Mornings in the studio

For more than a week now I've been showing up "in the studio" at 9am every morning, and staying there till 1, with a coffee break or two. (Not on Mondays, those are spent in the office, earning a crust.)

After the first morning, folding fabrics, I certainly didn't plunge straight into productive work, oh no. There was palpable resistance, even downright denial. Where to start? What to do?

So one day I darned socks while listening to the radio, and then sorted out all my big sheets of paper. Another day I grappled with rescuing a pair of my son's trousers (but that's another story for another time).

One day I photographed my accumulation of TravelWriting and started to blog it - here. It meant being out of the studio and at the computer, but I resisted surfing and emails.

Yesterday I realised I couldn't listen to the radio and do design work, or anything that needs thinking. Much as I love listening to Radio 4 all morning, it has to be turned off sometimes.

So, with the radio off this morning, I was about to try to linocut some of the TravelWriting, and then remembered that styrofoam meat trays and pizza bases can easily make stamps. It didn't take long to trace (with a knitting needle) over the lines of an enlarged photocopy that was lying about, with this result. I like the embossed back of the photocopy -
The block is about 10cm high. With thermofax inks and a sponge brush, I painted and printed that little block many times - here's one result, black and grey on calico that had been lightly rust dyed -
and here are two more - the small piece on top of the "yardage" (silver on black) is for experimentation -
Another aspect of the "studio mornings" is the cleanup: it's a (self-imposed) rule that the table top is clear, ready for tomorrow, before I leave the room. The little black piece is lying there in splendour, ready for the next stage; and hopefully what the next action will be is fermenting in my subconscious....