This month’s colors in the 12 in 12 project, not the mood or music. I’ve hit the ground running into April’s new colour and already (day 4) have the beginnings of 4 pages to share with you….
I’m playing with cut-outs, I like the way it links the pages letting glimpses of the next and previous pages show through. The tiny diamond shapes have informed the way the patterns grow and develop through these four pages.
Detail here…….
Where some people see scrap, I often see ingredients.
Only when it really doesn’t fit with social expectations can I curb my collecting, but I will usually come home with something I didn’t leave the house with earlier in the day.
Leaves, paper scraps, foil and cellophane from sweets, sketches and photos of interesting shapes, patterns and textures; jotted words and phrases from the radio, books, internet or my own head. Findings!
Today I resisted the feathers I saw scattered on the verge as I walked to work. Thinking roadkill, bird-flu, infection, dirt. I saw more feathers, one was 7-8 inches long with a fluffy plumed edge and speckly pattern. Conscious of passing driver’s impression of a grown adult picking up and stashing litter from the roadside. More feathers, smaller but irresistibly velvety. Their owner must have come to an unfortunate end to lose so many clothes. Pheasant? (no corpse), idk.
Thinking aside, when I got to work there was, in my bag, a perfect, elegant, inspirational, new-to-me ingredient.
It wasn’t until I photographed it I discovered it’s a feather and a half!
It might be a subject to draw, a shape to photograph, to inspire. It might act as a brush, then retire to join one of many collages. When the time comes, it will be an ingredient in at least one something I make.
It also looks (to me) like a tiny porcupine with no face.
I’m typing this as today’s soggy goo of a page dries ready for an evening’s doodles to pull together it’s constituent parts (dyed scrap envelopes). I took some more pics of the days so far, in a bid to catch you up on the project. Current intention is to post daily from now on (day 3 n going strong!)
Meanwhile, here’s some more bits…
“a page a day keeps the monsters away”, as the old saying goes, and it’s just so true. When I began my latest sketchbook a week or so ago, I made an agreement with myself that this needed my daily attention. However little or much is available, everyday now contains some arty time.
So again with the show and tell, here are a few page bits:
True to form, no monsters here.
A week or few towards the end of 2011 I fell upon Marlene Glickman’s “Day by Day:Pieces of Life Series” which initiated 2 new projects. (The other of which I’ll type to you about later)
This a 12 month adventure taking shape as the year progresses. Ms Glickman set off my plan thusly:
“Making color and design decisions is sometimes difficult so I challenge myself to use only one color from the color wheel each month during my daily design exercises.”
From the start of January 2012 I’ve been working in new sketchbook, each month’s pages of doodlings and dabblings is limited to just one twelfth of the color wheel. Somewhere in each month I plan to upload my latests (and as I zigzag through the year, re-post the older months as they continue to develop).
Hold on to your hats folks, counting backwards we’ve got a quick 3 month round up….
So far the months have all spread themselves over four pages. Why four? no reason (three not enough, five too many…) Just saying, cos other months might ramble further. Guess depth and range of the colors have a bearing too. (sometime I might count the pages n do the math)
Photography is a stage in the process, it gives clarity, like looking through somebody else’s eyes. Clicky close ups to show the detail…
At the time of typing March is not quite through, a work in progress…
February as a month is done and finished, but its pages will still get periodic tweaks. That’s the great thing about making your own rules to the game (; I’ll re-post updates later on.
I began the year in the colors surrounding me, tones and shades of brickwork, cosy warmth, winter berries. From here I’m ambling backwards around the color wheel, journeying towards red at the end of the year.
So that’s where it all began, folks.
Just a few days and a new (blue) month begins. Check back for the next insighting extallment!
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