this year to participate in a new art and craft exhibition being staged within our Cotswold village. And now it is upon us - not just an exhition but a sale of work also, which I was not anticipating. I am focussing on mixed-media work: map trails, fabric books, illustrated journals and the like: textiles, paper and words. Mortified today when I came to assemble some more of my painted paper-bag pocket-pages, to sell as 'note-keepers', and I could not recall how to make them. Memory is not what it once was! I dismembered a previous one to discover what I did, and having done so, made sure I had notes and sketches to make them again. Recording is as important for me as the actual making, which is perhaps why I have to have deadlines to complete anything, and why I spend so much time planning and not executing.

'pocket pages' - made from recycled paper bags

And this is the first time I've tried blogging from my new iPad (nerve-wracking), so I will close, but hope you will join me in spirit next Saturday (26th), and if you are local to here, or prepared to travel, do please join us - and say 'hello'. A good luncheon can evidently be obtained at The Norman Knight, opposite the Village Green, and Whichford Pottery is well-worth visiting. We're raising money to restore the windows in the Church; there is stained glass dating back to medieval times, and the village itself existed long before the de Mohuns were granted land here by William the Conqueror in 1086.

P.S. I had to finish this on the office Mac - have not yet learned all the intricacies of my iPad. And if you want to find Whichford, key postcode CV36 into a Google map.

Mixed Media Journaling

2011-09-24T10:48:00.000-07:00

It's a while since I posted any of my journaling. None of the pages in my sketchbooks or journals were quite finished. I would paint or paste and leave the book open to dry, and then work would intrude and I would necessarily move in to something else. The two pages here were begun on a summer get-away when I had the time to indulge myself in word whispers and mixed media - in the caravan.

We spent a morning at Richard's Castle just outside Ludlow. Not the modern village but the fortified Norman castle and adjacent (much later) abandoned church and graveyard. The castle ruins spooked me, which is unusual as I am captivated by the medieval period of history, but the stony and steep path up to the churchyard inspired the herbal word-whispers shown on the two pages. I used napkins as the basis of the pages, adding the words after the acrylic wax I use as an adhesive had dried, and then only a few days ago, added the watercolour sketches and a watercolour wash over the words - which has to a certain extent obscured the writing. Best to double-click the images if you feel like to reading them.

My new creative journal

2011-08-10T01:25:00.000-07:00

Quick watercolour and ink sketch created on impulse whilst sitting in the garden yesterday evening. DOUBLE-CLICK ON ANY OF THE PICS IN THIS POST TO ENLARGE THEM TO A READABLE SIZE.

In an attempt to be more organised, I have begun a new creative journal. Not only will it have the occasional page filled with sketches, in essence it will be a repository for notes on what I am currently working on. These are usually scattered around the house on bits of paper or written down as an idea strikes in whatever notebook is to hand. And then I forget where the notes are which is most frustrating. So as from now, they should all be together. I've explained to myself the purpose of the book - and share the pages below, in the hope it might encourage someone else to do likewise. It will really be a record of my creative journey.

Double-click on the image so you can read it

Instead of scanning the pages, I have photographed them - it would have been better had I laid the book on the floor and attached the camera to my tripod, and then each page would be squared up. These were all hand-held; it doesn't pay to cut corners!

My second introductory page as to what the book is all about

I got carried away on this first session (sitting in the garden on Sunday evening, warm and quiet) and went on to my current long-term project, 'Quilt Journey'. These are a series of 12"x12" textile pages, actually pairs of mini-quilts where the surface comprises paper and fabric, hand- and machine-stitching, photographed collages and word-whispers.

This explains the beginning of my 'Quilt Journey' project but went off
at a tangent, talking about my 'Map Trails'

To get to the point, I have already posted 'pages in progress' - see the workshop I attended on 'Ancestors' and the pages I started there, which I wrote about on 28th July.

Perhaps by now you are totally confused! For I was writing this
for myself and not as an instructional piece.

Progress is such that all my 'Ancestor' components have been handstitched and are ready for mounting on the background. Notes on how I will do that are in my 'daybook' - the one I take with me when I am out for the day; that one has tear-out pages so I can paste the section into here.

The second of my pair of ancestor pages - layout, with notes on how I intend to proceed,
and the mock-up of a mini-book that will form part of the page.

When treated and fused, this layout paper
becomes so flexible, you would liken it to fabric

And alongside - which I have showed already, but larger here, is one of the finished elements, printed on layout paper, scrunched to age it, fused to the fabric, handstitched with silk thread and the edges frayed, ready for mounting on the background - after the addition of a narrow fabric 'frame' in dark brown and white gingham - the colour of my school dresses in 1942-1947.

Meanwhile, I am working on a technique for page backgrounds - tissue paper and paint onto which I will collage images and incorporate them into other 'Quilt Journey' pages. These processes are for me at the moment a godsend, keeping me calm and sane through a stressful period when most of the time I am feeling extremely unwell. Thank heavens for the therapeutic act of creating, even if the results do not turn out as wanted or expected.

Day of Serendipity

2011-08-02T00:13:00.000-07:00

I collect images of 'Green Men' - sometimes in stone, or wood, plain or gilded

It began in the Churchyard at Iffley (Oxford) - taking photographs that I could use within stitched fabric and paper pages - carved stone heads reminiscent of the medieval period. Strange how we live so close and yet had never ventured there; it was dear American friends who took us. St Mary's is famed for its romanesque architecture; some original but much is Victorian restoration which somehow misses the point; skillfully executed but for me it lacked soul. I did find a remarkable family tree inside the dark interior - remarkable because it showed the coat of arms of Katherine Swynford (three catherine wheels) who married John of Gaunt in the 1300s - a period of history I love and about which I am currently reading, or I might never have spotted the little plaque on the wall.

This one is supposedly of King Henry II, somehwat crude

Artichokes and lavender in the lock-keeper's garden

We ambled along the Thames to Iffley lock - all very organised with lock keeper in attendance - and the most beautiful garden full of herbs, then past a perfect stone bridge (probably 1750) and on to where ducks and geese were feeding on scraps thrown by passers by. How I loved the colours reflected in the water - enlarged, a portion of my photoghraph could be printed on fabric as a background to a stitched herbal I plan to make some day. Photography was not easy for everywhere were warning signs; not to fall in the river, not to do this or that, necessary but not that easy to doctor in Photoshop, hence some rather wobbly shots where I tried to lean over the water to eliminate them from view!

A peaceful scene, feeding waterbirds - yet it was the colours in the water I took this for

Nearly fell in the water trying to take this shot, to get the angle I wanted

It was a day of parts, chatting as we walked, about the classes that Kristi had just tutored at Oxford Summer School, the Adventures in Italy workshops she and husband Bill run twice a year in Orvieto Italy, the fabric books I am making; an annual catching up on family activities, the day too short. Then came the exchange of little gifts over lunch - some lovely ribbons for me from Kristi which I cannot obtain over here, and for them little notebooks I had made.

White-paper packaged tied up with strips of fabric

each gift has
its own sketch pen

All relaxing, and with images to use in future projects. Part Four of the Day was spent back at home, eating pizza on the terrace whilst I - after many months of indecision - managed at last to order my thoughts into a new creative workbook, the more easily to organise projects and balance work and play, so that sketching and stitching and word-whispers can become a part of everyday.

Opened out, you can see the map that formed the basis of the notebook - the cover was fabric from a skirt bought in a charity shop - click on the image to see it at a larger size

You may like to check the facility I have added in the right hand sidebar (just above the Twitter logo): sometimes I refer to a book, or talk about the supplies I use, and thought it might be useful to provide a link to where you can purchase what I list. I'll do this from time to time - the first is of the layout paper I print on and use as if it were fabric. More titles can be found in my Book-Lover's Blog - do visit if you haven't already done so.

Visual Ancestry

2011-07-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

"Searching for a change of vision

seeing with new eyes

adapting my usual way of working;

letting myself loose, and

not being afraid of failure.

That's what today gave me:

surprising the great leap forward -

- and I did not fall into the water,

did not drown in indecision.

Just those few short hours

with a masterful tutor

is all it has taken;

and I will never be the same again.

Such joy. A day of wonders."

materials and photos ready for the workshop

Last Saturday (24th July) I attended an Embroiderers' Guild day workshop - the title was 'Stitch an Ancestor'. I think none of those attending were quite sure what to expect or what we would be doing, but we all took along copies of ancestral photos, calico and other fabrics. I had already decided (usually my downfall) that I would make a collage page showing the influences that some of my ancestors have had on my life. And as they were all childhood memories from the early 1940s, I decided that my colour palette would beige to reflect the mono prints. I thought to frame the photos in small checked fabric the same as my school dresses. That brown was too dark so I also bought a pale beige and white check which I knew would set off the words I wanted to include.

photos fused to gingham and roughly positioned on the calico background

Words? Now readers of my Book-Lover's Journey will know that my love of words and books was influenced by my immediate ancestors - the touch of bright colour to offset all that beige and the grey photos will be the same terracotta red that is used as the background to my BLJ blog posts. So that was what was in my mind as I drove to the class, and laid my equipment and materials out on the table. And what an eye-opener. We had a most excellent tutor in Alison Mercer, who explained that she was going to encourage us to think about the process of creating a piece of work, rather than technique.

students' work in progress mounted vertically
(mine, bottom left, is barely begun)

Contrary to my normal method of working she suggested that we first gathered together the photos we would use, and prepared them for inclusion in the piece of work we were creating, even cutting around an image so as to make them less 'blocky'. I had never thought of doing that. A small colour palette was the next step as a starting point (I was OK there), and that no matter what we were doing, the use of lines of hand-stitching could pull it all together. This will be interesting for I will finish with many little photo pieces and a number of word panels as well.

trimmed images fused to gingham, ready for cutting into panels
and framing with hand-stitching

Words could be stamped or machine stitched, or hand-lettered using a mixture of fabric, paints, papers. We should try 'anything and everything' and if we could not resolve something that did not look right, should leave it out. Ongoing layouts were photographed so we could record what we were doing. Next we thought of triggers that prompted us to create a piece, and then we wrote down a check-list of what we would do, and what we would try to achieve in the next hour. (I who initially work really slowly achieved my personal goal.)

one of my photos, fused
and hand-stitched, then
crumpled to add 'age'

Collage was uppermost in my mind, pasting and overprinting, cutting back, carving my own stamps ... hand and machine stitch, layering. What was so remarkable to me was how Alison gently cajoled me to forget layout initially (I am so used to laying out magazine pages that I find it really hard to think in any other way). My initial thoughts ceased to 'speak' to me; I removed half the images and began to work on the small pieces, fusing the photos with bondaweb and then hand-stitching around them with two rows of straight stitch using fine silk thread; that in itself had a child-like quality and reminded me of childhood. In a sense, the process we were encouraged to consider is exactly similar to the way I work when creating a new writing project; it was the 'go with the flow' attitude that was new to me, and very welcome.

this was my double-page layout at the end of the day
with notes top right about what I would try next
and the words I intended to stitch and use

We pinned our work at lunchtime onto the wall, the better to see it from a distance (mine, bottom left is barely begun though all the images are fused to a piece of gingham ready to cut out and stitch). Most people had taken a sewing machine but I travelled light and was glad I had done so, for I re-discovered the calming effect hand-stitching has on me, forgot my arthritis and persevered. All the photos are now stitched around ready for assembly into the pages, once I've created the lettering panels, which I spent time devising whilst in the class. (Hand-stitching has since been accomplished each day sitting in the garden over tea.) By the end of the day, my single collage had turned into two 'pages', each 12" x 12" which will form a part of an earlier in-progress 'Quilt Journey' project; I felt calm and collected and so grateful for the help I had been given by a good tutor. It was a day of memories and focussing on the people who have influenced my life. Afterwards, I sat on the wall outside the classroom and wrote the piece that opens this post.

P.S. I can't make the link to Alison's website work - server error; try googling her. I'll add the link when I post further progress on my 'Ancestral Influences' piece.

Start of a new sketchbook

2011-07-17T00:55:00.000-07:00

first page - in progress - in my new sketchbook

Yesterday, on a shopping trip into town, a made a self-indulgent purchase - a treat to myself after a hard week editing other people's magazine copy. It wasn't expensive, but felt good in my hand; an 8"x6" (A5) sea-blue sketchbook with pages of 110gsm paper. A new travel journal in which it would be easier to draw and paint. And I've already titled it 'Another Day, Another Journey'. The book itself has such a lovely feel to it, encased in its own soft plastic folder, with pockets front and back to hold word-whispers or other scrappy notes.

sometimes the feel of a book
can spark ideas for new
projects - this one did for me

I opened the cover and wrote the title inside. I deliberated on how to start, wondered whether I should sketch straight away; but it was late, and the muse did not flow, though I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to make a map! I wrote accompanying words on one of the jotters I have littered around the house for just such a purpose, stashed it in the book's pocket ready for later hand-lettering, then decided that collage would be a good beginning. So I took a printed portion of a map I had just photographed (badly - see below), sketched a shape and tore around what I wanted ... and there I was, ready to begin another journey into creativity.

badly photographed, but it gave me an idea for the image I wanted

The start of this first foray was this map, and the shape I tore out opens this post (that has its own title, too): 'Journey in My Head', which was prompted by something I had just written in my Book-Lover's Blog. Anyway, everything came together; one of my serendipity moments. The map was printed on my favourite collage paper - it is very thin but tough and I use it all the time in textile projects as it can be fused with bond-a-web / wunder-under and stitched as well. It's how I make my own version of fabric paper, quite often creating a design from collage or photography which I then print as many times as I wish. The paper is bought in pads: Daler-Rowney Layout Paper; only 45gsm (31lbs) and obtainable in good art shops or online in both A4 and A3 sizes.

My journey has begun; my art-bag is ready, and as we head north with the caravan to the RHS Tatton Flower Show, the spreads will continue - mapping and sketching rather than collage, or maybe that as well; who can tell? Progress Report to follow!

P.S. I think the cover of these layout pads has changed recently, but the paper is still the same.

Another finished project

2011-07-06T15:37:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has been following the story of grandchild Kate's swimming endeavours to raise funds for a life-saving defibrillator - by swimming the equivalent of the width of the English Channel (22 miles) - will appreciate why I wanted to make her a special folder in which to stick and hold all her goodwill messages of encouragement.

I took a thick piece of furnishing fabric and fused onto it a sheer cover fabric, and similar on the reverse. Both fabrics were cut from chiffon shirts I bought for next to nothing at the charity shop. The cover, to me at least, represented the ripples and reflections on the water as Kate swam - 352 lengths per session. The inside, cut from the shirt I coveted but which would have looked far too silly on a grandma, had the same colours as her pretty swimsuit. I used a portion from the sleeve as it already had lace and ribbon attached, so no extra embellishment was needed. I extended the cover so that it could be folded over to make a pocket - to hold all the letters she had received.

And then, I punched the cover and paper pages to bind into the book. On the first page I fused a printed map showing the cross-channel route Kate would have swum, had she been swimming the Channel for real. There were two graph-paper pages, onto which she could write the times of all four swimming sessions. The other pages were blank ready for adding the post-it note messages written at the pool side by those who came to watch her as she swam.

With her name machine-stitched on the cover (barely discernible, just as modest as the child who swam), I hoped this would be a memento and record of her self-imposed fund-raising challenge to help others. If you want to read more, click here on my other blog to see the final episode, written whilst she completed the last leg of her epic swim.

These folders - I made something similar for the birthday of Kate's sister last week (see the last post) - are really easy to make, with or without the pocket. The combination of fused fabric on each side of a stiffer textile base creates a flexible but suede-like feel, and each folder created can be personalised to the recipient and occasion for which it is made.

Finished Project!

2011-06-28T15:14:00.000-07:00

journal cover

For once, I have planned and executed a project in 48 hours. A miracle for me, as I usually spend more time planning and making notes, experimenting and recording the results, than actually DOING. The catalyst this time was our youngest grand-daughter's 7th birthday (today). She evidently wanted felt pens, scissors and glue-sticks, which I bought a week ago. And then I was shamed into MAKING her something; for her grandfather was giving her the most beautiful chest of drawers he had made for her - hours and hours and hours of work ...

inside cover (paper-fabric as described in last post)
and removable pages

So I decided to make her a journal in which she could write and draw with the pens, and a bag to hold that and the other things. I've only just posted how I made the fabric-paper / paper-fabric lining, but the finished book and bag were completed today, wrapped and given to this bright little girl at her birthday tea this afternoon - before she and her brother and sister went off for evening swimming training.

