Finally after a long hiatus from drawing, made two ink drawings on my handmade paper, and posted them to #drawingaugust on Twitter. But they're here, too.
One is on iris/abaca paper, and I was happy with the texture for drawing on, nice and close, and hospitable. These are the yellow flowers on the deck which come back year after year, forget what they are, it's been so long since I planted them.
The other is some of the succulents in the strawberry pot on the deck, and the paper is yellow onion paper, which actually makes red paper, and which I leatherized.
This is probably a word invented by my papermaking teacher, Joan Needham, a fabulous paper artist and sculptor, also a teacher whose lessons stay with you. You leatherize by painting a solid coat of white glue on the paper and letting it dry. It then becomes slightly shiny, and tough, looks exactly like leather. I'm thinking, since this succeeded nicely with this piece, of using it as artist book covers for future uses. And I have some other thoughts about it. I think you could make a nice wallet or phone case with it.
Meanwhile, after torrential rain yesterday, I see the honesty seeds I put in a while back, have started to germinate, yay.
The seedpods are those lovely silvery ones, which I can use decoratively or in my future papermaking adventures. But first, purple flowers. There's nothing like growing your own art materials.
About germination, the three tiny succulents in the house are now clearly visible if you stoop down and squint. A friend stopped in the other day, did this, since she also loves propagating plants, and after studying them a bit, said, well, it doesn't take much to amuse you!
Last little drawing, pilot pen on mulberry paper, of sage in late summer. Last entry for #drawingaugust this year.
This drawing will join its friends in an artist's book, which I plan to work on today.
There are very few pleasures greater than peacefully drawing out of doors in good weather, and the Twitter event, #drawingaugust, is an added attraction. Most recently I just sat and drew what happened to be there, no need to spend energy deciding, just whatever's there is a good subject.
This was a pot of what I think may be wildflowers, never planted them, anyway, which suddenly put in an appearance, maybe a holdover from early planting of wildflower mats last year.
The drawing is about four or five inches on a side, mulberry paper, fine tip Pilot pen. A while back I was in another art activity with an online group, Everyday Matters, and at the end of about a month, I bound the month's output into an artist's book, with a selfie on the back cover, ink and wash, and an ink drawing on the front cover, of my hand. The book was called The Artist's Hand.
I'm thinking of a similar destination for this month's drawings, unless they end up as small gifts, which could also happen.
I'm teaching a drawing workshop on this kind of subject to the local Herb Society of America chapter, in September, and want to interest them, once they get the hang of drawing their herbs, to consider a naturalist journal or something of that nature, if they don't already do that. They are probably beginners at drawing, so it's mainly about the experience of learning your subject by observation as much as about producing an accurate image.
Speaking of wildflowers, those wild possibly phlox that I pictured a while back, whose seeds I planned to gather (they are from last year's seeds) well, the seeds may not be available.
I notice that wild birds are noshing happily on them, and I figure this is great food for birds, better than commercial seed, probably, so okay, what's a few seeds between friends. The hummer has now become a regular visitor, not for seeds, but for the neighboring lantana, and has even taken to perching in my cherry tree and nibbling on something there. I've seen her feeding in the evergreen tree, too, no idea what's good in there. Birds are great companions in the outdoor studio, as good as cats indoors.
But back to other artforms, aside from drawing, I have several tshirts, old, and I'm so tired of their solid colors. So I bleached a couple recently, and here's another. I just painted diagonal stripes in bleach on the shirt, without protecting the inside, so the bleach penetrated the back, too, and the design appeared there. Then rinsed to stop the bleach action, and dried and here's the shirt. I like to cut off the hems of shirts I've dyed, and let them roll up a bit.
I really like the irregular way this came out, like an OKeefe sort of sky with varying clouds. Wearing it even as I type, in fact. Yes I know, could hardly be more different from the slow ink drawing above, but it's good to have art moods!
Early morning drawing of marigolds on the deck, for #drawingaugust. I'll be sorry when this month long project is done, but I plan to create an artist's book from the portfolio of august drawings.
Then I was back in the studio, now that the heat has abated enough to be up there more than briefly, and I'm moving pieces around on the piece of linen I dyed with turmeric, shibori wrapped, to see what comes of the combination of Dorset buttons (may be more of them) and beaded fishlike shape, which may or may not stay, depending. The yellow is much more pronounced and variegated in rl than my camera captures. None of these is stitched down yet, still at the moving about and throwing out stage.
Anyway, I thought you might like to see what's up, to date. There will be more foliage of some sort, or a net overlay, something or other of that nature. I'm thinking another Vilene piece of netted stitching, maybe using a drawingaugust drawing for the template.
