Climate Books

One of the books that was in my exhibit at the Livingston Parish library in Louisiana last year was a little book I titled, "Climate Change: A Moving Tale." In it, I contrasted the difference in climate between the Northwestern U. S. and Louisiana, since I found it to be such a physical shock moving from one to the other.

I revisited this format again. Since once again, we've made a major climactic move, I came up with "Climate Change II" to show the differences between Louisiana and Nebraska.

I used data from the National Weather Service website to show average temperature highs and lows, and I came up with an average daylength for each month using data from the U. S. Naval Observatory website. Each little book has one city on one side of the paper, and the other city on the opposite.

October in Nebraska is beautiful. I was surprised to see that we are getting almost an extra hour of daylight each day, when compared to Louisiana. I expected the temperatures to be vastly different, and they are... there is almost a 15 degree difference in average daily highs for this month.

The form of these books is the same as the Thanksgiving book I showed on this blog last year. It is still one of my favorites, and is made from a single sheet of paper. It tumbles around when opened, and represents the unsettled, turbulent feeling of moving a great distance.

Poetry notebook visitors

This is one of the hazards of keeping a poetry notebook in an artist's sketchbook, I suppose.

I think I just can't resist picking up a paintbrush. Even when I am writing, I still see things in a concrete way. The wooly bear caterpillar I saw the other day inspired this flight of fancy.

I won't show the whole page because the poem is not going well. This is the only pretty thing on the page, flying and crawling under a pile of scratchouts.

Maybe that's really why it's there.

Happy Monday!

Every now and then, I like to surprise my family with a Happy Monday gift on the kitchen table on a Monday morning. I think the most memorable was an origami koala climbing a pencil tree, after we heard a story on NPR about a koala who escaped a zoo in California, climbed a tree, and promptly fell asleep.

This Happy Monday gift is an origami penguin. We have been enjoying watching the penguins and puffins at our local zoo. He is sitting on a paper ice floe. I love how three-dimensional he is!

I worked from a pattern in the book, Origami Treasure Chest.  I added an eye with a Sakura white pen, and used ordinary origami paper.

It would have been better to post this yesterday, but... have a wonderful Tuesday! 

Regina Caeli book

Here is an artist's book I made a few years ago. At the time, I was grappling with the concept of home. I had watched my family go through Katrina, and I had moved away from homes that I had loved. I came to the conclusion that it really is true that our home is in Heaven. Everything else is temporary.

This is a joyful book, though. The realization that we have a home that will not be lost or changed is a joyful one. The prayer is for the time of the year after Easter, and so it reflects that deep joy. The book form is one I learned in Alisa Golden's Painted Paper. She mentions other artists who sent her books with this form, and calls it a Woven Accordion Book. I thought the prayer fit beautifully into the form.

The ties are iridescent and silver ribbons, and the background is painted with interference and pearl acrylics. These types of specialty paints just don't seem to photograph well. Their effects are striking, especially with a subject matter like this. I painted it on Arches watercolor paper, so it is a very solid form. I tried to alternate lighter pages with darker ones for contrast.

It is one of my favorite books.

It is funny how I can look at artwork I've created, and remember exactly what I was thinking at the time.

Unpacking books

I was unpacking some of my artist's books yesterday, and I realized how few of them I have shared on the blog. I will try to photograph them, and post them here.

There is something about making a book that fires up connections in my mind. Once I start, ideas start gushing out like a flood. I have to keep my art journal nearby, because the ideas keep coming, and as I work on one book, more ideas pop up. I don't think I will ever finish making all of the books that I've sketched out in that journal. Making books must somehow tap into the deepest waters of creativity. Maybe it is the art, maybe it is the technical aspects of measuring and sewing, maybe it's the writing possibilities, or maybe it is all of this together. I don't know. It has become a passion.

Nebraska!

Well. More change... change can be stressful, but it can also be exciting. We are now in Nebraska, and I have the chance to explore a new environment. One ecosystem I am not familiar with is the prairie, and now I am in Nebraska. This is exciting.

My art will change again, as it always does after a major move. It will settle down with a new palette, and a new way of looking at things. I expect this process to take a couple of months. I am already figuring out that it is windier here, and I need to learn to deal with that. The skies are clearer and sunnier, for the most part, which also has an effect. White paper in full sun is blinding, as I learned in Idaho. Fortunately, there are trees here, and shade can be sought out. They just aren't as abundant as in Louisiana.