I am not proud of my creation - not my usual standard: sewing machine played up (now sorted) and thus abysmal satin stitch (ugh - don't look), lost - and found - my Japanese screw punch, so at least the holes in the spine were perfect, but then couldn't find either of my eyelet-setting 'Cropadiles' and so had to seal the fabric with gel-medium. I will compensate at the weekend by making another journal, as a congratulatory gift for K. who is swimming the final leg of her simulated cross-channel fundraising challenge next Tuesday (see reports in my other blog). Her book will be made from flimsy 'floaty' fabric (chiffon), the cover simulating sea waves, the inner cover using that pretty charity-shop blouse I wrote about in an earlier post. The colours remind me of K's swim-suit, the double-layered one that induces drag and thus makes swimming 5.5 miles x 4 that much harder. Then K. can record all the kind and supportive messages of goodwill she has received over the last two weeks. If she can manage such a challenge, surely I can make another book over the weekend?

Bag, journaling book, scissors, felt-pens and glue-sticks -
a gift for a 7-year old birthday girl

I grieve to think how my sewing skills have left me: 15 years ago, I designed and made my daughter's wedding dress; for her two girls, all I can manage are badly-stitched journals!

Paper Fabric - or Fabric Paper

2011-06-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

maps, printed text, wine labels and images torn from a travel brochure are combined in this collage, intended as a base for further work. Double-click to view detail.

Being short of time, I have found a new use for collages that I made at least five years ago, intending to cut them up as a part of tiny travel journals. Each collage takes quite some time to assemble the necessary components, and then to prepare the surface on which to mount the pieces. I use a 12"x12" scrapbooking foam board (can't recall it's name). I cover it with two layers of cling-film, and then wash over it a layer of very dilute pva glue. Onto that I immediately lay a piece of acid-free tissue, brushing it into the surface with a decorator's paint brush.

When this is dry, I apply the collage pieces, again using very diluted pva, until the whole 12"x12" square is covered. Once dry, I think I may have given this a wash of tea or coffee or very dilute acrylic ink. You really need to double click on the image to see the complexity of random pieces - they were obviously laid out in such a way as to allow a book title to be stencilled on top of the less busy area; or I was going to cut the paper into smaller pages. Discovering it in my stash, and wanting a fabric lining for a new journal, I photographed the piece, manipulated it in Phootoshop (constraining the proportions so it became A4), and printed it 'best-quality' on very thin but tough layout paper = 31lbs / 45 gsm.

Once dry, I fused it with Bond-a-Web / Wunder Under to very open weave cheesecloth, and then fused it again to back the fabric book-cover I was making today. Before this second fusing, it has the feel and appearance of soft suede. I intend to try a similar piece using this same image but scrumpling the paper into a ball and then ironing it flat before fusing' it takes on quite a different appearance and feel but you have to select the image carefully or you loose all subtlety.

I don't think my technique is new by any means (in fact it probably emanates from Cas Holmes' book ('The Found Object in Textile Art') but it does mean I can now crate my own fabric papers using photographic images of trees, grasses, bark, stones etc, to incorporate into other artefacts. I'll post pics of my grandchild's gift when I have bound the pages into the cover tomorrow.

My quilting journey continues

2011-06-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

a marvellous clay panel made by school children, with intricate decoration

I was back at Malvern again over the weekend, this time reporting on the Three Counties Show - food, farming and countryside; and once more attempting to blog live. I've had no time to prepare for personal play-time and possible sketching and journaling; although I did snatch my mini-watercolour box and a sketch book as I left home at 6.00am on Friday morning, just in case. It didn't come out of the bag.

enlarged and transferred to fabric, then stitched and quilted, these will add an extra dimension to my quilted journal

I knew I would be busy and in such spare time as I had available after our arrival and before the show started, so I planned to organise all my stitching and journaling references into a single notebook. My thoughts and sketches are scattered around the house, in rooms on three floors, and within those rooms on numerous pieces of paper and notebooks out of number. Well, I've begun at least.

so simple, yet so effective - this is the third of the three panels that adorn the outside of the TCAS education building

But walking around the Showground on the final day of set-up, I had my camera ready to catch intriguing shapes, as I did at the Spring Gardening Show. I just loved these 2ftx2ft clay panels, made by schoolchildren who use the excellent educational facilities the Showground had to offer. What marvellous stitched panels these would make - and I know just how I will use them. But that's a story for another day; my WiFi time was limited and I had other posts to write.

How fortunate are all the local school within the Malvern catchment area - to able to use the inspiring education facilities on offer at the TCAS showground.

More journaling finds

2011-06-12T01:55:00.000-07:00

my latest finds - to add to my stash of journaling materials

I'm a sucker for charity shops, and have a favourite in our nearest local town. Almost every visit (about twice a month) reveals new treats: artefacts that I can turn into something else; curtains or books or bracelets or clothes. Such low prices - far cheaper than buying new what will in fact be ripped apart - and of course helping whatever charity the shop represents. I've unloaded precious stuff there, too, glassware and crockery that we no longer need (so I feel I am helping both ways, though that isn't the reason for a visit)! Do I really need more journaling materials? Well, assuredly not, but I can't resist something that 'speaks' to me of "this would be brilliant for ..." - and so my collected textiles and papers and curious odds and ends fill the house and I never find enough time to use everything. But one day?

My latest finds were 1. an old linen tablecloth - to cut up for lining my folding map journals (a long strip is machine-stitched with something representative of the journal subject; so the Malvern diary shown in the last post will have a thread sketch of the hills on the back). 2. an old dictionary, very faded and in an old typeface; useful for collage or journal backgrounds - I'm creating my own themed papers again, made from collages using maps, photos and text pages. Maybe I should post about the technique I use, as once made, the 12"x12" papers can be photographed and printed any number of times, or portions manipulated and even reversed.

abstract art - maybe even useful for print-making

Find no 3. was a curiosity: a metal pot-stand shaped like a daisy! It's the time of year when the lanes are a mass of ox-eyes, and I love them so, not only for their pristine whiteness, but because so far, they are the only flower I can machine-stitch freehand without drawing them onto the fabric first! This particular shape seemed so perfect; I could draw around it, reduce or enlarge it, collage, stitch, stamp or whatever; and it was only 50p.

this is so pretty - I don't know if I can bear to cut it up

Find no 4. also 'spoke' to me: such a pretty blouse; thin see-through fabric trimmed with lace and floaty bits. Clothes are another source of wonderful fabric that I could never afford new - the cloth or the clothes; and sometimes I am tempted to wear my finds. But it would be mutton dressed up as lamb; so the blouse, or skirt or trousers sit in the closet awaiting the scissors and the time to take it to pieces. Always it is the fabric that catches my eye, regardless of the item of clothing. Charity shop hunts lift my spirits; rarely do I come away without a little something, and I never know what will catch my fancy, or what my finds will inspire.

Next weekend we are back at Malvern (the Three Counties Show). Food and Farming ... what treasures might I find that will inspire more creative endeavours?

End of my Malvern blogathon

2011-05-15T03:45:00.000-07:00

my 'Malvern Trail' in progress early this morning; working in our caravan

My last day at Malvern, and I'm almost through with my self-imposed challenge of a post-a-day on all four of my Blogs. It's not been made any easier by the fact that Blogger crashed for over 24 hours! It's been a fantastic show - I've blogged by candlelight and walked the Showground for four days to the point of exhaustion. It was not until this morning that I was able to get out my little Malvern Trail journal - my trail is documented in my blog posts (click on each one to follow if you wish). I'll post the paper trail once we are home and it is finished. My pic below shows what one can do with unfinished or unwanted journals - turn them into firebricks!

a use for old journals!

More Malvern Snippings

2011-05-14T13:35:00.000-07:00

perfect period Tudor costumes

The Malvern Spring Gardening Show (one more day to go - Sunday) may be primarily about gardens, but I'm always on the search for Journaling inspirations. And I don't have far to look. The Tudor ladies tending the parterre in Lady Alice's Garden (or rather tending their complexions within a sheltered arbour) might have had me snipping fabric from their dresses to add to my journal pages, had I not been fascinated by the design of the garden, taken from the the contemporary 'Gardener's Labyrinth'. And none of your theatrical costumiers - the ladies made their own period costume replicas, and very fine they were, too.

Herbs of course played an important part in all Tudor gardens, and I coveted the realistic pots of herbs discovered in 'The Country Living Marquee'. Taken apart (what a despicable act to something so perfect), they could be stitched into any journal, or textile herbal. Maybe I'll have to go back there tomorrow; I feel I deserve a little treat, after all the problems with blogging over the last 48 hours!

pulled apart, I would sew these leaves into a textile herbal

Shape, Pattern Texture

2011-05-13T23:22:00.000-07:00

a panel set within a stone wall; not sure if it represents an insect hotel - must check tomorrow

Last night (which was Wednesday, before Blogger crashed) I managed the words on page one of my Mavern trail, and the outline of the hills (again!) as seen from the caravan, but nothing more. And I knew I would not have time this evening to even get our the colours, or a pen. So whilst wandering around the Show today, taking pictures of gardens and equipment, people and plants, I photographed quirky things that I could incorporate into my journal trail; if not this one, some other; image transferred or photo manipulated. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and my day overflowed with colour and shape, pattern and texture; sometimes a living thing - the leaf of a herb, the softness of silk, the whorl of a path between lush plantings. Tomorrow is education day and I plan to look at how children view the world of gardening, through the many educational activities on offer at this marvellous event. I think there will be the opportunity to print botanicals using a Victorian press. Lucky children.

Created by students at Pershore College; the globe is surrounded by light and dark plants, representing the sun and the moon

This post was written before Blogger crashed - lost track of days and time now, as I work through a post a day on four blogs. They are stacking up!

Back at Malvern - and a 'blogathon'

2011-05-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

I'm back at Malvern, within sight of the bow-backed hills. Writing for various clients re the Spring Gardening Show (on from tomorrow until Sunday (inclusive). A could not come away without my journaling bag, am making the tiniest of journals from an old map. 'Malvern Trail' is its title. The pic above shows my experimental piece: map with white primer applied and scraped off, then spritzed with glimmer mist and something similar from Craft Notions. Then I tried a quick outline sketch of the two hills I can see from the caravan window. Coloured with Neocolor II, melded together with Golden clear gloss gel (which I usually use for images transfers.

Here's the actual prepped journal, awaiting words and sketches. The whole thing will be backed with some stiff brown cotton I found lurking in the attic. I plan to free-machine stitch flowers on each 'page' (so the journal will be double-sided) with the title lettering also produced on the sewing machine.

I plan to blog every day of the Show - on all four of my blogs: quite a 'blogathon' in fact. That is if the showground WiFi is cooperative. Each blog post (there should be sixteen in all) will be different; my blogs all interact, so if you want to follow my Trail, please click from one blog to another. I'll now move on to the next blog.

Talk - writing with a needle

2011-04-15T14:47:00.000-07:00

the work of textile and calligraphy artist Rosalind Wyatt (see below)

Last night, I went to a truly inspirational talk at our local Embroiders' Guild. Given by the amazing Rosalind Wyatt, we were all transfixed by her imagery and the nature of her work. She is a calligrapher, but more than that - she takes beautiful and fragile antique textiles, and onto them hand-stitches the text from old love letters, or poems, matching past with past, an act of storytelling. What is even more remarkable, is that she emulates the exact style of the hand-writing, and stitches free-hand - no tracing or mark-making on the fabric. Exquisite. My photo of one piece (taken with her permission) does not do justice to the extremely delicate work - poor hall lighting and cramped conditions.

For those who can visit the V&A museum in London on Saturday 14th May, 2011, there is a free event with Rosalind, or you can see her demonstrating her handstitching technique at Waterperry just outside Oxford in July, at 'Art in Action'.

New handwritten garden journal

2011-04-04T13:24:00.000-07:00

The first pages in my new commissioned hand-written garden journal

After USA artist Tracie Lyn Huskamp so kindly featured my journaling on her blog, I thought it only courteous to readers (hers and mine) that I again include on my own blog my latest ongoing journal - rather than an experimental textile piece (as shown in my last post), which isn't yet finished as I left it behind after the workshop where I started to create it! I still haven't retrieved it.

TLH featured two pages from my 'play' journals, in very different styles; I may have featured them myself; I can't remember. I tend to journal more when I am working away from home - indeed Tracie showed me playing in my mini-studio in our motorhome cab. My husband meanwhile utilised the whole of the motorhome living area, but then he was processing the many digital photos he had taken to support my gardening or travel articles - always the reason we are away from home in the first place.

All the pages illustrated here come from a tiny 5" x 7" shop-bought spiral-bound notebook, with the most delicious tobacco-coloured paper. They are hand-written, and being created as an adjunct to the e-newsletter and blog I am commissioned to write for Dobies of Devon (a UK seed and plant company). The little book is entitled 'Potager Progress' and is a lyrical rather than completely factual record of the potager I am creating for them within my Cotswold garden - an 8ft x 8ft space with four raised beds in which I will grow vegetables, salads, herbs and edible flowers - when I've dug out the weed, all surrounded by a wild-life friendly shrubbery of evergreens, flowers, roses and whatever else I can fit in.

the illustrations are either scans from an old bird-identification guide, or paper napkins attached with fusible web

The final current photo below is as far as has already been published on the Dobies blog. If you would like to follow future diary pages, please do so there - they appear three times per month (the next - which I am working on at the moment - on this coming Friday, 8th April), and always at the end of each post. I hope you enjoy following my potager story so far. The journal will not end with the hand-written pages alone, however. Photographed pages will form a central part of a 12" x 12" embellished textile book entitled 'Quilt Journey' which I am also currently working upon for my own amusement, using paper and fabric, momigami techniques, patchwork and machine embroidery - as time allows. All to be bound into a handmade bookform, exactly what as yet to be decided.

So do please visit again; and my thanks to Tracie Lyn Huskamp for featuring my work, and to those who have dropped by following her post last week - and of course to anyone who has left a comment on any of my blogs; my apologies for not as yet replying in person.

P.S. Double-click on any of the page scans to read them full-size.

A fascinating workshop

2011-02-20T13:07:00.000-08:00

the piece I worked on yesterday at an Embroiderer's Guild workshop
(click on the image to view it at a larger size)

It's been a long while since I posted about my creative activities - I have plenty of work 'in progress', undertaken in snatched moments. Plenty that I could tell you about: a new 'quilted journal' I am designing, a revised way of recording my travels, and our garden; and I've yet again had to revamp my workspace. I've been inspired by a visit to London and the British Museum (planning a piece on that), by the books I am reading and experiments with papers, threads and fabrics.

At the Saturday workshop
(Cherwell Valley Embroiderers' Guild)

None more so than yesterday, when I took the day off and attended the most marvellous workshop focussing on 'Local Landscapes', tutored by the excellent Liz Harding. After a fascinating preliminary talk on Friday evening, I was prepared for abandoning my preconceived ideas of creating work that focused on a love of landscape. We were asked to bring along calico, felt, fabric snippets, sketchbook and pencils - and photographs of a chosen subject. I'm into winter trees at present (for another project!) but decided most were too fussy and so chose one from which I could eliminate unnecessary detail. Liz suggested we did not try to copy or sketch what we were thinking of doing but to study our original and then work from memory.

The photograph that formed the basis of my 'local landscape' piece;
observed and then put to one side.

I chose a base fabric that spoke to me of a cold winter's day and laid that over a backing of felt. I was working with a bag of someone else's scraps (having omitted to bring other than calico and cheesecloth!) The base fabric seemed to simulate a winter sky as dusk was about to fall, with a deep green that evoked a hilly landscape. Over this, I laid strips of randomly cut and manipulated felt in a deep moss green - representing my tree (this was an ash that had been coppiced many years ago), and in the foreground a piece of dyed silk that to me represented marshy ground and an old hedge-bank, so typical round here. But I wanted to 'distress' the tree trunks, so overlaid the felt with a very open-weave cheesecloth. I pinned and hand-stitched the overlaid felt down one side only, and up the centre of each wobbly strip. I cut another 'trunk' and covered that too, set aside for the moment. I cut back the cheesecloth so that part of the felt still showed.

