Thursday 19 April 2012

Explorations

One advantage to being homeless, at least in the sense of not owning or renting, is the ability to help friends out by house-sitting. I can see the attraction -- the lack of bills to pay for the bricks and mortar for starters -- and the opportunity to pick up and go has its moments.

Especially when sunrise turns the Front Ranges to pink....

Morning

and when one heads out to take the dogs for a walk in the crisp morning, to find a path littered with crystallize structures Benoit Mandelbrot would get excited about.

Watch your step

The countryside isn't the only thing I've been exploring: I've resumed work on My Past Life, a project that I've picked up and put down several times in the last few years. One reason I've been visiting it sporadically is that I know what I want it to look like when I'm done, but I keep finding that certain elements, like the artist book to accomplish the fibre sculpture portion, requires skills that I haven't yet acquired.

The illustrations are a good example: I had originally thought of doing a unique book with monographs, but eventually decided that a limited-edition that I could sell would probably be a better idea.

Ready for printing

And that's meant learning how to create images in a different way that I have in the past, so I took a beginning etching class at Alberta Printmakers. I'm very pleased with how my spawning sockeye salmon on copper has turned out.

Away with ye

After inking, I tried out different papers to see how the colours and textures affect how the ink is picked up. Having done a lot of reading about different techniques, it was interesting to actually get my hands dirty: I love the smell of printing ink....

Larger formats

If you're a regular reader, expect blog entries to get somewhat sporadic over the next few months -- even more so than lately! I hit the road in a couple of weeks for points east, and eventually south-and-east, learning and experimenting with image-making, words, and fibres.

And, with luck, getting to catch RUSH in concert somewhere this fall.

Books for Sale

The shop is currently empty.