A change of direction, a trial of sorts.

There is a corner approaching. 

Probably this space will be used and turning inward for a time 

while I sort myself out.  Stoicism. Influential people and doodles.

I have a space now, facing south and looking over rolling greens 

to the sky.  Shelving stacked with labelled containers to the ceiling,

table in front of window.  I am looking once again for motivation to 

start some form of daily entry in one, anyone, of my journals. It will

be as fractured as my thinking and influenced by my journey through.

The year has flown, we have moved across the city, from the lowlands of the Manukau to the foothills of the Waitakere Ranges. After nearly 50 years of collecting, rescuing, and generally keeping stock, there was an awful lot to move out. Done now. I have no studio, just a box of basics that slides under my chair. Summer is here, lunch is coming. Wishing the best for the Christmas season, to friends and family.

A thought provoking, uplifting way to start 2019.
Thankyou Jeanette

‘What is it that I have to tell myself again and again?
That there is always a new beginning, a different end. 
I can change the story. I am the story. 
Begin.’

Jeanette Winterson, The PowerBook

Stories you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you. 

You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. 

Sometimes you’ll forget precisely what happened, 

but if a story touches you it will stay with you, 

haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.

Neil Gaiman, M Is for Magic

On Monday of Queen's birthday weekend Roselda and Dale visited for the day to explore Asemic writing. We were complete novices! Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of their pages so these are mine. We went skewiffy, our colours ran, and we tried to stay away from identifiable forms. It was interesting that we could identify each other's style though. Mine are very similar so I have a long way to go. Starting with small blocks of colour, then overworking  using various thicks and thins, and light and dark. It will annoy some who like to read words. It can be many things, textural elements, emotional responses, shadows for depth etc. I plan to do more, perhaps limiting myself to black and white.

1. The first of some illustration trials. I have some words that have been written about the early 1950's when we arrived in New Zealand. Memories of startlingly crisp mornings, our childrens voices echoing, the pines trees, a stream to dam before the tide came in, but first to run along breaking down the sand edges. I am using the red gifted journal from Steph and Em.

Assorted EDM : - 115,116,117,118, missing. Over a period of almost a year I have been fractured and could remember echoes of teachers reporting 'could do better'. Deciding to continue I thought it best to get the back end of dreadfulness sorted and start afresh.

Every day matters, number 119, Draw some rocks. Looks like I did this at night!  No, but it was done in my 'Left Hand Only' journal. As I struggle to get going again my  immediate target is to get an entry in every journal I have as soon as I can get to  them.

I read an article about a young mexican designer, Rolando G Alcantara and his typography alphabets. I liked having to identify the forms and found a quote that  Laurie Doctor had used, of a letter from  Rilke to a young poet. 

It took quite a lot of powerful images to get me back into my place of play, I had thought this phase of my life was drifting away, but now I am starting to think again.

I forgot to check the scanner, other people use it and I forget. It is not as washed out as it looks. Just playing with the typography and words, finding out what I prefer.

Margaret Beech is coming to afternoon tea. 
Journal entry done a few days before, just playing with my gear.

Day 96. The last image and the end of the poem. Phyllis Cole-Dai wrote this and because of the images the poem conjured up in my eye I asked her if I could use it for this personal development project. Kindly she said yes. I have enjoyed this overall and happy to be back to regular drawing, playing and experimenting in my studio. Now to bind the book.

Day 95. Penultimate day, soon I will be able to bind the pages. Two more words to go. I lked this nesting of letters, it is crying to doodle away where it needs, there are lots of nooks and crannies just waiting,  the execution of colour was a disappointment. My days do not match up to 100, I have confused myself by posting to the project, taking several days to complete some,  and filing is not the best - I do have 99 images to date.

Day 94. No laser cutting here, and you can tell. What started out as a border kept going as it was not appropiate to stop. It has created havoc on the image the other side, I knew that and kept going neither are worth keeping. The words are 'Plenty for friends. Plenty for the long howling winter. Plenty for strangers. Plenty for all the bread in' I have put pink tissue paper behind when it went through the scanner.

Day 93. The wee small mouse has returned. The idea was OK until the lettering. I think it was rushed and the words should perhaps have been written as labels on the jars. Not long to go now, and there was I, 100 days ago not doing anything creative on paper.

Day 92. 'A rich batch of preserves' using my downpipe collection of greens. I probably only went through about half of them. I coloured over the fibre pen and should go over it again, I am also debating in my head about outlining the squares too. All my coloured pencils are stored in 7cm sawn off lengths of down pipe with heavy card for their base. They in turn are kept together in a box 24cm x 36cm. I have 16 different colour selections.

Day 91. This went a little better than the one two days ago. I feel the pressure of being a few days behind so experimentation has gone out the window and I just want to finish. I still enjoyed it though.

Day 90. Thinking about earthquakes and how it affects the world, a project always under change, with us, the basic instinct of an amoeba - reaction to stimuli, but no grander view.The word is 'some'.

Day 89. I can see quite a lot that could be improved, resizing shows up even more. Pencil drawn and the orange done with a coloured pencil after viewing some of Liesbet Bouden's lettering. Reworking it is an option. The words say 'no need to rush, the poems will keep.'

Day 88. These words say 'and make good jam'. Done with no preparation other than some boundary lines I used my parallel pen, old black ink and even older orange to fill in. I was prepared to cope with feathering and blotches but the card was kind.

Day 87. There is a mouse in the room, feeling so inadequate and right out of my comfort zone, run through all the cliche's. This actually took as long as the others to do. I question why I am doing this at all. I shall just look forward to tomorrow.

Day 86. The pen was running out of ink but I liked the texture so I continued. Then I lost it, there is no cohesion, nothing!

There are other things that could be done that would be diversionary but nothing can be done to the words unless you paint it black and start over. Big sigh Ahhh!

Day 85. I couldn't wait for inspiration, I am way behind. I have used this process before so it wasn't a learning curve just more of the same I'm afraid.

Day 84. This says 'more' =  the 'm' is standing on it's end, and I have used a greek e. The 'o' is part of the 'r'. I have then floated water onto the shape and dropped in watercolour.

Day 83. I have returned to the city. In catch up mode. After seeing some of Eduardo Chillida's  black and white work I thought I would have a go. No analysis, no back ground, nothing, and just going from memory I started. It's dreadful, but a start and a compromise.

Day 82. Update. This has now been improved so that it reads a little better. Needs a lot more tweeking but will leave it for now. 

Day 82. Nothing is pleasing about this for me. The acrylic background would not take my inks, the texture pushed the pens around, the layout is confusing. I intend getting back one day and making the word 'if' twice the size of 'you' and see if that makes it more readable.  The words are 'if you ever'. Maybe I need to upskill!

Day 81. A new section and I wanted to the colours and theme to continue with the last page of the previous section. Both images will be portrait when the book is bound and I will have to watch out that the cutouts don't hook into each other. Both  can be lifted up. The words are 'the unknown'.

Day 80. Yesterday visited Ceramic Exhibition at Te Uru. Loved some of John Parker's retrospective  work. Underneath this day are charcoal drawings of bottles to remind me of the Love Potion collection. The word today is 'with', it's cut out and put over the background.

Day 79. Medium butterfly type nib with old indian ink. So old it was elastic and blobby, so added water and hope it remained waterproof, it did. The words are ' in kinship'.