I sprayed the trunks and part of the background with walnut ink and whilst it was damp, coated the cheesecloth with matte gel medium and rubbed 'Neocolor II' crayons into the textured cloth. Likewise with the loose trunk. After drying with a hair-dryer, I attached the loose trunk to add dimension, splitting the top to provide branches. The scene was set. More muslin, part-sprayed with lime green (very mossy) was added across the bottom of the trunk and the hedge-bank. I hand-embroidered fly-stitch trees in the background and added a button-hole fence between the bank and field. Time was almost up, so I pinned the piece to a square of calico and added a hand-written word-whisper. There was still a little to do: tint the stray cheesecloth thread ends with deep purpled and lichen grey-greens, and stain the muslin bank and marshy patches. That was to be done yesterday evening but stupidly, I left the whole thing behind in the workroom where we met! So rather than show the finished piece, properly mounted as a page in the 'quilted journey' fabric book I am making, I'll post a scan of my notes from the Friday evening talk and the workshop yesterday. Click on the image to enlarge it. Hope it makes sense. I'll post the finished page when I have completed it - must first collect it from the kind lady who rescued it for me.

Click on the image to enlarge my note-book page.

Liz Harding was an inspiration, offering individual attention as each of us sought help; she gently encouraged us to think how we could expand our ideas, so persuasively that many of us surprised ourselves at what we were able to achieve. Her method of presentation was unusual - I for one will never forget the day that I all but completed a piece in less than five hours. An open mind and a gifted tutor; the perfect mix for learning something new.

And now to apologise: my email program went haywire some while back and I still have not sorted the new one. Blog comments are not a problem (and I love receiving those, keeps me in touch with the world; thankyou), but if you have been trying to contact me personally and have not had a reply - well, I can as yet only access one of my email addresses. I've changed that in my 'profile' and hope that will ease problems for the moment. And I wish all the best to my latest 'followers', and again apologise for not thanking you personally. Eventually, all will be sorted, but right now, it's a personal nightmare.

NOT the Sketchbook Challenge !

2011-01-09T05:18:00.000-08:00

visual journal pages created from 'junk'
(page size 11.5" x 8" - 297x210cm)

I began this collage sometime in November and have worked on it in stages on-and-off since then. It is part of a new series of collage journal entries inspired by 'junk'. I have a large jute bag in my office, positioned under my art desk, into which I throw all manner of paper-related things that take my fancy - postcards, flyers, exhibition catalogues, old directories, and so on. My challenge to myself for 2011 (one of many, and before the 'Sketchbook Challenge' was announced) is to create VISUAL journals. I have sketchbooks associated with various projects, and dozens of travel journals, nature diaries and personal journals; but in general, it is the written word - or one of my word-whispers - that stimulate the desire to record what I do or see all around me.

an enlarged section so part of the added journaling can be read - the surface upon which I wrote was too rough

I decided that this year, apart from all my other journals, I would also try to create a book where a visual image came first; and so, to test myself as to wether I can do this, I thought up the 'bag' idea. I select something visual at random (dip my hand into the bag and pull something out without looking). That way, I am forced to THINK of what the image conveys to me, and how I will use it. The title I give it must convey something of the process; the accompanying journaling must reveal a little of what went on in my head. For me, these will be tough self-assignments, for I have no artistic background or training. What you see is very experimental, not just in the treatment of the subject, but in the materials used - I did not 'trial' them first, as I usually to with textile projects. Text was either hand-written or applied through a stencil. I toned down the glossiness of the images by coating them with matte gel medium.

bottom right - so you can read the journaling

I began with a flyer announcing an exhibition at a local privately-owned art gallery. I cut out the images I wanted to use - and words about the artist - and 'deconstructed' the pieces: the flyer was printed on stiff, glossy board and the layers could be peeled apart. I made a practice layout on tracing paper so that I could assess the space available for words. I wanted the main image to appear on both pages and so made a reverse coloured sketch of the jug of flowers. The background is a collage of paper torn from an out-of-date directory (Writers & Artists Yearbook, 2003), stained with watercolours to tone with the main image. I stencilled the borders and coloured them with neocolor II, blended with matte gel medium using a cotton bud. White gel pen was used to highlight the page titles and of the stencilled circles (these were intended to represent the peony flower buds in the original picture and my 'painting').

finally something about the artist, whose work I have borrowed, deconstructed and re-purposed

Another time, I would create the background collage on spare paper, then photograph and print it on my favourite lightweight but tough 45gsm layout paper, and fix that onto the journaling page. This paper is superb for writing on and will not wreck my pens, as did the rough surface of the collage page. I know I will learn as I go along; and part of the fun is in not knowing what I will 'pull out of the bag'. Oh, and here's a link to the artist whose work inspired me to save the exhibition flyer that came through my letterbox. And I've just discovered that if you double-click on any of the images you can read them large-scale; though you navigate away from the post when you close the screen.

(I had planned to create a visual 'junk journal' page every week, but other necessary activities intruded, as always seem to happen with me. I'm already working on the January 'Sketchbook Challenge' and have many other challenging activities for this year. Overwhelming, but so exciting to be able to at least find a little time for the creativity which I so crave.)

New Year : New Blog - an invitation to view

2010-12-30T11:33:00.000-08:00

In June 2010, I was engaged professionally to write a monthly on-line newsletter for the long-established seed company, Dobies of Devon, for 'keen and dedicated gardeners'. Last month, I was asked to extend what I have been doing and write a weekly blog as well, covering a mix of gardening topics, along with recipes from my Cotswold kitchen, inspirational gardens to visit, book reviews, and much else. I am really excited about all this, for they are such a lovely, friendly company to work with, and this new blog will in no way be a 'hard sell'. Other team members will be contributing as well, so it should be a fascinating mix of topics and information.

The 'Dobies of Devon Gardening Companion' went 'live' for the first time this morning; please click on the link - it would be wonderful if you would leave a comment. The layout isn't perfect yet; it's the first time I've contributed to a team blog, so their may be unintentional hiccups at my end. And if you'd like to learn more about the company itself and what they offer, please click here - you can also access my newsletter ('a helping hand' lower left of screen on the Dobies website).

creating a new bit of garden for two of the grandchildren, nearly seven years ago

I am passionate about so many things, and one is to pass on to future generations the joy of gardening, wildlife, food, history, literature, and creating with ones hands. And, in case you are wondering: no, I haven't been asked to promulgate this new blog; I just truly love what I do and want to share it with others.

A very happy new year to all 'bloggers' and all the best for 2011.

(P.S. I have already started a journal associated with this new blog: that will be shared, too)

Christmas Eve word-whisper

2010-12-24T04:12:00.000-08:00

Delivering local Christmas cards around the village late yesterday afternoon, I was captivated by the quiet, the solitude, and everywhere as I walked 'the loop', so much beauty. As always when I am alone, words sprang into my mind; jotted down on an old envelope - I'd forgotten a notebook, a word-whisper just happened. The top photo, along the high road, will be used in a fabric book that I have 'on the go', as will the words; these and other word-spills accompanied by photos collected both this winter and last. Layouts will follow, sitting at my art-cum-writing desk overlooking the village green, then selection of fabrics from the mountain I have been collecting, and then image transfers and stitching. My 'winter observed' will become a keepsake by which I will remember all the blogging friends who so inspire whatever I do.

Christmas Greetings, much love, and all the very best for 2011.

Left-Right, Left-Right

2010-12-14T14:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I made a discovery about my own 'creativity'. Having struggled to express myself visually - and in my current determination to think visually before words, I unconsciously picked up a watercolour pen and began sketching these play-birds. Nothing unusual in that, except that without thinking, I picked up the pen in my LEFT hand, though I am actually right-handed. I quite liked the quirky creatures, could write about them, was unconcerned that they were not 'proper' sketches. Did it matter? Not at all, for actually, as I played, it felt as if my brain was being washed out, made new. That the tired old cells that had been struggling all day to complete a written thesis was behind me. I did not need to think, or plan. (I plan even when producing a visual page. It's not that I can't be spontaneous, it's just that pre-planning is part of what I always do.)

So upstairs at my 'writing' desk, I picked up water-colour crayons, again with my 'other' hand, then sprayed the images with water and left them overnight to dry. Tonight, I wanted to make notes. "I'll write left-handed," I decided. "Why not? Both hands are used when I'm TYPING; I don't give a thought to which is which."

Again, tonight, that sense of release. This is no laughing matter - though the images may be laughable. This is something I want to explore - somewhere I have a book on left-brain/right-brain creativity, but I am more interested in this sudden freedom from tiredness. I guess it probably has more to do with me thinking "this does not have to be perfect". I loved trying to control the pen and making the notes in joined-up writing. What I'd like to know, is whether anyone else finds an escape in using their non-dominant hand. Curiously, I was not frustrated in not being able to scribble instant notes. And why did I unconsciously pick up the paint-stick in the way I did? At least I have some 'journal-fodder' to paste in my 'junk-journaling' folder!

Triggering Words

2010-11-26T13:26:00.000-08:00

I cannot show you what triggered these words. for it is now too dark to take a photograph. I have not journaled, properly, for nearly a month - have been downsizing, de-cluttering, jotting down so many ideas for what is to be, whilst writing endless proposals connected with work, and suffering the lack of any heat in this old house - that's quite another story!

I jump back almost a year, and the wonderful book written by Tracie Lyn Huskamp entitled 'Nature Inspired'. I planned a seasonal fabric book, collected such fabrics, wrote poems, took photos; and then the summer came and reminiscing about glittering cold is not the same during those hot, herbal-scented days; and anyway we were on our working travels. I continued to collect antique fabrics, old lace, and lush ribbons, have them stashed away for THIS winter.

OK, I know what I want to do and have a collection of 'stuff' large enough to create at least a hundred little concertina books. Come today, in town, dawdling because I was awaiting various phone calls on my mobile about the non-defunct boiler, and - well, I called in upon my favourite Banbury fabric shop. I fall in love with a deep green tulle-like diaphanous fabric encrusted with tiny stars. The day is frosty, still, cold and it's wonderful to be striding around town thinking textile art. Back home this evening, I can see the glittery words image-transferred onto a starlit page. It's forecast to get colder, and what better time to start cutting and stitching. So sorry this is all words - (I even bought a minimum-maximum thermometer today to record the temperatures in this old, old house so full of images and memories).

I cannot end with words alone! This photo has nothing to do with stars or fabric but is a page in progress from my new 'junk journaling' experimental book. The colours are nothing like this - the pic was taken by candlelight because the bulbs over my work desk blew and all was dark. Pages are a collage of entries from an old magazine publishing directory, ripped and stuck down every-which-way, then washed with watercolour in vandyke brown and indigo, much diluted. The picture is taken from a flyer for a local art gallery (I will acknowledge the artist when I have finished the collage). The colours perfectly match those of my watercolour wash but the card on which it is printed is far too stiff, so I have been peeling apart the layers. My pages are called 'Deconstruction' and the accompanying words, already written, will be hand-lettered. My theme is that I cannot afford to buy these works of art, but can promulgate other artists' work by adding them - acknowledged - to my book.

This is meant to be a 'journal in odd moments' book. But although I write spontaneously, I like to plan my layouts, and there's the rub ... But if you read my other blog and the post on Downsizing, you will see the cluttered desk which is now sorted and multi-tasking; work when I must, and play when I cannot bear to be without some other form of creativity.

Nature Enlarged

2010-11-02T13:18:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact I blogged last night about my 'nature trail' concertina booklet - bragging perhaps because for once I actually finished a project rather than just talking/writing/experimenting - I decided this morning to photograph each 'spread' in close up. So the imperfections and stitchery could be seen in detail.

Now I did not properly explain: this piece is one of a number I was rushing to photograph and write about for an article to appear next month on creating gardening journals, which I augmented somewhat to include 'nature'. For when I came to re-read all my written journals over the years, I realised that what I wrote about more than anything else was natural history, which has absorbed and captivated me ever since childhood.

But this creation was a rush job - none of my usual dithering ("should I do this, or that, or perhaps delve into other techniques?"). No, I had to make, finish, photograph and write about not just this but half-a-dozen other creations as well. So no page is as perfect as I would wish, but I do hug myself that for once there something is finished. All my creative journeys have been like those of my childhood, on wobbly footsteps, or walking on my hands around a swimming pool, always biting off more than I can chew (though I did manage that feat); or as my school report once said - almost 70 years ago, "Ann could do better." Well, Ann is still striving to meet whatever was expected of her then, and now.

My apologies for the ennui that may be induced by an almost duplicate post. I thank Toni and Yvonne for their kind comments to date (as of 20.00 UK GMT). And to answer Yvonne's query as to whether this concertina booklet has a closure of sorts - not yet, I am dashing to get the photos off to the magazine editor tomorrow, of this and other artifacts. But now you come to mention it, I think two narrow calico straps could be fastened to the two outside edges, and wound around as a tie ... easy to release. Like the one below - my concertina fabric herbal; and maybe also, a little bag to hold each 'trail'.

You see, the idea of concertina journals made from old, altered maps seemed so easy; to have a series of them in my travel bag, ready to depart at a moment's notice. Each distressed and sprayed with various colours to suit all manner of places, themes and situations.

A bag-holder and strap for each one, perhaps, to hang around my neck, with pen for sketching and scribbling ... leaving space for the photos I take along the way. Now: each map makes three such journals (each of eight pages); and as I have amassed around 30 of these antiques - the shop was selling them off cheap - that's an awful lot of journals; and I have so many other things up my sleeve .........

P.S. You can still click on each image and enlarge it even more ... I love the way the scrim becomes almost tactile; must see what happens when I slather it with diluted acrylic paint.

'Nature Trail'

2010-11-01T14:33:00.000-07:00

Nearly two months ago, I wrote about the magical workshop day I spent tutored by Rachel Anne Cronin (see 5th September). At last, I have completed something using the techniques to which Rachel introduced us. Nothing as I had imagined; indeed I cut up both the image transfer and the fabric-print made from my own carved stamp and turned it into something quite different! But isn't that what workshops are all about? A stepping stone to someplace else. In my case a concertina booklet created from an old map bought recently in a local antique shop (map £2.00).

I began by ripping a canvas-backed map into sections, and used just one concertina section. I distressed the map by painting it with diluted acrylic paint (child's 99p type) to slightly obscure the map so it was barely recognisable. I sprayed it with diluted walnut ink to 'age' it - even though this particular map was already around 70 years old. I cannot think what I intended this to be, but the idea of a 'nature trail' emerged; a sort-of diary using images and words for which the map analogy seemed appropriate. At this point, I covered the rear (canvas) side of the map with calico, to which I had stitched a portion of the image transfer and carved-leaf print from the workshop for the front and back covers. The title was stitched free-form on my sewing machine.

Now to add images and words onto the map (click on the image if you want to view it at close quarters):

Nearly all of my work is experimental, and this was no exception. I used paper table-napkin motifs, fused onto cheesecloth, and then onto the map with matte gel medium (first three 'pages'). The next three pages comprised scans from my various travel journals - sketches or actual reduced pages, printed onto 45gsm layout paper, fused onto cheesecloth and stitched around to frame the images. The final spread (two pages) utilised the same technique but incorporated photo prints - again on the layout paper. So, a variety of image sources but melded together by the use of the fragile cheesecloth; enmeshed as you might say. I always like to use some unifying object within my work to marry the various divers objects. In this case, it was the cheesecloth; and as I have a 50 metre bolt of it, it is likely to feature in many of my forthcoming projects!

And so to the final stage: words. My journals invariably start with words; they are the catalyst for whatever I create. Only recently have I begun to first think visually rather than verbally; turning my creative world topsy-turvy. This little concertina 'nature trail' is a poor reflection of what a true artist would achieve; but for once left-brain overtook right-brain (or was it the other way round? - I can never remember), and I was never sure whether the pen I used would take to the distressed surface or sink without trace. Checking this post in 'preview', I realise that none of the detail is visible, which may be the fault of poor camera technique (I'm struggling with a beautiful new camera) but more probably that I should have photographed the concertina spread by spread. You live and learn; and the older I become, the steeper my learning curve!

Words added

2010-10-20T07:22:00.000-07:00

trial page that is far from perfect - in every sense!

