Using old ideas and adding to them.

 I have a LOT of old doodle/Zentangle pieces. I have been doing it for years. 

Recently, I went away for a few days and took an old, A5 (rather small) pad of old doodles with me. I also took some coloured pencils and Landscape colour brush pen things. 

I knew I was not going to be doing much, was just taking the chance to be away. Usually, I have something on the go that is portable, not this time. 

So, here are some images of my reinterpretation (or reuse) of some small doodles. 

Something sort-of new for me. It was rather peaceful as the design was already there, I just had to choose some colours. It continued the theme of the doodling for reflection/peace rather well. But I didn't do them in bed, as I do with my doodles. 

I think I prefer the ones done with pencil. there is a greater colour range. But, as they are for just contemplating, it really doesn't matter what I used. 

Deciding what to do

Our course is finished, the exhibition is up.

The small art exhibition will be on soon at The Alcove Art Shop. I have been playing around with some eucalyptus blossom pieces for that. Am still trying out some images.

I have taken some photos and fiddled with them in Photoshop. Not sure what I will do with them yet, just thought I would play around.
I have printed the photos out onto silk and then done thread painting over them but now I would like to try something slightly different.

I am thinking to paint the base fabric and then sew over it in the sort of machine embroidery I did last year (almost a year ago - where does the time go?!) in the Alison Holt workshop. It probably won't turn out all that differently, it will just be a little more my creation, rather than a photo.

I just used Poster Edges, twice. It made the background nice and indistinct. 

I am going away for a holiday soon. I will involve a long flight and then, perhaps, a long train trip. So I am trying to come up with some ideas for handwork to do. But there is the problem of what they will let you have on a plane. And how much I want to carry around.

I have played around with blackwork (just found this site with some free tutorials) in the past and am thinking of trying to develop an idea for that. So I have been tracing some photos, using a black pen to help me develop some images that I might be able to use. Or I might try some doodling patterns as I did when I did the workshop with Katherine Devine, ages ago.

Then I made it black and white, not sure why. 

I am also thinking that it would be good to dye the base fabric using eucalyptus leaves or bark, just for a different effect. So I have been researching that. The even weave fabric for counted thread work is expensive, so I don't want to mess it up. But I am looking at eucalyptus blossom ideas, so it seems appropriate.

I put the image on a light box and it is ready for me to play around with. 

Daily art

As I posted earlier, I am trying to do a doodle a day.  And a lino cut a day.  The latter has proven more problematic as I only had so much lino (and soft cut) available.  One of these days I am going to have to go out and buy some more.  I have been trying to limit myself to what I already had but now I am running out, despite a friend giving me what she had left over from her textile course.  She says she is not going to do more lino cutting, it wasn't her thing.
As the doodling is small, I have been able to keep to my resolution of one a day (well, I did miss two days but allowed myself do to extra on the third day). It is still unusually hot here in Melbourne and so the doodling has been more doable than some of the other things I could be doing. However, the sweaty hand can be a problem, it smears the ink if I am not careful. Very annoying.

I have been reading about Art Nouveau (randomly chosen link here, one of many) and Charles Rennie Mackintosh and I think I can see some of that creeping into my designs.

I have tried out some of my lino cuts after I realised I was happily cutting away but not printing them.  I have only done them in a book so far, not on fabric.  Will get around to that one day, if I can think of how to use these designs.  At least my cutting is improving, not to the point where I can put in the same detail as in the doodling but I think that is just the medium and I will never achieve that.

 I didn't do any of the cutting with repeat patterns in mind but it seemed such a waste to get the fabric paint out and just do one print, so I did some multiple prints for a few of them.