I will continue to blog here about my artwork, but will be starting a new blog about nature in Nebraska. Thank you for reading this, and stay tuned!

Origami folder

I'm working on a Cosmos Ball origami project, from Meenakshi Mukerji's book, Marvelous Modular Origami. This project requires folding thirty small units of paper to make a beautiful ball. I have previously made the Poinsettia Ball from this book, and enjoy seeing it on top of my bookshelf. It is beautiful.

I needed a way to corral all those little pieces of paper, so I decided to make a folder. I found a heavy decorative paper in my stash, collaged on some end-piece offcuts of wrapping paper that I am using for the origami, and used washi tape as a way to decoratively secure it all. After that, I added a bit of cheerful calligraphy. Here is what I came up with!

You can see that I just folded the paper in half, and then folded the sides in a bit. Then I folded up a pocket on the bottom. The sides were then secured with the tape.

I really like this folder! I can use it to bring my origami with me if I have to go somewhere I know I will have to wait.  Thirty pieces of paper is a lot to fold. I can't do it all in one sitting. And I really want to try the 90 unit dodecahedron she has in the book... that's quite a lot of folding! Folding is relaxing for me, and I like to take my time and enjoy it.

The little offcuts are from a wrapping paper that I found the other day. It's a roll of Hallmark paper, and the back is printed in a 1" grid. Many of the models I have been making use rectangles instead of squares. This is a big time saver.

I hope to post a few more projects in the coming days. Hope this week is a beautiful one for you!

Announcing Dinner

This is an easy way to use calligraphy in daily life. My family is really enjoying this. I will post more of these in the future. I'm announcing the main dish... no room on the little chalkboard for the side dishes, or dessert!

And, yes, our fruits and vegetables dance. They have for years!
The colors did not really show up in the photo. I try to use a lot of color.

I'd love to have a large, sidewalk-sized board to work on, but there is no room in the kitchen. I love working with chalk, though, so I will have to look into some other ways to use chalkboards, or chalkboard paint.

The creative process

I've been thinking about the purpose of blogging, and what I might want to accomplish by doing it. Some of the posts on here have been a lot of fun to write. These are usually my process-oriented posts. I like to show how something new or unexpected can be made from paper, calligraphy materials, or paints. And I love how spending time in nature inspires my work.

I have decided that the focus on this blog will be the creative process itself. I will continue to show some of my works-in-progress, as opposed to more elaborate, finished artwork. I'd like this blog to show creative, everyday play with paper. I want it to be fun, and to inspire those of you who are visiting to try something you see here because it looks like it would be fun for you, too.

And I would like to show you how you can create some amazing things. I wish I still had the little books I made when I was a kid (I remember making a miniature catalog for a department store on Mars!). My mini books were tiny sheets of paper stapled together. I would have loved to learn the ways paper can be manipulated to make a book. My favorite books are often the simplest-- accordion folds, pop-ups, and single sheet books. I am always experimenting with ways to use these to express the beauty I find in nature.

 Thank you for reading this! Let me know if you try any of the ideas you see here. I would love to know!

Around the Corner

Open any book of quotations, and you will find a lot of G. K. Chesterton. He was a master of wit, and there are so many quotable sayings in his writings. Most of them are long, though, and difficult for a quick calligraphy project. This quote spoke to me at this particular stage of my life, and I decided to try to do something with it, even though my paper was only 9x12.

It says, "There is one thing that gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner."

Chesterton was an inherent optimist. I think it shows in this quote, and it is a sentiment I share.

The quote is lettered in a very chunky Italic. It really is too chunky for my taste, but again, I was limited by the size of my paper, and by the size of the pen. I used a Parallel Pen on Strathmore multimedia paper. You can see the hint of shine in the gold acrylic paint I swirled around it, and the center is a graphite rub. The Parallel Pen is wonderful for a spontaneous project, since there is no setup or cleanup involved. I keep one filled with Higgins Eternal ink for quick projects like this.

I also wanted to try a new calligraphy style, something more modern. Since I was already working with Chesterton quotes, I chose another one, and again lettered it with the same parallel pen. The script is (very!) loosely based on John Stevens's Latina. My practice paper was thin, and not conducive to the gymnastics required to do this script justice. I would like to try it again on better paper. It was fun to play around with.

These were fun to do, if not serious attempts at refined calligraphy. What a wonderful way to spend an icy afternoon! If I get around to redoing these, I will post it here.