Seek Other Thoughts

This spread is a combination of many different strands  but started life as my contribution for The Documented Life Project 2016. As the challenge was set last Saturday when it was still January the theme remains: Going out on a Limb and Try Something New. The art challenge was to: let someone else draw or make marks on your art piece. I did indeed do new things but no one else drew on my pages. Instead I added postage stamps (designed by someone else!), made a poem with found text,  and used a technique I saw during an online class. I know it's not the same but it will have to do.

The technique I used came from the owner of Stencilgirl Products, MaryBeth Shaw. She was one of the teachers of the online class Creative Jumpstart 2016 (highly recommend!) and she used oil sticks in her project. This rang a dim bell somewhere in my mind. I used to teach a class using Shiva paint-sticks on fabric way back (10 or so years!) and I knew they had to be about somewhere. I finally located them and used them for this spread. Quite revolutionary as I had only used them on fabric thus far. But they are definitely oil paint sticks and I have fallen in love with them all over again.

Of course I used them with Stencilgirl stencils (the Deconstructed Floral Bouquet one again and the Verdant Moon). To my delight I discovered that one of my oil sticks was sparkling gold! And of course that had to appear. I was so happy to discover that despite their age my paint sticks worked perfectly once I removed their skin. There is only one slight problem with the oil paint. It takes a very long time to dry, specially in a damp and cold Scotland. Even after 48 hours they remained slightly damp.They were eventually heat set using my iron and baking parchment. If it works on fabric it works on paper, right!

That gave me time to write a poem. I was so taken with the background that I didn't want to distract from it with imagery so words took it's place. The poem was written by going through my most favourite vintage book (Proverbial Philosophy, published in the late 1800s), cutting out parts of sentences that spoke to me, and then putting them together in a new way. Here is the full text:

Write often for thy secret eye

For to write is to speak beyond hearing

It is a theme for tears

The tears that we forgat to note

the secret depths

seek other thoughts

mysteries by mysteries

the secret of the soul

the silent music of the heart

so shalt thou grow wiser.

After glueing them on, all the spread required were postage stamps in matching colours. They are Indian and all have the same design of three lions. 

I am so pleased to have rediscovered my oil sticks and you can expect to see them again! Dare I admit I also indulged in some Windsor & Newton oil sticks as used by MaryBeth. Can't wait for their arrival.

Waterfall Books

As the weather isn't very suited to being in the garden (it was really cold yesterday and although it's sunnier today it's far from warm) I am working on the list of things I want to blog because I don't seem to make much of a dent in it during warm and sunny days.

So here are the waterfall books (also known as step books) that I made following Kiala Givehand's Youtube video in her Book-in-a-Day monthly series for 2014. This was her book for April and you can find the video here.  I finished mine in mid May. Sadly I made a bit of a mistake with my first one and ended up with only 5 steps instead of the 6 I should have had. Still, you learn most from your mistakes!

Here is that first version. Kiala had no content in her book but I can never resist putting things in my books. For the pages in both books I used gelli plate printed papers. For the content I made poems using words or sentences from vintage books and the accompanying images are my own photographs printed onto 2" square by Printagram (I do LOVE this company!). As most of you know I upload my daily picture to Blipfoto but I usually take many more than just one picture every day. The second best one usually ends up on Instagram and it's these pictures that Printagram uses to print their delightful selection of yummy goodies such as these squares, small stickers, buttons and much else. 

 Here is the completed poem for this book which of the two is my favourite. Just a shame I made that oops!

Of Memory

The story without an end

that moment is all time.

My thoughts, are they not mine own?

Memory is not wisdom

I looked, and years had past

The chance is gone for ever.

And underneath is the book as it should be with 6 steps but I'm not as happy with the content as I am with the one above.