Onto one of my experimental napkin-pages from earlier in the week I have added impromptu words. Nothing special, just as they fell into my head; just to see how the white pen worked over the acrylic wax. It's apt to become less vibrant as it dries; I had to over-write the letters two or three times and under electric light and without my 'strong' specs, the positioning is somewhat hit and miss. Indeed the layout is all wrong too - too heavy at the top (but I love that sunflower), and a tiddly, paltry pumpkin at the bottom.

It was never intended to be a finished journal page - in fact all my experimental pages and trials appear at the back of my visual journal, with notes as to what I did and the results. It is important for me to see my failures, for they remind me of what not to do. I now need to add the poem-spills to the planned layout in the more presentable front of the book, but have developed overnight a stinking cold and have decided to read one o my birthday art books instead of making art. Too many failed pages would be depressing.

Instead, I will close with a photo I took yesterday of one of my favourite herbs - borage - because the flowers are such a fantastic blue. I want to experiment (that word again) with images transfers and free-form thread-stitching. But I know that if I try that today feeling so full of cold, I will do something stupid with the machine. And anyway, I first have to add my poem-spills to the 'proper' napkin pages.

a shaken macro shot of borage (I should have used a tripod)

Still experimenting!

2010-10-17T14:04:00.000-07:00

My first dark-background experiment: single layer napkin image applied using acrylic wax; the result is quite textural, but the sunflower merges into the background under certain lighting conditions and you can't recognise the pumpkin at all!

Apart from the usual early Autumn chores, and work deadlines, I've been playing some more with colour-spill pages and different ways of applying napkin-tissue images. (The napkins I use are those good-quality ones that comprise three flimsy layers.) It worked well when I had a fairly light background (last post) , but not so well when I used a dark, vibrant one.

This was my starting point, immediately after buying the sunflower napkins (the sight of which prompted a poem-spill which will go on the page once I settle on my preferred method of applying the image).

I've now tried six different methods for applying a bright yellow sunflower over a dark blue background: heat-n-bond (fusible web); backed with masking tape with gel medium for the adhesive; using acrylic wax to apply a single and double layer - just the image layer for single and the top two layers for double. But the one I think produces the best results, so that some of the background page colour still shines through the tissue image, would just happen of course to be the most time-consuming and the most complicated!

Not the same page as above; this was a trial at the back of my visual journal. Method as described below. You can see one of the sunflower images top right, and a pumpkin lower left, which also stimulated a 'poem-spill'.

I cut out all three layers of the napkin images I want to use and apply the bottom white tissue layer to the journal page using acrylic wax. Once dry, I paint over the ghostly shape of the image with white tempera paint (a bit like gesso but far, far cheaper).

A close up which demonstrates better than my words exactly what I am talking about.

I let the gesso (white paint) dry, and then apply the actual image over the top, again using acrylic wax. I've tried it two ways, using just the top image layer, and also the top and middle layer. Still not sure what I like best!

Final experiment (for tonight): motifs applied with wax over the painted images; single layer left, double layer right. The double layer has a lovely texture but needs extra waxing to help the layers to meld; the wax soaks into the tissue though acts as a very good adhesive.

I think I prefer the right hand result. It's hard to tell for a) the background here is a different blue and the red (for the pumpkins is too dominant, and b) it's difficult to compare all the photos for they have been taken throughout the day in different light conditions - this last under electric light - but not flash which renders the colours somewhat blatant. I now have numerous examples of these deep-coloured pages in my visual journal - sunflowers, pumpkins, apples, pears and hedgerow fruit - and still cannot guarantee what result I will achieve. But then I suppose that's what art is all about; you never know whether you will achieve a state of serendipity or want to tear the whole thing up! Now I need to add the poem-spills that prompted these trials in the first place; white pen, as soon as the wax is fully dry and firm.

Oh, and do let me know if the 'you might also like' is irritating. I added the facility, thinking I would be able to select earlier related posts, and did not realise that the suggestions are beyond my control. Maybe I'll remove the gadget.

Journaling at Malvern, plus purchases

2010-09-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

It is so cosy playing with journal pages in our motorhome cab - I just love my mini-studio, but it's not so good for taking photos as all is on a skew. Above is the first of three 'spreads' coloured with acrylic inks and with paper-napkin motifs waxed into place. The title text has been stencilled and all that is now needed are the words which will be added when the acrylic wax has fully dried and the surface is suitably hardened. Double click on the image to see it as full size. I meanwhile will cut out motifs for the other two spreads: apples, pears and a few more vegetables. This Show really was all about a 'harvest in the hills', though today you might have been forgiven or thinking it was a gigantic car-boot sale!

It worked to my advantage however, for I browsed along with all the rest of the crowd and am so pleased with what I consider to be astute purchases. The first: one of those dangly metal windcharms - I loved the bird shape; if I remove just one, it will act as positive or negative stencil or a pattern from which I can cut paper or fabric birds for all manner of projects.

Next to a stall selling necklaces - which I never wear; indeed I buy them only to take them apart for the beads. I'm a sucker for doing this and either purchase for a specific project, or on spec in case I never see the like again. These today incorporated flat wooden discs, perfect for a natural history or seashore project, depending on which colour I use, interspersed with large marble-like globular beads that will be just right for the dangly crocheted chains I make for my paper or fabric books. Nothing will be wasted, for the rest of the necklaces - chord and clasps - will also be recycled. I've photographed them over the journal pages to give an idea of their chunkiness and size. I have a much wider collection of beads of all shapes, colours and sizes by buying this way - and it's far cheaper than selecting little packets and jars in the craft shops. I do stick to natural materials though - wood, horn, metal, shell or glass.

And now to the strangest purchase and one I may come to regret. I hovered repeatedly (sorry for the pun) over a silk moth stall, captivated by the insects' beauty and by the fact that the larvae are not harmed when unravelling the silk cocoons. Yesterday, I came away with an information pack: literature on the types of moth, the resultant silk, what they eat, actual samples of two kinds of moth, silk and a cocoon. Making silk paper (in small quantities) for textile projects must be a great adventure I thought. Today - now what have I done - I bought two containers of live silk worms! One type feeds on hawthorn, the other on privet. The only snag, well maybe just the first of many snags as yet to be discovered, is whether they will spin their cocoons and hibernate before leaf drop and their food supply ceases to exist.

I am assured they will. I am also assured that they will not migrate around the house! Time will tell, and I must chart my progress, or rather the worms' progress, for I feel duty bound not to let them die. It's 65 years since I first kept silk worms (the mulberry-leaf-eating sort which we school children were told could survive on lettuce instead). I'd never seen a mulberry tree and being during the second world war, I ran out of lettuce .... or perhaps my mother thought our food needs were greater than those of the worms! I know they never reached maturity. One thing for certain, it's going to take an awful lots of cocoons to make a tiny bit of silk paper .....

On the move

2010-09-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

two pages from my 'travel spill' journal

Dear Reader, first I must explain my journaling blog for those who may be mystified at my hopping from one project to another, or appearing to do so. Looking back, I find I tend to post the start of a project and then maybe a stage or stages during its progress. This does not mean I never finish anything; usually what I am doing is connected to some travel article or garden magazine feature, or just pure playing. And I also tend to post my experimental work and explanations of the processes involved. If I didn't, I would never remember what I had done when I return to complete what may have been begun weeks or even months before.

Or I run out of time blog about what I am working on. Right now, I have time to spare (magic) and am sitting on the Malvern Showground ahead of the opening tomorrow. I have my mini-studio set up in the motorhome cab. I have pruned my required supplies down to the minimum but find it is essential to prep papers or fabric in advance of coming away. I cannot slather acrylic inks or paints in so tiny a space; well it's not actually the space but the fear of getting paint on the upholstery!

I have two forms of travel journal now: one is planned and structured and has to be finished at home for we do not always take the printer away with us; it depends where we are going and the nature of the journey. The other - my travel spilling journal - is a hotch-potch of play-as-you-go pages. If they go wrong, it doesn't matter. I have just posted a pic on my wild child blog of the page prepared last night before coming away - it's at the end of the Back to Malvern post and is in autumnal colours to suit the seasonal nature of the 'Celebration of Nature's Harvest', which is why we are here.

The photo above on this blog started as a colour slathering and was completed exactly a week ago when we were down in Dorset. I think if you double-click on the picture, you can see it full-size. I always bemoan the fact that when I am away, I never manage to work on a travel diary, but this way - travel spilling - works so well; it only takes a relatively short amount of time; and the travel-journal-proper awaits the planned layout and photos on our return. I have to say that the idea for journal-spilling is not mine; I was given a brilliant book by Diana Trout on the subject by my dear friend, Kristin Steiner. Her gift has unlocked my fear of playing; previously, my travel diaries were all words and occasionally a few poor sketches.

More travel-spill pages to follow but my laptop needs charging ....

A new dimension

2010-09-05T05:55:00.000-07:00

I've never done anything like this before - carving a lino block and then printing it on fabric I had coloured myself

Yesterday came like a breath of fresh air - a day in between travelling when I could forget schedules and play. I attended another workshop; it was more than play, it was a revelation and added a new dimension to my creative endeavours. Tutored by the gifted Rachel Anne Cronin, the theme was 'Making Sketchbook Techniques'. It was so well structured, planned so that materials could be drying whilst we got on with something else. I learned so much that I can now incorporate into what I do already - in fact more than one new dimension.

Book cover number one: left (back cover), right (front cover with image transfer); the back cover is hand-painted over the furnishing fabric and now awaits stitching and embellishing. It will be backed by the 'green leaf' printed fabric below which I also made in the workshop yesterday.

We added image transfers to plain and printed fabric, experimenting with gel medium which gave a much better result than the method I had previously been using. We used decorator's acrylic primer to 'gesso' the surrounding fabric (much cheaper than gesso) and then - for me - the two highlights of the day: first colouring plain polycotton in shades to complement our chosen theme, for which I used thinned down acrylic paint with splashes of acrylic ink, screwing up the wet fabric to amalgamate teh colours; then secondly cutting lino blocks (we used 'Easy Cut' which is so much easier than the hard stuff I used back in school) and then overprinted the by-now-dry and coloured polycotton using not sticky printing inks but acrylic paint. Magic (well it was for me).

A close-up of part of the green-leaf print I made from the leaf block I carved.

The image transfered fabric piece, once embellished, will become the outside cover, whilst the backing will be the decorated polycotton, the two fused together and edge stitched. I prepared two covers and two linings. Then papers of various sorts, or other transferred and decorated pieces, will be hand-stitched into the covers to complete my books. I came home full of ideas for incorporating what I had practised into my many mixed-media projects; now to create the time to do so! Have a look at Rachel's blog on for inspiration and some of her own finished covers.

My second book cover created from an image transfer for the front, and badly painted topiary trees for the back. This needs a lot doing to it to embellish it! It will be backed by the 'pink' more Autumnal leaf fabric as shown in the first picture.

Squeezing time

2010-08-29T14:38:00.000-07:00

I can sneak into my laundry room to my new mini-workstation and indulge in a little 'play'

Despite a non-stop and overloaded freelance work schedule that I would never have imagined would come my way, I have discovered how to squeeze time ... nothing new there I am sure, but it has been a revelation for me, brought up to think that whilst there was 'work' to be done, one should not 'play'. And, because anything creative that I do is still considered 'play', I feel guilty. But squeezing time has become achievable because I have set up mini-workstations in my laundry room; not expensive either; just utilising my existing storage boxes which hold fabric and equipment. They can be shunted around to reach shelves and storage cupboards, or the laundry equipment, but what I have also done is to position small cork-surfaces notice boards on top and behind. I work on the horizontal board and pin ideas and notes to the vertical one (you can see the experiments about which I last posted). The cork surface is brilliant for it means I can pin down what I am working upon. Best of all, I can sneak in there whilst the potatoes are cooking, or whilst I wait for the washing cycle to end. So much easier than my workspace in the attic, though I still use the big table up there for paint slathering.

Click on this image to see it at a larger size; it shows the individual tag book pages before they are hinged together, plus my working notes

And so to what I have been working upon ('Remains') since I posted my poor initial experiments three weeks ago. No matter what I am creating, I never jump straight in, if it involves new materials or techniques. I make samples, and note what I have done, for otherwise I forget how a particular effect was obtained. The catalyst for this piece was a prompt by my dear friend Kristi (I refer to her in my notes as 'KS') - Kristin Steiner of North Carolina, who came to stay last month and showed me all manner of exciting ideas for tag books and other things. So my trials turned into a repurposed piece, everything assembled from bits and pieces that would otherwise have been discarded - hence 'remains' as the title.

The corkboard is perfect for pinning down the tag book pages: here I am attaching muslin hinges to join the pages together (kitchen weights also come in handy, too!)

I have almost finished assembling the individual 'pages', hinged with dyed muslin, and will post a photo of the finished tag book once the acrylic wax has dried and I can stand it upright. Meanwhile, when I'm not standing at my mini work-bench, I am deep into tiny fabric books and visual art-journals of one kind and another - all such a blessed release from the daily words, words, words without which I could not afford to indulge in my paper and textile madness.

Interlude

2010-08-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

practising: a poor scan of an experimental piece described below (but click on the photo and you will see an enlarged version in more detail than is shown here)

It's been an age since I blogged - everything has gone haywire for the last month, but I have at least spent every odd moment splattering paint or sewing, ever since the delicious workshop about which I posted at the beginning of July. In between all that, my dear friend Kristin Steiner from North Carolina came to visit for a couple of days this last week after teaching at 'OSS' - Oxford Summer School. She brought me such treats to play with and suggested I made a tag book out of the card separators from an old wine box; you know, the sort you find if you buy a box of six bottles. Buying wine in quantity is outside our financial limit these days, but I ripped out the dividers from the beer box Kristi's husband (Bill) bought us - we drank the four bottles, one apiece.

My tag book is to be called 'Remains' because it uses re-purposed materials. The tags are painted and sprayed as Kristi instructed, but - being me - I wanted to experiment with what I would stick on the pages (sorry Kristi, they are nothing so special as your examples). The pic above is a scan of my mounted experiments. Basically using gesso or emulsion paint as a base, stained with glimmer mist in delectable colours. Words are my version of creating words on fabric - computer manipulation printed onto 'Cool Peel' and ironed onto muslin with additional text overlaid in Photoshop.

Other background text is created using a text-stamp on napkin tissue: the white background becomes transparent when using acrylic wax as an adhesive. The wax also gives a lovely velvety finish and melds everything together, including dyed muslin. My scan is poor, but now that I have experimented and sampled to my own satisfaction, I can complete the actual tag book. One of the experiments (the top panel, using a glimmer mist called Raven that I discovered in a London shop on Saturday was the catalyst for one of my silly instant poetry moments. The experiment went wrong - so relieved it wasn't the finished piece! - and the words flowed as much as the ink had a few moments before.

I'll be working on the actual tag book tomorrow, adding napkin illustrations and hingeing the book with muslin - thankyou Kristi for introducing me to so many exciting techniques in the two short days you were with us. As for the previous project from Annette Emms' marvellous workshop; my sampling also turning into a fabric concertina book, and all the pieces are also positioned for the finished book-in-a-box. I have surprised myself actually with just how many minutes I have been able to 'play' when I should have been a) cleaning the house, b) reclaiming the garden, or c) working - but then I have a really exciting new project up my sleeve and it involves all that I have been playing around with for the last few months.

A blissful day

2010-07-04T01:20:00.000-07:00

My half-finished 'Summer Days' box destined to hold a concertina fabric book

Yesterday was one of such joy - to be playing with fabrics and paper again at the most wonderful workshop organised by our local Embroiderers' Guild was absolute bliss. It was doubly special for me, because it was being tutored by Annette Emms, whose blog 'Fairy Shoes & Other Things' is so enjoyable and one I love to follow.

I learned so much in so short a time. The class was excellent; really well structured and leading us through many, many possibilities. We were introduced to various methods of image transfer (so much more subtle than my 'cool-peel' technique), and shown Annette's amazing concertina fabric books - each one of six pages filled with themed images and words and then embellished with stitching by hand and machine, snippets of this and that, little hand-made picture frames and pockets ..... One day was not enough! But we also completed a little box to house the book - just think of a library of these arranged on a shelf, ready to take down and read remembrances of travels or gardens or history.

