Green pencils good paper

Sketchbooks, lithography and the stolen offering bowl

Hello! How are you? I’m currently drying my hair after swimming by sitting under my electric blanket which probably seems ridiculous but is actually the height of living on these frosty days.

Sketchbookings

You have to admire the impressionists painting entire paintings out of doors that aren’t crap. Here’s my crap sketch of Watlington hill.

This Sunday, I remembered why I normally stop taking the sketchbook out at this time of year. My husband was running the Watlington run and I went to support him and do a spot of colouring in, which I enjoyed, but it was COLD . I don’t think it’s very good- I didn’t pick the best view to sketch (to be honest, I was mostly concerned with finding somewhere dogs couldn’t get to me) and I lost contact with my fingers halfway through, and none of my pencils have a dark enough green for the shadows on pine trees; nevertheless, I have been out, and drawn, and that is a victory.

I have since been to my local art shop and bought a green pencil. Good art shops are getting hard to find, and it’s so much easier to find the right pencil in real life, while you have a chat about how great crayons are. Sometimes I panic because I can’t drive, and so rely on in town places I can get to; what would I do without the peddlepower guys to fix my bike for almost nothing? I’m clearly incompetent and could easily be ripped off, but instead they repeated go above and beyond to help me for absolute peanuts. The only sure way to make someone happy this Christmas is to buy from a small business, because at least then you’re guaranteed to have made the small buisness owner happy. Please support your independent shops.

Lithography

First attempt at polyester lithography

I know I said I wasn’t working this month but I did conduct a small investigation into polyester lithography, which went much better than expected. The image on the right page was made with gelli plate; I don’t like using acrylics, so I didn’t really enjoy making that page, and was looking for a better way to make the image. I had bought some polyester plates from handprinted ages ago, and can’t remember the thought processes that lead me to finally use them, but after I got the hang of it, it was so easy it felt like cheating.

Obviously I wrecked the plate learning but I’m thinking of redoing some of these for the shop, as long as the process continues to be easy, which is never guaranteed. Let me know what you  think?

Musings, tangentially related to art

The view in Watlington I wish that I had drawn, but didn’t because I was trying to avoid dogs eating my things, which has happened before, slightly after a woman told me her dog was going to eat my things instead of restraining her dog.

I’ve recently started bullet journaling again. I say again, because I thought tried it, but it was more of a decorated todo list that I got bored of very quickly. I bought the Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll at that time, my kindle tells me I read exactly three pages, which is a shame, because if I’d read the whole book I would understood the process a lot better.

Another reason I failed is because I used a cheap notebook which seems sensible, as I’m only going to throw to-do lists away when I’m  to-done, except I hated writing on scratchy paper, so I didn’t write. I have an immense stack of cheap notebooks which are economical only because I don’t use them. This time round, I bought a Rhodia notebook filled with my favourite Clairefontaine paper, a small one to mess up as I practice. The paper is very smooth, good for fountain pens, and I am excited for the organisational possibilities of next year.

Buying cheap paper is always a false economy for me. I grew up poor and though that was along time ago, but there’s still consequences; a tendency to hoard  (if someone gave me some lovely pencils, and I used them up, I wouldn’t have lovely pencils so best not to use them) and a tendency to look for the cheapest option, which is often false economy reminiscent of Vimes’ Boot theory

Take sketchbooks; I like Seawhites travel journals. I know these are my favourite books, the paper takes a watercolour wash and they look good, but periodically I will buy a cheaper sketchbook. The thin paper  cockles when wet, and I will get it wet, then abandon the book altogether. Good paper is really important to me, the same way that the right cup makes tea taste better*, and I need to take that into consideration. It seems like sketches are a waste of a book because they are just preliminary works, but the fact is if I want a sketchbook practice then I need a book I want to sketch in. After the bullet journal epiphany, I opened the Seawhites journal and instead of thinking ‘oh this book is far too good for my rubbish drawings’ I thought  ‘just imagine how much better I could be once I’ve filled all these pages’ and wanting to fill pages instead of hoarding them feels like progress.

I try and overcome my tendency to feel guilt for buying good things by really enjoying them. We can’t have big monumental wins very often so I’m trying notice the small joys nice things bring, like a really good pencil sharpener. It cost me six quid, but it looks nice and it’s weighty and sharp so the pencil shavings come off in a satisfying long lengths. Good paper. Green pencils that cost £4 but are finally the right colour. A really good walk. It’s easy to let good things pass without notice. The world is very busy.

A really good walk.

The view from my bedroom window. The stubble looks quite dense from a distance, but up close. It’s mostly mud and therefore not photogenic. You’ll have to imagine close up photos of stubble and deer prints, the photos are awful

One crisp day last week, I snuck through the hole in the hedge for  spot of trespass, to take some photos of corn stubble up close and feed the addiction. It felt strange to tread the earth of a place you know and love but from a distance. The field is obviously mostly mud up close, peppered delightfully with the tracks of the little muntjac deer that lives in the hedge. I startled her in my investigations, and she ran off into a different hedge, which makes sense. Even small deer are quite big, and would surely need more than one hedge to sustain them.

As I walked towards the gate for a more dignified exit, I walked passed the back of my house, and I found this, which perplexed me greatly.

Stolen goods.

This is a tiny offering dish that lives- or used to- on the outdoor shrine; it had somehow got up, walked several metres, climbed through the hedge, walked a lot a bit more, and buried itself in the mud, surviving the spring plowing and the autumn harvest while it was at it. I can only ponder on how it made the journey, and which hedge-friend was its travelling companion. The next night, with lucky timing, the farmer came to sow the winter wheat; the stubble remains, but it has past its best, which is often the case when you’ve been driven over by a tractor.

I think that’s all for now. Thank you for reading. I put a lot of effort into my words, because they don’t come naturally, and appreciate your encouragement in whatever form, in fact, I’m sorry to say they sustain my enthusiasm for writing, which often wanes, time being short and the iPad hurting my eyes over long periods. I hope you have a terrific week, and if not, then I hope you can find enough small joys to sustain you, until life improves x

* My husband is really picky about the thickness of the cup he drinks from, and he prefers bone china mugs. When he upset me a lot, I would take my son to the paint-a-mug place and let him paint daddy a lovey, exceptionally thick chunky mug. The type with walls so thick it doesn’t really have much room left for liquid. I would then let my tiny son serve up nice cup of lovely tea which daddy had to gratefully drink, even though it was causing him physical pain. This was the anecdote that triggered the thoughts on the importance of nice things.