Learning Freeform Weaving

I am not a weaver but I am enjoying this free form activity using vines and roots from my garden. I have finally found a use for the ivy that tries to grow up my trees and he convolvulus (bindweed roots that infest the garden, especially where I have mulched.

It does take some time to forage, strip and dry the plant material before I can use it but it must be dried so it doesn’t shrink and distort the finished product. I feel very connected to both nature and the artisans who came before and practices a similar craft for practical reasons whereas mine is purely artistic in nature. I can understand that as they wove they began to think about adding pattern or other materials to the work to produce something that was unique to them. It is a fascinating journey and as I am very motivated in using botanicals in my art work it fits in just fine. I want to try weaving some straight convolvulus roots also - just to see how it comes together.

Creating a Blizzard Book

My art work often leads me to the creation of little journals or concertina books to present a process or idea. The Blizzard book is a more complex example of these. The first one I saw had me enthralled as to how you got those folds in place and could insert little tags in the folds. i was not to be beaten. It was very challenging working from written instructions but I finally got there. And now I am keen to do some more so next Saturday I am going to my art group who are having a day on making these. It should be fun.

I began by making a simpler concertina with the Blizzard folds just at the front and back. That wasn’t too hard but then came the challenge of folding every page in so that it created the folded “pockets. The size of the finished book is quite small in comparison to the paper size I started with.

Above you can see the simpler bottom pocket with a vertical fold to hold the tags. I thought it needed to be more integrated so I added a screen of leaves across the bottom. I cut out some little tags and stamped and coloured them with water colour pencils.

Practicing, I had just used white paper, so the next phase was to multiple layer print some paper for the full Blizzard. As a long piece the paper doesn’t look so appealing but I was counting on the folding mixing up the patterns and was pleased with the outcome. You can see a close up of the Blizzard book completed. And then I distressed some little tags with distress ink, stamped some images on them and coloured them with water colour pencils. The final image shows the tags inserted into the pocket folds

A Busy Couple of Weeks

Have you ever had one of those periods in time where everything seems to come at once? This has been one of those times for me so not a lot happening IN the studio but a lot of art stuff being carried out.

First there has been the children’s mould making school holiday at Shoppington (four hours a day every week day) - you can read about that in the earlier post. And then I presented the Stories behind some of my art work to the Waitomo Society of Arts. You can see some of my work that we discussed in the photo above. We had been trying to do this for a while. The evening was so successful they are thinking of making a regular feature of an artist talking about their work. I spoke of an hour and a half - with a power point assistance and there were lots of questions and interest for their own work going forward.

Somewhere in there I managed to sandwich in Marty Vreede’s collagraph printing course and online there has been the Zen summit 2023 and the Gel Plate Summit with various Gel plate enthusiasts offering new ways of working with the gel plate. I am still trying to master successful every time printing from laser prints and magazine prints.

I have been too tired at night to do much handwork but I have played around with making a Blizzard book. Next Saturday I will go to my Ngaruawahia art group and learn more about blizzard books. That might be the post for next week.

That should be enough for a while but at the end of the month there is the Taranaki garden festival and I am hoping to get down to that and maybe do a drawing course on botanicals. I feel so lucky to have all these opportunities but it is not helping me get on with my major project for the year as the stimulation of new ideas keeps overcoming good intentions. I will go down to Mokau to our beach batch and stay the night to reduce the travelling and regroup from there. I always really enjoy Taranaki, especially the photograph opportunities the trip will provide

As it is Spring here the garden is coming to life and so that mean there is much more to do out there. I have been starting off seedlings for the vegetable garden and trying to combat weeds that are popping up among the plants. The hostas and arasemas are coming through and of course I am fertilising with bio fertiliser. I tend to mass plant over Spring and Summer which cuts the weeding down a bit but at this time of the year there is still all the treasures that have been asleep for the winter that are bursting into life. I have mainly tried to attend to this after finishing with the children each day,

The maples are leafing up as are the gingko and cotinus. Sadly this year the liquidambar on the front lawn will not be bursting into life. It was split when cyclone Gabriel went through and will have to taken out this summer. It was a very large tree but fairly delicate in its branch strength. I will miss it as it was a main stay for eco dying. There is another one at the edge of the property so I won’t be entirely without my fave.

I am hoping to get some eco dying done while the Spring tannins are in the leaves - they give quite different effects to the older leaves.

And so the week rolls on full of activity and promise. I just need to get my old knees into better shape so I can fully enjoy the season.

Holiday Creative Fun

At the moment, here in new Zealand, it is school holidays. Each school holidays Shoppington provides a creative activity for children from 4 to 14. Kim has sourced some amazing silicon moulds and we are using a quick drying plaster of paris (about 20 minutes) for the children to make a mould of their choice. They get to mix the plaster in a plastic jug, pour it into the mould and jiggle the mould to get rid of any air bubbles. While they wait for their mould to cure there are lots of old fashioned games to play on the lawn

The looks of delight on the children’s faces when the somewhat bland looking mould produces a treasure of detailed plaster is worth the effort. I propagated a heap of succulents that they can plant in their pot if they so wish. We don’t have space for the painting activity, they need to do that at home, but Kim has provided mini pottles of primary coloured paint that they can access if they want. As a result time in the studio has been limited this week as I have been helping out with the activities. Another week to go next week!!!! But it is fostering a love of creativity for the little ones