I wrote this whilst eating lunch during the workshop, sitting outside in the hot sunshine

Now I have to practise - now I have to complete my own first book, which was to have been a herbal but instead became (or will become) one of celebrating 'summer days' which fell into my head only a few days before the workshop.

this became the theme for my first concertina book

Best of all, I now know how to transfer the images of all the musical stone angels I photographed in Tewkesbury Abbey a while back ready for the fabric book I planned on 'Heaven & Earth'.

one of the Tewkesbury Abbey angels I photographed last September, awaiting the technique to be able to transfer her (or was it him?) into a fabric book

I am supposed to be weeding the vegetable plot today; I think I will play instead! And thankyou, Annette, for such an inspiring day.

Irish Rhapsody: work in progress

2010-06-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

the drawing office where plans for the Titanic were created - the room is now all but derelict and has been out of use for 22 years (it is not open to the public)

I mentioned in my last post that I was prepping loose-leaf pages to facilitate the creation of travel journeys 'on-the-go'. Mine were all ready for our departure to Ireland last Saturday - 300gsm watercolour paper dyed, splattered and edged with summery flowers on napkins. I did not have the time to scan or photograph the pages but had already started to stitch around the maps I was going to use (the first map was shown in my 'Wild Somerset Child' blog of last week. Since then, I have stitched around the other maps I intend to use at every opportunity, but our journalist press trip to Ireland has been non-stop for seven days, from 8.30 until 11.00 or so at night.

peeling paint in the room above will make a good page background for a fabric book

I have had time to word-paint on the coach (by word-paint, I mean record my thoughts and observations in blank verse) and some of these have been hand-written onto scraps of paper, and stitched around already. Assembly will have to come when we are back home. I have changed my idea of the nature of the Irish journal, not so much a diary, more an illustrated thought journal of episodes and places that inspired me to word-paint - work notes are needed for commissioned magazine features, and my Irish Rhapsody paper/fabric creation is pure pleasure.

ditto

As my husband was taking all the photos needed for my articles, I concentrated on textures, colours and shapes, not just to appear in the journal but as page backgrounds transferred onto fabric for other word-books. A place that captured my imagination only yesterday was at the former Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast where the tragic Titanic was built and launched. We were privileged to be shown into the drawing office where the ship was designed in the early 1900s - the room itself has not been used for 22 years and all is musty and decaying.

and so will this

I just loved the poignancy of these peeling walls and spent time recording these, and taking photos of old postcards that will also go into my journal. I think this idea of decay and regeneration (the shipyard is to house a new visitor centre) is one that I could use for other projects. So I have all my word-painting ready for text panels, I have my pages prepped and photos are also taken and sized. Now everything needs assembling ....

what began in the drawing office above, sadly ended at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean

More experimenting

2010-05-27T00:29:00.000-07:00

small handmade journal (6in x 4in) showing front and back covers

(front, right and back, left)

Last night I posted a picture of my latest experiment on my gardening blog - simply because it had to do with the journal I had been making whilst we were visiting the Malvern Spring Gardening Show. But the journal was more significant than its content or the location where it was being made, and as few bloggers will yet know of my embryonic venture into blog gardening, this is the place for explaining my latest experimentation.

I have been working on methods for more easily creating travel journals when we are away using the minimum of materials that can quickly be packed into the confines of our motorhome. As we are always working when we are away, the journals have to be something I can dip into whenever I have the time. Usually, I write far too much text - in a blank travel diary - and it ever gets transferred. In other words, I begin, and do a few pages, but never catch up with myself. And so in my roof space, I have a collection of jute bags lined up, each devoted to a particular location, with materials stashed away relevant to that particular project.

Well all that has to end. And so, for those who are interested, here is what I am now experimenting with - to facilitate the away-day journaling. First I still prep the papers and create the structure of what I will use. In this case, the pages were 180gsm watercolour paper stained with koh-i-nor dyes which I have just discovered. They don't show much on the covers as I knew I wanted more decoration but the inside pages are much more vibrant and colourful.

The decorations are paper napkins: I separate the layers and iron the top layer onto heat-n-bond lite. As needed, the motifs are cut out and ironed to the page background - I keep any white portions of the cut-away napkin as they are marvellous for adding texture at a later stage and can be coloured with neocolor crayons and gel medium, both of which do not take up too much space. For this journal, all the page edges were prepared at home with strips of flowers down the outside edges of each. The text was stencilled using pen and neocolor. The disadvantage was that the rough surface was difficult to journal on; finding a suitable pen has proved almost impossible. Photos can be easily added; I have a template for positioning and will fix them in with photocorners. I want to take the decoration one stage further so have trialled another technique for our next venture - a trip shortly to Ireland.

This is a page from a blank artist's sketchbook which has lovely smooth paper in a pale tobacco colour (I am addicted to brown paper and brown paper bags!). It is perfect for writing on and here is my first trial of how I could add text to the rough coloured pages of a larger book. My Irish journal has 8in x 8in pages, which I have already prepared in marbled shades of pale green. Bearing in mind to keep supplies to a minimum, I tried spraying with dye overstamping whilst still wet with a fern-leaved stamp and an ordinary stamp pad which allows the ink to run a little. (top of pages). Pieces if this paper can be torn into small panels and added to my journal pages using bits of dyed masking tape. The stylised 'leaf' below is created using cat's-eye chalk-stamp pads quickly drawn around and over with a pen - easy on the smooth surface, and these can be cut out and added with a glue stick. My aim is to be able to create highly decorated pages with the minimum of fuss in the tiniest of spaces (I use the motorhome cab as a studio). There will not be time to add napkin motifs before we leave so today I will experiment with some I have already adhered to the fusible web and will try ironing them onto the page surface with a little Clover mini-iron that we can use in the motorhome.

This post is all words when it should have been so much more visual. I'll post the results at some later stage. Meanwhile, enjoy my little foray into further experimentation. (Oh, and if you click on the images, you can see them at enlarged size; colours are a little weird due to my scanner capabilities.)

Experimenting

2010-05-03T00:13:00.000-07:00

photographic image transferred onto muslin

I have SO MANY projects on the go that I am working a little on each one, depending on time, mood, and state of tiredness - no point endeavouring to create something satisfying when you can hardly keep your eyes open.

I manage to get to my tiny worktable almost every other day and am experimenting with techniques new to me, or samples for one of the fabric/paper journals that are in the pipeline - mostly notes in my sketch book. I love to say, "what if ??" and not be afraid of failure.

I was really pleased with the 'muslin photos' that I tried last week that are being made into a collaged background as a sample for one of the journals. Here's what I did. I took two photos - one from our outing to Dover's Hill (a macro shot of fissured tree bark) and one of my very large images from our recent visit to Somerset. I reduced them both to exactly the size of a sheet of Epson Cool Peel iron-on transfer paper. I had to alter the proportions slightly, but all that did was distort the tree bark and elongate the tree trunks which did not matter - both images are being used more as a pattern.

I ironed the whole bark sheet onto muslin - brave of me, as Epson have altered the formula of the Cool Peel and the backing doesn't peel that easily now; most of the time I am scraping the paper away with my thumb nail! But I had bought two packets before realising that the product is no longer the one I know and love, which I have been using for the last few years; so use it I must. I had already determined that the bark image would be patchworked in strips between the tree photo. So I ripped the tree cool-peel into strips before ironing it onto the muslin (see pics above, and thought that would be easier. It made no difference, other than that I was working one strip at a time.

See the pic above which shows the image ironed onto the muslin. It has a lovely painterly feel to it, almost as if it was printed or painted on canvas, and yet is totally pliable. The next stage was was to rip up the bark sheet into strips - it ripped easily and left a rather nice ragged edge - and then tried the same with the tree strips. That was less easy, for I should have spaced them out more; as it was I had to cut and fray the muslin, but the edges will roll under and can then be stitched together with the bark strips, onto a calico backing, which I use as a base for all my machined patchwork.

This will give me a background on which to add words, napkin collages (another technique I am experimenting with) and other embellishments. The finished piece will then have the edge added - log cabin patchwork which is my 'hall-mark'. Then I will have one page of an experimental fabric/paper journal completed; a reference point for my experiments. I think I will need to attach a pocket into which to insert the instructions for what I did and discovered, for my memory is failing .... half the time when I achieve a finished result that I like, I cannot remember how I got there!

I will post the page when it is completed; but don't hold your breath, for Raymond and I are off to the Malvern Spring Gardening Show this week when, apart from doing my day job, I'll be experimenting with a different type of paper journaling using dyes, napkin flowers, a little hand-stitching and the poems that I trust will 'happen'. The paper pages are all ready, just need to punch some stitching holes.

wallhanging - the herb garden at Tewkesbury Abbey

(photo image transferred to fine cotton lawn)

Meanwhile, here's one I made earlier - at least five years ago I think. I may have made this for a magazine article, to show how you could incorporate photographic images into patchworked artefacts. This was probably intended to be a cushion cover, but became a wallhanging for my workroom. The photo was taken in the little herb-garden at Tewkesbury Abbey; I liked the fact that one of the abbey butresses appears in the background. The outer fabric is one I cherish - an offcut I bought at least 30 years ago to make myself a dress but instead it's in my patchwork stash in the roof-space; I garner it and only use a little at a time, for special projects. I must through the boxes, for if there is any left, it will be perfect as the page edges for a 12"x12" fabric/paper book to be entitled 'Grandma's Garden', outline thoughts for which are forming on the page. That's for another post.

Pulse & Flow

2010-03-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

Suddenly this morning, I looked out of our bedroom window and noticed the first swelling of the buds on the chestnut tree, with droplets hanging from the branches like liquid jewels. I took a photo out of the upstairs window, but the raindrops did not show. I tried again an hour later; still too misty. Then the sun came out and I shot a close-up into the sun - bingo. Truly, the raindrop is there - I know because I tried cropping and enlarging the specific area where it hangs with the sun behind it. And by the time I took this third photo, the buds had swelled even more, tinged with green; fat and sticky; goldfinches alighted within the branches, their feathers glowing in the rain.

Now I had said last night on my other blog that I would be absent for a while; but sitting in bed this morning, looking at the tree, and setting down the poem that sprang to mind, I could not resist sharing this raindrop moment. And why post about trees on a journaling blog? Well this particular tree is special, because it is the first thing I see every morning when I awake. I have written about it so many times: next month I will no doubt post the poem I wrote in April over 30 years ago. That was before I was 'into' photography, and now the Chestnut is photographed and catalogued in pictures and blank verse in all seasons and all weathers.

Eventually, I will celebrate the tree in its own fabric journal, experimenting with techniques, layers and words.

This is the tree as it was last October, the photo taken from almost the same vantage point as today's raindrop image.

Actually, the tree is something of a nuisance! It wasn't here when we bought the house 40 years ago, but the local council thought it would be good to surround the village green with trees; half a dozen or so were planted in the early '70s; but they are forest trees and in summer are now so dense that this particular one casts so much shade we have to have the living room lights on throughout the day. It is still an inspiration however.

'Journal Spilling' - out of my depth

2010-03-09T12:51:00.000-08:00

It began with our unexpected day out on Sunday, a few snatched creative hours when nothing seemed real, yet I have been feasting on those moments and know I have grown in stature. Spur-of-the-day journaling; nothing planned as is my usual wont, just grabbing neocolor water-soluble wax crayons, and notebook, pen and camera.

Read the full explanation of our day on my other blog. This was our first stopping place on Sunday, identified from nine years back by a scribbled note on the map. I 'journal-spilled' in my notebook (on a paper surface not conducive to the collaged layers I favour). Usually I would meld the colours with gel-medium, but I did not have that with me, and so used spit, which I smeared too liberally across the middle part of the pic and thus lost the plot. On the notebook page, you can see my finger-print in the spitted colour. In the original, the colour is so much more vibrant. I am no artist; I just try to capture what I feel in the moment in the only way I can; but I never forget those days when I commit landscape to paper in colour or words. They remain with me years later, far more than any photograph. The scan above departs from my usual norm in that I manipulated it after scanning - the scribbled frame was created in Photoshop, freehand, another first.

So here is the photo I took, just to remind myself later of where we had been and what I had so poorly tried to sketch. And my descriptive poem follows, written in the car because it was so cold outside: 1. my sketch, 2. a few quick photos (brrrr ...) and 3. the poem.

I wrote others, but the accompanying photos are still unloaded. The muse flowed that day, and now must be surpressed as work calls, and journaling is not really a part of all that. Well it is, but that's another tale.

I am terrified ....

2010-03-04T06:59:00.000-08:00

a mock-up of a fabric keepsake, but the pagination does not thrill me so I will move the tree to the middle page (where the red flowers are) and shift the jug of flowers and the red daisies to the left.

This is not a sob story, though it may seem like one, but I am absolutely terrified of losing my mind. Circumstances since I last produced anything creative have taken such an unexpected turn; nothing as planned running up to the end of 2009 when I had set aside spare time over the first six weeks of 2010 to work on L.K.Ludwig's online painting class. That excitement still awaits me.

For those bloggers who so kindly follow my other blog, I will not re-iterate what I blogged about last night; and for those who want to know what has beset me, most is set out there. Apart from losing our passports, I did not enlarge on the creative hiccup. Who could complain when I was greeted on Christmas morning with a hug from my husband and the instruction to go choose a new sewing machine. Nothing wrong with the one I have ... and I won't touch on dear R's reasoning as to why he wanted me to have a new one. Two months later and I am the proud owner of a sewing/quilting machine that, amongst so many other attributes, has a needle threader and thread tie/cut device (my increasingly arthritic hands can hardly cope with these really simple tasks).

Between selection, ordering and delivery came the clearing out and total re-organisation of my downstairs work-room cum laundry room for somewhere to put and use it, the debacle of all the other hiccups that have happened in 2010 - and the fear of this stupid non-functioning brain. It is hard to describe such bewildering blackness, such fog and, well - nothingness. What is going on? I'm only posting today because despite a marvellous 'artist day out' yesterday, I woke up with a headache and a stinking cold (most unlike me who has survived a sub-zero house all winter and rarely take ill). I worked this morning nevertheless and WILL NOT give in. Life is too precious to waste it by malingering. Should I read the latest copy of 'Cloth Paper Scissors' that arrived this morning? No, I will only depress myself with my lack of creative wit.

So this afternoon, sitting by the fire, out came the notes for an interim project which I had designed as a practice piece to familiarise myself with my new splendid all-singing, all-dancing machine. (That alone is like learning all over again to read and write, to swim, to ride a bicycle, walk on my hands, drive a car and fly an aeroplane; all at once!) I decided I was feeling too under the weather to risk actual stitching so I cut up photocopies of the tiny pics I will use in this project - a concertina, double-sided fabric book; a celebration of my kind of creativity. I made a paper mockup, wrote the poem that is to be part of it, and took photos (above and below) of the planned layout. The background will be a colourful stylised floral furnishing fabric in pinks and oranges, not my usual favoured oatmeal/cream or blue/green colouring. A challenge in more ways than one. Pages hinges and edges in scrim (I think) and pictures tranferred using 'Cool Peel'. Words (page titles) are to be machine-stitched. As for layers and embellishments ...

photocopies of my scanned and reduced-scale artwork have rendered some sketches invisible in this photograph

On the eve of Christmas

2009-12-24T09:37:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all creative Bloggers, wherever you are on this eve of Christmas. May you be warm and cosy, with friends or family - but if you are alone, I will still be thinking of you, even though I may not know you are reading this, or even who you are. With love and best wishes, Ann - from the not quite so freezing English Cotswolds.

A steep learning curve

2009-12-20T10:42:00.000-08:00

my first online workshop page (see below)

I've finally begun work on the first tasks set by L.K.Ludwig in her fascinating 'Printed Patterned Painted Journal Making' online class. The pic above and the one that follows do not do justice to her skill as a teacher: take a look at LKL's blog when she posted an outline of what is on offer, and what is possible.

I really need a whole day to get to grips with all this; the techniques are simple yet ingenious; but collecting everything together and learning how to view LKL's videos without them continuously stopping and starting (my own incompetence) have left my brain in a whirl. And then there's the steep learning curve of Flickr and how to load photos onto a group site so all participants can share their efforts, if they want to. My examples are poor but scraping acrylic paint and spritzing it with water has been an eye opener. I would never have thought of doing that. My photos show my very first sheet (above), which to me seems like sunlight filtering through dappled leaves, and a further one using a feather-grass stamp that blobbed a bit. I am behind with the schedule already after only one week!

and another page (click on the image to see it enlarged) - I learned what NOT to do when attempting the stamping technique; and need lots more practice

Stencils were called for yesterday and I could not recmember where I had stashed some away, at least ten years ago. Glancing up at a bookshelf-cum-cupboard in the laundry room, lo and behold, a box labelled 'stencils'. Reaching it with all the clutter now stored in front of the steel structure involved climbing on steps and then onto the table of my industrial sewing machine (in itself a storage shelf) and then reaching forward and up, grabbing the box ... (no I don't want to land back in hospital, so caution ...)

