Saturday, November 28, 2009

I haven't posted for a couple of days but I have been making art. I made a pair of collages yesterday but they have so many layers of gel medium and PVA glue on them that they are taking a long time to dry out. I will show you them when they no longer have opaque white blobs - probably a day or two. Today I have been making another book, different to the last one. It is all constructed but I am still assembling text and images for it.

A fortnight ago I bought the book Mixed Mania in Hobbycraft in Stockport, then I went into the Starbucks next to it to read my new book over a cup of coffee. This is not unusual. But I was so grabbed by the projects in the book I left my coffee unfinished and went straight home to make a start. I began at the front of the book and worked my way through it, trying every single project. This is very unusual.

In the last two weeks I have made paper cut-out dolls, decorated paper, inchies, textured backgrounds, doodles, mini-artworks, a self portrait, a reliquary doll, a quilted clutch purse, a mixed-media doll, an art quilt, a fabric journal, as well as the textured collages and the book I can't show you yet. I invented orc stitch, non-dominant hand embroidery, drawing with a toothpick dipped in ink, and some ugly doodles of rats and seagulls which then kept cropping up with my work. I started keeping a dream diary and drawing on that for artistic inspiration, which has been very productive.

Fortunately I have a well-stocked art and craft stash and I have hardly bought any materials for all this. In fact, I can't think of anything I bought just for this. I either already had the materials required, or I was able to improvise and substitute.

I feel no urge to slow down. I am keen to continue and probably complete all the projects in the book. I already have a few other books lined up I would like to attempt projects from, although there aren't any other books I want to work through cover-to-cover as I have with Mixed Mania.

I'm interested in doing more exciting things with textiles. I'm interested in altered objects (altered books, altered clocks, furniture etc.) I want to make more 3d objects. More assemblage. Diptychs/triptychs. Boxes. Drawers. I want to work bigger. I want to make an altered long case clock!

I said all this was going somewhere. I still don't know where. But the journey is very exciting.

1 comment:

Yellow said...

I can't wait to see more inchies. Where do you keep them all? Are they muddled in a box or spread out so you can see them?
Please, please plpease post more images.