Transience Sketchbook Project for 2013

Sometimes the best laid plans go awry and the Sketchbook Project for 2013 was one of those. I  bought the sketchbook just as soon as sign-ups were open and anticipated working in it during the summer while sitting outside. Well, if you were in Scotland too this summer you will understand why that didn't happen. In fact in what I can recall as the only couple of days I did sit there I managed to make most of the backgrounds in the sketchbook but after that nothing much happened for a very long time. It was only during this month that the urgency of the situation came home to me as I realized that this sketchbook would need to go postal early in the New Year. So some activity was required and I duly set to work. My chosen theme for the sketchbook was Photolog as you can read on the label above but I decided to add an theme of my own which is Transience. I was reading Marney K. Makridakis' book Creating Time;  using creativity to reinvent the clock and reclaim your life. If only! But we can but try and one of the tasks she gives the readers of her book is to write haiku on the subject of time which I diligently did and I added these to my sketchbook pages. Above you can see  the cover to which I have added a self-portrait with camera (don't worry though, I hope not to be transient just yet!) as well as some stencilled clock imagery. On the left you can read the Japanese words mono no aware which mean transience. 

I managed to remember back in the summer to photograph some of the backgrounds I made in the sketchbook which came to be after gessoing all the pages first. After that came stencilling, spray painting, stamping, all in no particular order, and using acrylic paints. Above you can see the background for

this finished spread 2, called impermanence. Of course there are photos (for the photolog theme!) which some of you may well recognize from this blog. I also doodled a lot on this spread and added the finished haiku that you can read there on the left.

 Spread 3 is called Grab Time after the haiku which is itself a bit more elusive to find so here is the full text:

Elusive, transient

here today, gone tomorrow

grab time while you can

There is also text on the photograph on the left hand side and this says: "While the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest shall not cease". This photograph was taken during our visit to Glen Garden during the summer.

Spread 4  Does Time Smile at Us? has two haiku on facing pages as well as photographs and one transpariency on the right hand side. The haiku on the left reads:

Does time smile at us?

We try to understand it

It stays elusive

And the one on the right:

Time defeats us all

We don't fight another day.

It waits for us there.

 Above another view of a painted background which turned into the finished spread below.

This again consists of a haiku, several photographs and one transparency. Most of the finished pages were bordered with gelatos, simply rubbing the edges and spreading the colour using my fingers.

There will be more pages to come in the following days. If you want to see them all they will be labelled Sketchbook Project as you can see below. Just click on that and it will take you to all the pages in this sketchbook as well as to my other finished sketchbooks from previous years. You can also see them digitally on the Sketchbook Project page dedicated to my art.