Working spasmodically on L.K.L's class has not been the only creative project on my mind this last week. I will be using the pages I create - or at least some of the techniques - in my fabric-and-paper garden journal (see post of 21st November for my initial notes on that topic). Then I have another winter creation on the go which will involve muslin and patchwork, lace and stitched artificial flowers.

sprays of artificial flowers and leaves, ready to be plucked apart and applied to paper or fabric pages - most are obtained from up-market garden centres, but the most beautiful for creative purposes come from my dear friend, Kristin Steiner, from South Carolina, USA

I revel in my growing collection of these sprays; they brighten a dark space in the work room and yet are there awaiting the plucking of a leaf or flower, which is either attached to a page with a central brad, or free-machine stitched into place for a flattened effect.

this 'sea-foam' flower is soft and velvety; a complete composite flower head was given me by Kristi when she came to stay earlier this summer after teaching at the brilliant Oxford Summer School, to which she is returning in 2010

This particular project will also include poems that have been writing themselves all week. I print them as a kind of transfer onto fine muslin or cotton lawn; they will be superimposed on the patchwork lacy page together with wintery photos that I have been sourcing from various files on my computer in spare moments during the week. So I have much to busy myself with in the Christmas break, apart from catching up with other people's art-making blogs that I have missed since the hospital debacle.

I will close tonight, in this week that will end with Christmas Day, with one of the poems that landed on the page for my 'Winter Observed' keepsake:

I have no idea why these words should have sprung into my mind and onto the page as I planned the keepsake. They just happened; and now I have to take a suitable winter woodland photo in pine woods - and the temperature the last two days has been -9C (15.8F); too cold to hold the camera let alone find a suitable ride of firs. Maybe a Photoshop experiment with a photo from the last icy winter ?

Artspace & Treats

2009-12-05T00:20:00.001-08:00

part of the working area in our roof-top attic

I spent most of last weekend clearing some workspace in the attic-roof – or roof-attic, depending on which way you look at it – so that I had somewhere into which to retreat to create. My working area moves around this old house, according to season and whatever else I am doing. I share the roof with our stored past: we’ve lived here for 40 years and much of what is up there, up the narrow ladder-like stairs and under the sloping roof, has been pushed out of sight from our previous home, and stuff we could not bear to part with from our pre-retirement publishing/printing works. Plus of course my ever-increasing stashes of fabric and yarn. I’m both a yarnaholic and a fabricholic! The workspace is quite large but inaccessible to the rest of the family for they are too tall and hit their head on the beams and trusses. I can creep around underneath!

For the last three years, my workspace has been a tiny table in the laundry room (which fills with smoke and sometimes ash when the wood-burner next door in the boiler-room is being refuelled); or I use the dining room table. But I was becoming increasingly irritated at continually having to tidy everything away whenever we had a meal, and worried that I would drop paint or glue onto our oriental carpets. Up here, under the eaves, it may lack daylight (only one tiny attic window) and be freezing in winter (though I’ve just sneaked in a heater!), and overly hot in summer, but at least I can slide away and be my own person.

The artspace is calling: I had determined to work on more fabric keepsakes and the commissioned garden journal about which I recently posted, and was completely ready for the beginning of this last week, when WHAM … read about what happened at 7.30am on Monday 30th November in my other blog (‘Wild Somerset Child’), if you haven’t already done so. (Thankyou to all those who have left me such kind comments.) All has now returned to normal and my artspace is ready. And so am I.

After ‘the scare’, I returned home to some mailbox treats. One of the things I so love about the blog world is discovering the work of other artists. I am gradually, whenever I can afford to, surrounding myself with little works of art made by other bloggers. Look what I have just added to my collection, which was awaiting my homecoming on Wednesday:

These lovely tags came for the Etsy Store of Tracie Lyn Huskamp. I fell in love with her book ‘Nature Inspired’ this last Autumn, and wanted to learn her technique of painting natural history themes on muslin; her book lies open on the fireside table in the living room. The thought of holding a piece of her work in my hands was uppermost in my mind when she posted about her online store. They are here now; so beautiful, such an inspiration; even more so because she addressed the envelope to "the beautiful Ann Somerset Miles". Little does she know!

And then I became intrigued by the blog of Seth Apter and his book ‘The Pulse’ (a zine I think you call it) and ordered a copy. That too was in the mailbox. What a labour of love, what a wealth of information. Described by Seth as 'an artist survey', in which 94 artists were given seven art-related questions to answer, this is a book to be read in conjunction with Seth's blog (The Altered Page) and the blogs or websites of the participating artists. I will be dipping into it for weeks, searching out the online links, assimilating, and learning.

a parcel of much-needed cheesecloth

Packages are still arriving! In the mail this very morning came the cheesecloth I had asked my dear friend and kindred spirit, Kristin Steiner from South Carolina, to source for me. It is coarser than the muslin I habitually use and seems to be unobtainable over here, other than in 50-metre rolls from the theatrical suppliers I have been buying from for years. Kristi came to my rescue, and as ever with her packages, she attached one of her sweet personal message tags (I save them all), and fabric-ribbon that will instantly find its way into one of my own creations.

Finally, as a treat to myself, I have booked an online six-week course (Dec 14th to January 31st) with L.K.Ludwig, whose work I have also long-admired. I drool over her book ‘Mixed Media Nature Journals’ which had me rushing to incorporate metal mesh and other materials into my own work. I can’t wait to start her online ‘Printed Patterned Painted Journal Making Class’ and feel truly fortunate to be able to learn from someone so gifted, but so far away that I could never attend real-time workshops; (and the cost is amazingly reasonable). I guess I will be posting the results of my endeavours 'ere long. This morning I was emailed my password and downloaded the supplies list. Oh the wonders of modern technology.

And now to climb back up those stairs into my artspace and my own mixed-media creations.

using the insulation in the sloping roof as a bulletin board

I am so excited ...

2009-11-21T00:21:00.000-08:00

first notebook page detailing my new commission - double-click on each pic throughout this posting to see it at larger size.

Hot on the heels of my euphoria at actually completing a project (the little fabric keepsake for one of my grand daughter), my 2010 commissions arrived for a magazine for which I write every month. I am thrilled to bits about one of the topics, for you would not expect what will be essentially a craft article to appear in a gardening magazine. Though when I come to think about it, I have had other 'craft' articles published in other gardening magazines. However, this one is different and stemmed from a suggestion I put to 'Grow it!' magazine some months back:

This is the idea I put forward: 'Garden Journals: more than a useful record, a visual delight to remember the gardening year. Starting from scratch – a bought or handmade book – and suggestions (with techniques) as to how to fill the pages.'

And this is what the editor asked for when he commissioned the article: "If we could cover this as a one-off piece, perhaps with a step-by-step somewhere within this, and plenty of pics showing relevant examples and the journey of recording the information to presenting it beautifully."

"Presenting it beautifully": with these words running through my head, I knew I must start now, even though the copy deadline is not until the end of September 2010; not just the words but the actual 'Garden Journal'. A month at a time. This is such an opportunity, to be able to combine the two things I love - journaling AND making an artifact that I hope will give pleasure to readers. I am so excited.

working thoughts are coming together on the page

Ideas were instantly flooding my mind; jottings on numerous pieces of paper all around the house, in pockets and diary and my various journals in whichever room I happened to be. And so I decided to catalogue the journey and make a notebook to keep all my ideas together. The first pages are a mish-mash as I jigsawed together the scraps of scribbles, and then tried to combine them into semi-decorative pages to which I will refer as I make the actual garden scrapbook/journal.

I am ready to begin

And herein lies a dilemma, for I want to make fabric pages as well as paper-based ones and I cannot yet decide how the two will marry. Then I also want to add some of my paper 'pocket-pages' as 'seed-keepers' - places to stash seed packets or notes as the months progress. I want readers to feel they are creating something they can use in their own garden, a record and a worthwhile reference to their personal gardening year.

Then came a feeling of pure terror, for as I pulled out some of my samples prepared for other projects using techniques I want to suggest, I could not in many instances remember the sequence of how I made them! So as I work through experiments and the actual making of this new fabric/paper journal, I decided only this morning that I must record instructions for every single technique I use. I only have 2,000 words for the article itself when I come to write it, but at least all my notes of the making will be there to guide me, and to be able to respond to anyone who asks for further instructions.

next stage is to prepare the base pages - both fabric and paper and start to assemble the materials I will use. Everything must be documented in photographs to visually record my progress.

I hope you will follow and share my journey. I will post my notebook pages and little experimental pieces from time to time, though not the actual 'Glory of the Garden' journal, for that should wait until the article is published in a year's time. Please join me on my journey, and feel free to comment; I welcome input from my dear online readers - your thoughts, constructive or critical, will encourage and sustain me in the long months ahead.

Fabric Keepsake Finished

2009-11-08T00:53:00.001-08:00

At last the fabric keepsake I was making for the birthday of one of our grand-daughters is finished. I was fortunate to be able to spend a whole week on its construction. It didn't turn out as expected, for I decided to adapt what I had started making after K. said she would like something connected with swimming for her birthday. So the lacy little book I was making shifted into something quite different - a loose-leaf book with spaces to add details of the races she wins and medals she is awarded, with the story of why she learned to swim included.

The various pages and pockets are show below, and because I like to know how the artefacts I look at on other people's blogs have been constructed, I have added a few notes on materials and construction. Click on any of the photos if you want to see any page at larger size.

Textile pages were made from some fabric I bought at least 30 years ago, using the reverse side which had almost a watery feel to it. I also scanned a dictionary definition of the word 'swim', and tiled them on the computer to give a sheet of text. This was printed on 'Cool Peel' transfer paper, ironed onto muslin and backed with bondaweb (wunder-under). Whenever I wanted to use some text, I cut out a portion, ironed it in place on the page, stamped letters where needed, and stitched around the shape.

The right hand page is one of my hand-made paper-bag pocket pages, with little hand-made journal inserted into which K. can record her races.

Definition of swim on left hand page, printed on 'Cool Peel', mounted on muslin and then stitched to the paper page. Right hand page featured in my lastpost - the hand-stitched page with bead embellishment (before I realised I could no longer manage to hold a needle easily to hand-stitch). At that point, my machine took over.

More part hand stitching (the hearts are cut from the text panel sheet I prepared); the flowers are taken from a spray of artificial flowers obtained from the garden centre, with beads sewn into the flower centres. The right hand page tells the story of why K. learned to swim - typed on computer, printed on cool-peel, ironed onto muslin and stitched onto the fabric page; click on the photo to read what happened.

Adapting one of the original panels - the keepsake was to have been a collection of verse specially written for K. with embellishments. This is again associated with swimming. The little fish 'racing' on the right were purchased in a craft shop whilst we were on holiday in Wales.

I discovered how to lay words over a text scan using Photoshop, and then printed it onto Cool Peel - more ironing onto muslin and then stitching onto the background of dyed muslin which had a lovely sea colour. Right hand pocket-page holds a collection of tags for K's swimming notes.

The right hand page - and the left that follows, were one of the original hand-stitched pages - if I'd continued hand-stitching I would never have finished.

Right hand page is furnishing fabric overlaid with an angel cut from printed net curtain, attached using bondaweb.

Left hand page incorporates some gorgeous velvety flowers that came from my friend, Kristin Steiner (South Carolina), as does the little cream flower; all stitched on with buttons and beads. Right hand page shows K. racing.

Finally, my last poem written for this sweet child, kingfisher blue ribbon (also from Kristin), a silk flower from the garden centre fixed to the page with a large blue brad. K. right is truly a bronze, silver and gold girl.

And here she is on her eleventh birthday looking at the little book which I hope will remind her of her swimming journey to date. Maybe I now need to think of a football keepsake for her brother's birthday next Spring.

Progress - of a sort

2009-10-12T08:11:00.000-07:00

Nothing seems to be going right today; one thing after another, when I had hoped to spend the whole time stitching my grand-daughter's fabric keepsake. Since I first mentioned this (in my post of 24th September 'Experimental Mode'), I have hand-stitched four pages - two 'spreads', but found it so tough; I could hardly hold a needle for the nobbly and painful arthritis affecting my hands; I can't believe it is almost ten years since I did much hand-work, when it was easy to work with needle and thread. The pics shown above and below are poor but show stages two and three: hand-stitching around the patchwork pieces, with corner beads attached at the corners of each, and then the super-imposition of the first embellishments. Click on either pic to enlarge it, and then click your back button to return to my blog and the rest of the post.

More stitching is now needed, but I will have to resort to free machine embroidery for all the other pages. There are to be ten five double-sided spreads, so twenty 6in x 6in (15cm x 15cm) in all, and all have to be edged as well. Most now at least laid out; but the week ahead is more than usually hectic and I have so few days left. Panic - well, I always do, but at least this is one project that will NOT be stuffed into a project bag!

To the Hills! (Malvern-2)

2009-10-01T00:24:00.001-07:00

Landscapes never fail to captivate me, yet all I can do is try to capture them in words; the wrong side of the brain is dominant. But I always feel this incredible sense of wonder and anticipation whenever we leave for Malvern (not so much the town but the Showground of the 'Three Counties Agricultural Society', and the various events we attend in connection with magazine commissions).

I look to catch the first glimpse of the far hills as we descend Broadway Hill - sometimes you cannot see them at all in the murk or mist, at other times you can see beyond them, into Wales. A long line; such distinct shapes, with all the colours merged into one; they disappear from view for a while, and then re-appear ever closer, as if painted in oils. Close up - almost there as we run along below their magnificent upstanding - every shade and nuance becomes clear. Photographs do not do them justice; the light is forever changing, within the day and throughout the seasons.

click on the text box above if the print is too small to read easily

More to add to the pocket pages, words and images, and much else, about which I will post on my other blog in due course.

Journaling a Wild Harvest (Malvern-1)

2009-09-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

cotoneaster berries

Now home from the RHS Malvern Autumn Show and its celebration of food, plants, harvest and 'the good life', my pocket page colours (shown in my last journaling post) are perfect for recording all that we saw and did - over one hundred photos to analyse, from factual to pure whimsy, and words running into thousands. Our visit started as all do with 'the journey'. I like to capture the anticipitation as we leave home, and the feeling of impending excitement as we near the showground. Whilst I manipulate words and juggle images for magazine features and my other blog, which will take me the rest of the working week, here are my first notes scribbled into my travel notebook. The photos were all taken at the show, in the harvest pavilion.

crab apples

rowan (mountain ash)

All this, and more, will be added to the pocket-page journal. There just isn't time whilst we are away to play 'on the spot'; but come the late autumn, sitting by the fire will be time enough.

Experimental mode

2009-09-24T10:12:00.000-07:00

paper bags painted in 'Autumn' colours

waiting to be folded and stitched into 'pocket pages'

I am in a whirl; it's Malvern weekend again (food and flowers and edible gardens; a veritable 'celebration of nature's harvest' that must be captured one way and another, apart from in words for two commissioned features. For personal 'art from the heart' enjoyment, I will be taking photos - up a ladder this time, and making notes and sketches, for I do not have my pocket pages ready. Painted, yes, but folded and stitched, not yet. But while the farmhouse fruitcake is baking to take with us in the motorhome, I determine that photos at least can be taken. The sun streams through the window, making lighting difficult as I lay out pages to photograph, and then I can't find my camera. Panic as usual!

Colours are those that to me convey flaming Autumn (Fall) though we rarely experience a real blaze of colour. So I think dahlias and ripe plums dripping from the tree, Gascoigne Scarlet apples in the orchard and all shades of red and orange.

'Pocket Pages' have in fact almost done their turn - they were my chosen experimental project for this year's travel journals, ranging from verdant spring green, through summer gold to these reds and vermillions of autumn; the soft blue-greens for the Shropshire Hills (which we never did capture for it rained most of the time), right through to slate blue - payne's grey- veins of stone and mountain colours for my Welsh pages. See previous posts for ongoing pics and explanations. When all are complete, they will form 'my year of travel': always working you understand, but these are my personal memories and thoughts.