 Here is the text of this one:

The Silver River of Heaven

the breath of old romance on an endless voyage

these are other universes like our own,

all the colours of the rainbow

ever floated in a summer sky

Here the tragedy begins,

warnings of coming disaster.

withdraw into the depth of space

these far-distant spirals

the silver river of heaven

know the bright stars

the path of souls

where does the day begin?

I say this almost every month but this was one of my favourite books so far. It was simply to put together and because of the gelli plate printed papers the books already looked lovely and colourful before I started putting in the text and images. I'm also very pleased with the first poem.

I always feel far less confident in putting my writings and poems online than I do my imagery, be it photos or textiles. It's strange as words were always my thing (I'm after all trained as a research librarian!) but changing your first language when well into adulthood means that you loose your confidence in your first one through lack of use,  and it takes many long years before you gain the same trust in getting it right at all times in your second. I have just about reached that stage now but I will never rely so effortlessly on my English as I did once my Dutch.

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You will also notice a difference in my Now Reading item in the sidebar on the right. It has looked in the past like I was reading the same book for months as I just hadn't time to write and change the review. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am as reliant on words for my well being as on food, in fact probably more so. I hoover up books, reading probably more than 10 books per month. Some of these are to learn something regarding mixed media or book making, others are pure entertainment such as detectives and thrillers and others feed my soul with beauty.

I use books to get to know myself better or to learn more about things that happen to attract my interest or attention ranging from books about a shipwreck mentioned on a gravestone to information about vintage nude photography. Regardless of Google (and I use that extensively too!) for me it's books that are the primary source of information and I anticipate that will always remain the case. I love beautiful books (such as One by Victoria Alexander, a work of art in it's own right before even enjoying the content!) but I will also read books on my Kindle (such as the complete works of Emile Zola, even though I have read them once already) and when working (I haven't yet learned to stitch and read at the same time) I listen to audio books. The day I stop reading will probably be the day I die.

So now I'm just going to put titles of the books I'm currently enjoying in that sidebar and if they appear there it means I like them very much, just in case you want to come along for the book fest.

Life is oft so like a dream

I have become more and more fascinated by bookmaking. Not so much the traditional way of making hand bound books but all the different fun methods used nowadays. Many of these are readily available online, either entirely for free on YouTube or in on line classes. However none of these methods are new. Whenever I find something I didn't know about on line I usually then also discover it in the one of the many bookbinding books I posses and which I have read. Somehow seeing it in action on the computer screen makes much more of an impression although for following step by step instructions I'm still one for the written word. All this to explain why I eagerly await Kiala Givehand's monthly Book-in-a-Day 2014 series of videos. In 2013 she made a book once a week (also in a day) and I'm still working my way through all those videos, but this year it is a much more manageable (for her too, I imagine!) monthly event.

I fell in love with the book for March instantly. It's a dainty looking model, ending up in a 3.5 x 3" book. I already had a load of painted pages so used a selection of them for the book. I love the binding method which traps thread (stranded cotton in my case) and then knots these to bind.

Kiala's book had no content but I wanted to add a poem made from sentences cut from a vintage book and for some reason I felt it necessary to make my task harder by producing a poem that could read from front to back of the book but also from back to front.

 Here it is from front to back:

life is oft so like a dream

having not beginning nor end of days

infinite in grand outline

the enigma of all things

live in love

life is a constant force

all things work in circles

I live and die

who shall grasp that thrilling thought

life is oft so like a dream

 And this is the back to front version:

life is oft so like a dream

who shall grasp that thrilling thought

I live and die

all things work in circles

life is a constant force

live in love

the enigma of all things

infinite in grand outline

having not beginning nor end of days

life is oft so like a dream

To accompany the text I used little stickers made from my own Instagram pictures. This is done by a company called Social Print Studio (based in the US),the same company that also produces the buttons I showed you in a previous blog post some time ago.

I love these little stickers as well as most of their other print products and regularly have them printed for me to use in all kinds of ways, including for The Documented Life Project planner this year. It's an excellent way to re-use your own art.