I turn to my beloved fabric once more - a lifetime of it, combining it with paper and paint and whatever takes my fancy. I am again in experimental mode (having said only recently that my brain was numb, it has come alive again). So I am working upon little hand-stitched patchwork pages for a grand-daughter's birthday keepsake, combined with a couple of turquoise/indigo paper pockets to hold tiny secret notebooks; and then out with the muslin, gesso, inks, neocolor and gel medium. Her book will be a collection of my experimental samples, themed in shades of blue, with linen coloured backgrounds for the poem inserts I have written her, pearlescent buttons and tiny jet-blue beads with stamped or embroidered fish. Lace? I can't decide; somehow it does not fit the watery swimming theme, though it would make superb surf.

watery blue fabric with patchwork snippets attached,

awaiting hand-stitched embellishments

(the fabric will be folded to make a double-sided page

measuring approx 6ins square)

I made my first usual exploratory notes last week - but for once I have progressed beyond the notebook stage and have started stitching. I have five weeks to complete this. And now the cake is ready, my 'technicals' for tomorrow must be prepared - laptop, camera, tripod, notebooks, etc, and a little light reading for evening on progressing my website - I hope to create an online journal page on the Malvern Show, but need to learn how to do so first!

my notes of last week: click on the pic to enlarge it and read

from top left, top right then bottom left and bottom right.

(Then click on the back-button to return to the blog post)

Cataloguing

2009-09-16T12:32:00.000-07:00

click on this photo if you want to view it at an enlarged size

Despite a hectic work schedule, an article that 'wouldn't come right' (though it has now) and working on my revamped website, I pulled out one of my project bags last night, determined to add just one element to one of the pocket-page journals. A napkin-tissue motif perhaps? But before positioning the bright white daisy, I had to decide what words would also appear on the page. I dove into the bag looking for the words that I knew I had written at the time I planned the journal content.

Oops! When allocating materials to the project bags about which I blogged last post, I quite forgot about the words which MAY be on snippets of paper but more usually in one of my black, leather-covered notebooks. I had also forgotten that these notebooks also contained many ideas and a record of experiments with paper, fabric and paint, as do my working experimental art-books. So now I have to catalogue all my notebook entries, and allocate copies of them to the relevant project bag, with a second copy filed in an overall 'master catalogue'.

An odd way of working, but I can only equate it to the method I used for years when producing layouts for the magazines I edited. You needed to assess the whole picture and know what was to fall where and on which pages. Working page by page without all the relevant elements (text, photos, advertisements and infill material) always resulted in an un-cordinated jumble, a magazine lacking any thread of story or continuity; no storyline. A habit of a lifetime is hard to break, hence all this preparation: project bags and catalogued notes.

Earlier posts will demonstrate that at times I do actually manage to complete a 'piece of art'. But for the moment I am stuck in a rut and the creative spirit has deserted me, though cataloguing hasn't.** As to the bright pink notebook (called 'blossom'), that catalogues ongoing work and ideas for my revamped website, about which I wrote last week in my 'wild somerset child' blog. I don't know quite what I have taken upon myself, but it keeps me out of mischief!

** Oh bliss - it hasn't! This is an update: three hours after posting the above, I have a flash of inspiration for a paper/fabric book that has been at the back of my mind for a while now. And then, after reading a couple of posts from fellow bloggers (Jude of 'Spirit Cloth' and Lynne Hoppe), everything begins to fall into place. Their blogs have sparked ideas; not copying, but leaping off at a tangent. (I know I should put links to these two gifted artists/bloggers and I will, but I have sneaked up to my office and the supper is burning !!)

Projects on hold

2009-07-22T19:05:00.000-07:00

three of my project bags

I cannot believe that it is all but two months since I wrote a journaling post; but after the trauma of the last eight weeks, I am not surprised that my creative spirit has suffered and my mind has been on other things (explained in my Wild Somerset Child blog).

I have hardly been online for pleasure, let alone painted or stitched; no collage, no napkin motif snipping, no painting or stitching and barely any personal writing. I have missed my blogging friends and acquaintances - but most of all the inspirational art I find in other people's blogs that adds such joy to a hectic day.

It is curious how worry can so stem the creative flow, but that is how it has been. I felt I was through the worst when I crept up to the roof space over this last weekend and 'organised' my projects, all of which can be classified as 'in progress' and in need of action and some loving attention. There are so many of them ... waiting. I have a strange filing system, the same for both creative work and my professional articles: I use canvas/jute shopping bags to hold supplies and research books and materials. They are easy to carry around if needed from roof-top workroom to office to basement art table. It's easy to list the contents on a luggage label and much easier to carry them down the steep, narrow loft stairs.

So each bag holds all I need (well almost) and to save duplication of adhesives or pens, threads or paints, I make a note of anything I remove so that when I return to a project, maybe a year later (!!!), I will know exactly what I was using at the time I stopped work.

Right now, I am finding it doubly hard to pick up the threads again, but will go crazy if I don't attempt something creative, even if it is only tearing up fabric or painting more paper bags for additional pocket-page journals.

Pocket Pages and Napkins

2009-05-25T13:08:00.000-07:00

Kristin's blank pocket page journal, as mailed to her in Italy

Slathering paint and stitching is as therapeutic for me as gardening (about which I wrote in my other blog this last weekend); and I could do with a little gentle therapy just now - it's a long story which will reveal itself as the days pass, in other posts. My painted paperbag journal is at standstill for the moment, but when I made the delicious spring-green pages for my own project, I made two others for dear friends, in colours to suit their journeyings.

The first was mailed to Italy, where my South Carolina guiding spirit, Kristin Steiner, was busily engaged on the 'Adventures in Italy' creative enterprise she runs twice a year with her husband, Bill. More about that to come, but Kristi's pocket-page paperbag journal was actually a crib of a design she sent me last year, though I adapted it until it was quite different to the original. I chose Orvieto colours, as I supposed them to be, and napkins for her to decorate her pages, for I know she journals every day.

the cover of Kristin's pocket page journal, all ready for her to personalise

The second pocket page booklet was sent to Helen (Cocoa and Blankets) in what I thought would be Venetian colours, because I had read her post about her visit to Venice. Helen's pockets also held napkins to do with as she wished (taking tea or to decorate her pages). Imagine how thrilled I was yesterday morning to read her post and see how she had used them. Her pages looked gorgeous - do take a look at her Sunday post (24th May: scroll down past her other beautiful creations until you reach the pages). She is way ahead of me for none of my napkins have yet been pasted onto my own pages.

Helen's blank pocket page journal, as mailed; she has now customised every page with motifs from the napkins I included for her

I had better hurry with entries in mine, before I lose all my journaling notes and colour-memories; for spring sap-green will soon give way to summer gold and I will need to make more pages to accompany me on my next visit to Malvern, to the 'Three Counties Show': farming and the countryside, and back to the hills.

Journaling Projects update

2009-05-13T06:50:00.001-07:00

My two special journaling projects for this year - the fabric 'farmhouse memory album' and my paper 'travel journals' have been on hold for a week whilst we have been away working at the 'Malvern Spring Flower Show' (about which I will talk on my 'wild somerset child' blog in due course. I took my art journaling bag and a small box of supplies away with me and had pre-prepared pages upon which to paint and journal: nine (or was it twelve?) painted paper bags folded and stitched so each page was just under 6" square - approx 15cm. My csan above does not do justice to the rich spring colour - sap green basically with cream and yellow, exactly as our Cotswold hedgerows are right now. I had rushed to get the pages finished before leaving - the threads needed tying off, but I intended to spend time each evening working on and in them, filling the pages and pockets with photos and notes, and the occasional sketch. Some hope! We were exhausted by the end of each 12-hour day, and on the second evening the motorhome 12volt electrics failed totally.

I did manage one small sketch (see above, on vellum, to be cut out and mounted on the page); it shows part of the view I could see from the kitchen area of the m'home - the beautiful Malvern Hills. But although that was the only sketch I made, I took over a hundred photos, and scribbled/typed a written journal each night to be mounted on muslin-faced cards and tagged together as a written and illustrated record of our time away. But that was as far as I got. I also mislaid my mobile phone just before leaving home last Wednesday and in turning the house over to try to find it this morning, came across the journaling prompt I sent to one of our grandchildren last summer.

Lucy (then 10) was due to sit the entrance exam into her senior school and was worried about her English. As I used to teach this age-group, and specialised in trying to solve a child's learning problems on a one-to-one basis, she asked if I could help. She came to stay for a week and she worked so hard that one day we turned the motorhome into a mobile classroom and took her out for a picnic lunch and a walk in the hills, followed by more writing work. She thought this was great fun. Here are Lucy and Grandpa eating lunch ...

... and here she is thinking about what she will write about her day out:

She sent us such a lovely card after her return home to her parents and brother and sister and my reply turned into more lesson prompts; I had arranged to continue to help her, long-distance, with her 'composition' - journaling in fact. One of her exercises each day was to pick a postcard at random from my 'art collection' and describe it, or turn it into a story, or try to recreate the colours with paint; in short to encourage her to really look at something, sufficiently closely that she could write freely and without pause. The advice I gave her may be useful to others - just click on the image and it should enlarge to full page size; you will see a little of what I suggested.

And here is an image of the card she sent us, to which I refer at the start of my letter to her.

(postcard from a painting by UK (Suffolk) artist, Clare Curtis)

Journaling can take so many forms and follow so many threads and paths. Right now I have all my notes and images to sort and incorporate into my little paper-book; and a magazine article to write by the weekend on our time at the Spring Flower Show, which was brilliant. And then I move back to 'farmhouse memories' and the page-blanks I am creating for that.

Meanwhile, 'hello' again to all journalers; it's lovely to be back and I will catch up as soon as I can with all the blog posts I have missed (hello, too to Pascale - good to make your acquaintance.)

Deadlines approach ..... !

2009-04-23T00:28:00.000-07:00

page three from my farmhouse project notebook

Although I am creating my fabric 'Farmhouse Memory' album in celebration of our 40 years here in this beautiful part of England, and of the work we have done on the house and garden, and our family life together over the years, it does have another purpose. I want to offer pages from it as illustrations to a commissioned magazine series upon which I shortly start work. The series is entitled - or will be - 'Recipes from a Farmhouse Kitchen' but is to be more than a cookbook.

I suddenly realised that I have not yet started on any actual fabric pages and my first copy date is 1st June! They will add an extra dimension to the articles. I am almost ready to begin, but find with all my projects that I have first to go through a notebook period when I brainstorm my ideas, and then sampling time when I experiment with various bits and pieces integral to the project. Some people laugh at this stage in my creating but it is so necessary to the way I work, and certainly serves its purpose in these days when I cannot remember most things from one day to the next. However hard I try to just create, I always come back to planning, even when I start spontaneously with just the germ of an idea. (I could no more write an article or lay out pages in a magazine without some structure and planning - it would be like throwing words or images into the air and publishing them exactly where they fall.) My method works for me even though it is slow and sometimes tedious. And so the project notebook builds and the samples accumulate n my workbench.

page four from my farmhouse project notebook

My initial brainstorming is now complete and I have moved on to the sampling stage: preparing page backgrounds (using Angie Hughes' method which she describes in her book 'Stitch Cloth Paper and Paint'. Basically, you use curtain interlining soaked in a solution of pva glue and water. When dry, you iron it and collage onto it bits of tissue paper and scrim (open-weave muslin) using very diluted pva. I have made this before (I call it faux-suede, because it really does feel like that before you add the collage bits) but this time I decided to try other collage materials - lace curtaining and open-weave jute etc. The pages when finished need to have just the right 'feel'; sufficiently stiff that they are not too floppy yet pliable enough that I can hand-stitch into them where needed.

four 'faux-suede' samples awaiting next stage

The next step is to iron the pages and then stitch at random to anchor all the pieces, and then you cover them all with gesso which results in a lovely texture.

one of the page samples before adding gesso

The gesso stage (not shown) adds a pliability to the surface and seals it ready to take a wash of acrylic paint to add colour. I hope to do this today and then decide which sample to use. Meanwhile my notes are up-to-date - it is frightening to look at samples a week after making them and not be able to remember how I made them.

page five from my farmhouse project notebook

Reclaiming our house and garden over the years has been a labour of love, as will be this fabric celebration of it. I do a little each day (in spare moments), but deadlines always spur me on and so out with the paints today, in between digging out nettles in the garden and transplanting seedlings in the greenhouse, and then a decision on which of the samples will be 'manufactured' into some starter pages.

Please click on any of the images to view them at a larger size.

Cotswold Farmhouse Memories

2009-04-13T23:58:00.000-07:00

(our 'new' house, forty years ago)

In my other blog (Wild Somerset Child), I referred to our 16th century farmhouse and the fact that this year we celebrate 40 years of reclaiming the house and garden, which has been a joint labour of love, and is still ongoing. To celebrate these years since our purchase in 1969, I am creating a fabric book of words, photos, poems, papers, memories and bits and pieces of this old place, plus a little of its history. This blog will record how the idea came to me; in future postings I will detail its making, bit by bit. As always with my art projects, I am keeping a journal of sketches and notes on my thought processes, and the techniques I use.

Serendipity occurrence: Do you ever feel that, out of the blue, you take a great creative leap forward? Something out of the commonplace occurs; you are no longer a stranger to yourself, with projects and techniques seething in your mind, half-fulfilled. Such a moment of serendipity occurred to me a couple of weeks ago; I was not seeking inspiration, but suddenly it presented itself to me.

Metaphoric journey: It was as if I had been trying for the last four years to cross a broad, fast-flowing river, on giant stepping stones. At times I have fallen in, been wedged between dry vantage points, just keeping my head above water. Sometimes jumping to the next stone, more often gingerly easing myself forward from one to the next. The magazine ‘Cloth Paper Scissors’ has been part catalyst – I have bought it from issue one, and since then have been searching for my own voice. So much (materials and ideas) was new to me; I had so much to learn of the mixed-media world.

The river in full spate

Slippery rocks to catch the unwary

Giant stepping stones (a leap into the unknown)

and a bridge to take one over the water, to new adventures

Eureka! And then quite by chance, I reached the other side; climbed a high hill, saw a way forward.

There at last !! - and end of metaphor

(These pics are to me symbolic of my journey; they were taken last summer in the upper Dart valley and on part of Dartmoor, whilst we were working on a magazine article that has

just appeared in the current issue of 'Practical Caravan' magazine.)

My creative treasures glow all around me - though I must admit that some are still half-finished, stuffed into jute bags and innumerable boxes. Suddenly I realise that all I have been practising and assimilating can be brought together in a vision that came to me as I tidied my work-room and re-organised my ‘stuff’ after the booklet project (please see last two postings).

I now know where I am going …. the path lies ahead, and it’s all connected to this house, this garden, our beloved home – the springboard to my creativity. I have a visual story to tell and began that very afternoon, two weeks ago; and it felt so good.

The back of our house and barn as bought, in 1969.

Part of the reclaimed garden (my potager) in 1991/92

(It's now on its third reincarnation)

Other projects will of course insert themselves but this celebration will bring together so many aspects of our life together. I will continue to tackle new techniques, but will also include sewing skills and other things I learned so many years ago. So to a certain extent this 'fabric memory book' will be a child's primer, an embroiderer's sampler. I am trying to do a little bit each day so that I continually move forward - and will report my progress by-and-by.

Here are the first notes I made in my layout notebook - click on them to see them full size. They may not make much sense initially as I was thinking on the page, jotting down my thoughts, holding an early brainstorming session with myself.

I am taking it gently, but do so hope you will enjoy following my journey - and I truly welcome all comments, thoughts and advice; positive or negative.

Little Journals - other techniques

2009-04-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

The little booklets I wrote about yesterday have more to them than patterned scrapbook papers. I incorporated some of my favourite techniques though still sufficiently simple that anyone could attempt them. First, I took heavy watercolour paper and large brown paper bags (which I buy in bulk from our local business supply store). I use acrylic paint to colour these - a few swirls of three colours usually. I spread these at random over the paper, as thinly as possible, scraping with a credit card. Sometimes I squeeze out too much paint and then I blot two papers together, and continue scraping on both. It is easy to create 'mud' but if that happens, I put all those non-descript papers aside for a journal that demands something low-key.

I wanted to introduce the use of napkin motifs to embellish the pages, and chose a selection (to show readers something of the range available, appropriate to a gardening journal).

I explained how to apply the motifs, and showed some pages with motifs glued on (I suggested the use of diluted pva glue, as newcomers to napkin callage might find it difficult to discover a source of gel medium). The pic below shows motifs applied to scrapbook papers and to the painted (acrylic) watercolour pages.

But the ones I liked best were the painted paper bags with napkins applied; they took on an antique, wrinkled effect.

Not content with suggesting the acrylic paint colour technique and the napkin motifs, I went one stage further and explained how to create pockets into which such things as seed packets could be stored, or extra notes, plant tags etc. The method for making these pockets was adapted from one sent to me by Kristin Steiner from South Carolina, and my sketch of how to make this was illustrated in my handwritten notes posted on 9th March - just click on that image to see it at full size.

Had I been making these booklets for my own use, I would have used fabric as well as paper, and a little stitching. I compromised in these samples and added a fabric panel to my 'Vegetable Heaven' notebook - an image transfer of an artechoke printed on muslin, stitched and frayed and then bonded (with bondaweb) to the cover. This becomes almost translucent and you can actually see the cover beneath the image if you look closely. I will adapt this method (one I often use) and experiment so that the image still has an ethereal quality without the background intruding. Finally, I added suede cord to tie the pages together and a couple of engraved bone medallions. I have more books in progress (begun before the article cropped up) and want to use my painted papers throughout, with bound fabric covers and other embellishments.

I know that these little journals do not constitute 'real art', but it seemed to me to be a simple way to introduce magazine readers to the fact that they could quickly create a handmade diary in which to record their gardening activities; and move on from there.

Booklets & Journals: a sea change

2009-04-02T00:31:00.000-07:00

The booklet-journals I wrote about in my last two posts - the first over a month ago!- have gone through a sea-change since my first thoughts on why I should or would produce them. Three are finished and will appear next month in 'Organic Garden & Home'. Originally, I was asked to make some samples that might sell in a local gift shop, and that was when I started on the process of putting something together. But then a last-minute commission for an article on making a garden journal - for beginners - had me scrambling to complete the samples and write instructions.

And that is when everything changed. For as I worked towards my deadline, I realised that a) I did not particularly want to spend all my spare time making booklets en masse to sell (if they were acceptable to the gift shop), and I couldn't imagine that anyone would want to buy them anyway, and b) the things I really like making would be too complicated to explain for beginners in one short article. So I decided to adapt and complete two of the initial booklets and make a third very simple one without embellishments.

So instead of the painted pages and framed 'text' pages I had originally planned, I took sheets of scrapbooking paper/card and cut and folded those, plus plain card to interleave between the patterned sheets. I cut and folded, punched and eyeletted, and then strung the pages together with cord. This would be quick, simple and inexpensive, and easily explained.

My idea was that the patterned pages would form a background onto which journaling photos could be pasted whilst the blank card would give space for notes or journaling. With the eyeletted binding, extra pages could be easily added. In the sample I made, I added a name tag, and some horn beads to the cord binding.

I then turned back to my original idea and created the pages from painted paper bags and water-colour paper, and added paper napkin motifs for embellishment. This was step two, intended for those magazine readers who wanted to progress beyond scrapbook papers. I added stamping and embellishments to the cover of this second book, and horn beads again.

But what I really wanted to do was to incorporate pockets and transferred images, and I worked on those for the Garden Journal, and for the third booklet 'Vegetable Heaven' (see first pic, left hand photo, click on it to view it at enlarged size). I took numerous progress shots whilst I was making the booklets and also 'how-to-do-this' photos, and will outline some of these other stages in another post.

Little Journals - progress

2009-03-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

My life is one continual juggling act; a jigsaw of so many things - sometimes everything runs smoothly, oftentimes it does not. I am trying right now to organise a different structure to this blog - to see if I can post between photos which should make what I want to say easier to follow. If it works, it is thanks to two kind fellow-bloggers who have told me how to do this.

So this latest life-jigsaw did not quite slot together as I had planned: I wrote last post of the serendipity moment when it was suggested I made some sample hand-made journals. My notes showed progress as of the end of February, but I had no pics taken. If you can think back that far, you will recall I had determined the structure, and that the booklets would comprise hand-painted papers and paper-bags (using my credit-card technique with acrylic paint) plus napkin embellishments, and then I decided to add coordinating scrapbook papers. The photo above shows the papers and napkins assembled for the first booklet.

So far so good; I spent three days experimenting - and though the samples are not yet finished, I have six (each of eighteen sides, measuring 6" x 6") now ready for embellishments and covers, and am posting progress before another long gap whilst work intervenes, lest readers should think I only write about what I never finish! The above photo shows the pages for the first booklets with napkins chosen for embellishments, and a print of the cover photo and title. This booklet title is 'Vegetable Heaven'. Next I made a collage of dictionary pages, which I scanned - be warned, ensure the glue is fully dry before scanning; mine stuck to the scanner glass! - and then manipulated in Photoshop to select a small panel that will be stitched to the booklet's fabric back-cover, once I have transferred it to fabric. Why dictionary pages? Because journals are about words as much as visual images. See photo below of the little word panel which will measure 3" x 3". It will be printed on Epson Cool Peel and ironed onto lawn or muslin, as will the front-cover picture and title panels.

Each of my three intensive art-play days ended with my usual note-making - four pages are shown below, in pairs, which follow on from my last posting which showed the first pair. Without my notes I cannot remember what I planned to do. Any of the pics, or scans of my notes, can be seen in more detail by double-clicking on the image. Thankyou to Pat-aka-Posh and Sukipoet for helping me with instructions for posting words mixed with photos. I am so very grateful. You can see it worked.

I will post further progress as it transpires; I have a backlog of writing for the rest of the week, and another exhibition to attend, but at least I started this morning by painting the final inside pages for the sixth book.

Serendipity moments

2009-02-26T09:14:00.001-08:00

Time for art has been in short supply this last week, though there have been a couple of serendipity moments which I would love to share. First, at the craft exhibition last week, I made contact with a couple of magazine editors and have arranged to send photographs of some of my journals, and make up a 'sampler' showing some of the techniques I love doing. That exercised my mind for I first analysed the actual magazines and then made notes on what would best showcase my work. Interesting how the gardening magazines I write for often commission something which is loosely craft/art based but inspired by gardens. With the samples will go a little booklet of themed topics I can cover.

That interrupted the flow of ideas I was also working on to use the 'antique' wallpaper I illustrated last week, discovered in the 'wood-mountain' - see my other blog. I had just torn out some lovely magazine pages to frame one or other of the paper panels and then discovered some artificial sprays of twigs and berries in our local garden store; the pink and dusky apricot colours complemented the japanese feel of the paper. On the search for golden forsythia, I discovered some wonderful sprays in a gift shop on our nearest town. A shop I love for they sell 'Shaker' style artifacts and punched metal hearts. When I explained that I did not want the artificial forsythia to decorate artwork and the little journals I make, the young assistant suggested I brought in some samples to show the owner, as they would like to sell them!

I was flabbergasted and to cover myself (for I have no completed samples), I explained that I would make some up as I usually spent the time working on samples to write about step-by-step technique. "Don't miss this possibility," I said to myself, wondering when I would ever have time to make complete little books as samples, and if the owner likes them, to make sufficient to sell. Back home, I set about what I had sworn I would not do again - make copious notes and leave it at that. (And I still have to progress FOUR visual journaling pages that are begun but lingering.) Whatever I decide to trial has to be simple but attractive, and capable of batch construction. This was true serendipity: not something planned and nothing may come of it. Can I do this? Until I try, I will never know.

My pics above show the artificial twigs sourced from two separate venues, which I bound into a bouquet, the notes I made click on the image so you can actually read what I wrote), and a little reminder to myself from the dictionary that this moment would spur me to FINISH something. Maybe I would incorporate another of my recycling finds - again see my other blog, which also details how I purchased a tripod yesterday so I could photograph the stages in non-blur mode. I had planned an art afternoon today, but after a sleepless night (why?) and a morning when I even managed to crash my laptop email program - office machine still not fixed), I developed some sort of lurgi and succumbed to sitting by the fire lap-tapping away to record these moments. Guess I have caught something at the three over-heated exhibition halls; absolutely maddening for I have so much to do! It is certainly not the winter blues or I would have stayed in bed!

Look what I found today ...

2009-02-19T12:21:00.001-08:00

Thinking of the post in which someone said 'use a find in a visual journal or collage' - or words to that effect - look what I found today! Some vintage chinoiserie-style wallpaper in, of all places, a gigantic woodpile at a local recycling site. We were collecting firewood emanating from building spoil; old houses that were being re-furbished. Amongst the joists and beams I spotted a bit of fluttering paper, colour amongst the drab planks. The colours glowed; what a collage find I thought, as I squirreled it away into the car. (Raymond was not amused!). As I pulled at the pile, more wallpaper was revealed. It peeled away easily and then I found a whole stash. It was not nearly as old as I thought, probably from a renovation of a renovation in the 50s or 60s, pasted onto hardboard panels and not paper at all but a sort of plasticised material.

Of course! Paper could not have survived the snow and wet of the last few weeks (the spoil from this particular building renovation was not there the last time we sourced firewood, three weeks ago. I peeled it all away and tore away a loose bit on our return home, washed it (fragile as it was, it did not fall apart) and set it to dry between the folds of a bath-towel.

The colours had brightened; it was in fact a little blatant, but I loved the panels of birds and the delicate sprays of flowers. I envisaged using parts of these panels in journals and collages, but first, I must trial the washed pieces. They look almost like paper, but clearly are not. First to check adhesive that will fix them to a substrate; then subdue the somewhat plastic finish with a) gel medium and b) white napkin tissue; perhaps c) with clear gesso. What will 'take'? This will be a case of real experiment - a page at the back of my new collage book. I will post the page as soon as the experiments and 'what if?' are complete.

And then 'use the find' - do not add it to the stash of other finds whose purpose I now cannot recall. What did I save this for ??? I find this so immeasurably sad, to look again upon a 'thing' still beautiful, but the occasion has past and I cannot remember the 'what' or the 'why'.

You can read the story of the woodpile in my other blog: today's posting.

Collage Notes

2009-02-15T10:08:00.000-08:00

I was very tempted today to do more to my 'escape' collage, but decided instead to prepare my page of notes as to what I did and why with the 'experimental' page. For I knew that, with a busy week ahead' I would have forgotten my trials by the time I return to it next weekend. This took me rather longer than normal, for first I had to connect the printer and scanner to my laptop (the 'office' computer is still sulking), and then I had to install the relevant software - AND BACK EVERYTHING UP !!!

So here is my page of notes; I realise what I need to improve, and I have more trials to undertake, and then I will be back to what I originally set out to do, without even thinking of notes or experiments. I know I have learned more in working in this way, and at least I have a completed impromptu page, and the basis for another piece of work. Please click on the image to read the actual hand-written text. I wish I had left room for a proper margin, or a frame all round the page - I was concerned to be able to fit in all I wanted to record, but the finished result is not to my liking. Actually, it looks a little better when tabbed alongside the collage page; it looks more purposeful.

I've also re-posted a photo of the experimental page, shot in daylight this time. The colours are more as they should be (not with a yellow-tinge as in yesterday's post), but still the TEXTURE is not apparent; and it is texture as well as colour that I love. I also discovered that the same shot taken on two different cameras records the image with a totally different colour balance - and it isn't always the same camera that gives me the shot I want. I think that is called operator-ignorance. I must learn.

Naughty play day

2009-02-14T12:29:00.001-08:00

I should have been working, but decided to play instead. I have started reading 'Collage Journeys' by Jane Davies - essential and inspirational for anyone who has had the traumatic week I have experienced: it offers a kick-start to creativity for anyone who loves paper. I loved her introductory chapter and for once eschewed my normal procedure of experiment and note-making, which usually results in a box full of supplies, many notes, and nothing finished.

As my computer, scanner and printer were non-operational, I opened a magazine and fell in love with some snow-covered Scottish mountains (quite why in the midst of our own snow-storms ??) - and wondered how I could use them. I have worked with magazine pieces before but suddenly visualised a fractured fabric patchwork technique I had seen somewhere, and decided to rip the magazine photos and intersperse them with some of the text-stamped paperbags that is a feature of a lot of my journaling work.

I was quite pleased with the initial result, achieved without my usual notes or sketches, but I hesitated to explore the next stage without a little experimentation. I wanted to try out different effects of using two sorts of gel medium, partly to tone down the gloss of the magazine pages, plus overlaid napkin images, and stamped text on the white tissue backing from decorative napkins - this as a result of reading Sharon Tomlinson's technique in the current issue of 'Cloth Paper Scissors'.

So out came my journaling notebook; I pasted in a few pieces of torn magazine pages, and then some napkin images, and them some white napkin, using two types of gel medium , but leaving space to annotate what I had done. But the collage took over; I filled in all the spaces in various ways and added colour using Aquatone water-soluble crayons, and Neocolor - to test the different effects. I tried pasting white tissue over the glossy magazine snippets, and tried some over-stamping; then added pre-stamped text, as advised by Sharon. From this 'exercise' that became a page in its own right, I learned so much; my page is not beautiful - lots of errors in placement, and colouring, but it will serve as a 'collage sampler' and I will probably remember more than if I had made my usual tentative experiments. I will still catalogue what I did, in my notebook, because otherwise I will forget what I have done.

The first two photos show this experimental page: 1. just a few paste-downs with space to make notes; 2. the finished collage-that-took-over 'experimental' page - the photographic quality is awful as the light had gone and my scanner is not working; so the colours are quite wrong, all yellow and faded - I am ashamed to be posting them and will take another pic on the morning, in daylight; but I think maybe just a little bit of the exciting texture comes through; and I know where I need to make further trials, before going back to my original idea. Please click on any of the images to view then at a larger size.

As to my original idea - a double-page spread in an artist's watercolour book ( I keep a supply of these handy for when the creative muse strikes): the second two pics show the basic pages, which I will now be able to embellish using the experience gained from the 'experimental' page. The pages will be framed with paper strips over-stamped with script - I painted the paper bags this afternoon with acrylics using my credit-card glaze technique (I will post this method when I have something to photograph). Then I will add the words and some other embellishments, but keep it simple. It will be called 'ESCAPE' - which is just what I felt I needed this week, with the technological trauma I have experienced. Please don't laugh at my poor attempts, and even poorer photography - I console myself with the fact it is not about achievement but having fun; and mental therapy.

Final 'starting young' story pages

2009-02-08T10:34:00.000-08:00

I didn't think this through! For this posting to make sense, you will need to read the two other posts from today - there are three in all. Begin with the post headed 'Starting Young'.

And here are the final pages from the little gift our nine-year old grand-daughter made for us last year, to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. The final (photo) is of Kate, enjoying a piece of flapjack, in the room that was 'created' especially for the Golden Wedding celebrations. That in itself was a labour of love on the part of our daughter and son-on-law, for the house was a partly-built shell, transformed for one night only into a magical venue for a family gathering.

I do hope you have enjoyed Kate's story as much as we did; all entirely her own work, from concept to completion.

More 'starting young' story pages

2009-02-08T10:10:00.000-08:00

Here are the next set of pages from nine-year old Kate's handmade story book gift. I do hope you enjoy them.

Starting young

2009-02-08T09:53:00.000-08:00

In my other blog I said I wanted to share our special day (8th Feb, our wedding anniversary). I also said I would like to share the very special visual storybook one of our grand-daughters wrote and made for us a year ago, to celebrate our Golden Wedding. I thought journalers might like to share the pages: Kate, then aged just nine, devised the story and wrote it, and drew all the miniature illustrations, then bound all the pages into a handmade cover. I asked her how she planned it all, and she showed me the storyboard she had created, just the same way as many professionals work. I also discovered that there is to be a sequel to this little book. The pages measure approx 5" x 5", the text is written in pencil and the drawings use coloured pencils. (I am afraid my scans do not do justice to the delicacy of the work, but double-clicking on any illustration will enlarge the image.)

There are more pages, but my blog will not allow me to upload more than five pics at a time, so I will post the others in another blog in a few minutes, so you can read the whole story. It os really sweet.