Studio Saturday - Dolly

The summer sun is at the right angle to catch the leaves of the peace lily - yet another possibility for a woodblock print -

- but not yet, the grandbaby must have a doll.

I found a pattern, and dug out some recycled linen and a remnant from a favourite dress -

Failure to re-read the instructions led to some tricky moments attaching the head - "next time" I'll sew it on to the body as instructed, rather than stuffing it first!

 We got there in the end -

The tricky part is the hair; the scary part is  the embroidered face. This, I decided, is too much detail, and could so easily go wrong -

Better to leave the child to decide whether she's happy, sad, etc -

Dolly was well received -

Apart from Dolly, a new woodblock is under the knife.

Berlin, June 2015

Clearing out some emails - apparently 14.4GB of the allotted 15GB is used. How many emails make a GB? 

June 2015, our month in Berlin, on a house exchange. Here is Tony sitting in the vast flat. The weather turned cold, and the heating for the building had been turned off weeks or perhaps months ago.

A few days later I wrote to a friend:

"While the washing is finishing (55 mins to go) Tony is working on his current filming project and I'll be choosing a few photos to add to the blog. We had a good excursion yesterday afternoon, to the Gemaldegalerie - an hour in the company of medieval paintings, which I love, "religious" content notwithstanding. The gold leaf and the rich colours, 700 years on, shine through time. You can't help but think about the people who made them, and those who looked at them. And I love how they're often panels of an altarpiece that were folded up most of the time and then opened at special times ... like books?? ... in fact they were "books" for illiterate people, like the memory sticks I saw at the Dahlem [ethnographic] museum on Tuesday, not with writing as such but with meaningful marks to prod the memory."

During the time in Berlin I continued with Drawing Tuesday and filled a sketchbook at various museums, while Tony sat at the big table in the cold flat and worked on his filming project, wrapped in blankets.

Reading ...

Something for Freya to be getting on with

... with Granny Helen -

25 November

22 December

24 December

27 December - she's getting good at turning the pages

... with G.Ma (g.ma? g-ma? Geemaw???) - Granny Margaret -

18 December

... and in the library -

16 December

Christmas 2019

It's been a busy time, one way and another.

Today, a quiet morning and a chance to peacefully and appreciatively open the collection of cards kindly sent. It's amazing that the one from Germany reached me through the rain!

I'll be sending New Year "cards" by email, which saves paper and postage and allows funds to be diverted to various good causes (it's that time of year).

Over the past few days the joy of the season has centred around Freya, who has no idea what it all means but is just getting on with her fresh-every-day life. She's starting to crawl - watch out, world! -

The new puppets were a delight both to her and to all the adults who watched her reaction -

What she notices, and what she explores and returns to, is a constant surprise -

I got much pleasure from finding books on my shelves that might interest friends, and wrapping them in fabric from my stash -

(Actually it was a selfish ploy in the ongoing fight against the accumulation of possessions.)

More fabric wrapping, in the form of (book) bags -

When there are many to be made quickly, the algorithm simplifies itself. What evolved was a process of fabric (and cord) selection, approximate sizing, cutting or tearing inside and outside fabrics, sewing a "tunnel", pressing the drawstring casing, sewing it to the open ends of the (turned, pressed) tunnel, sewing up the sides, and threading the cord. Exact timing is unknown, but I can make one in less than half an hour, including finding suitable fabrics.

An unusual "woodblock Wednesday"

Thanks to the winter-illness season, I found myself doing emergency childcare so that The Poppet wouldn't have to spend waiting time at a walk-in clinic with her parents.

We had a lovely morning but she didn't spend much time on the play mat. Though she's not crawling just yet, she can roll and roll -

The mat started life as hand quilting (on beige, what was I thinking?!) in the '80s. So it's taken about 35 years to finish! The catalyst for the final push was finding some triangles and bias strips that had been cut from old shirts for some other project. I trimmed the ragged edges of the quilt, bound it, and appliqued the pinwheels to enliven the centre.

It seems to have a lot of mouth appeal -

But the bare floor had its attractions too. How is it that babies are interested in Every Little Thing?

To end the day,  a long coffee with a friend from afar, and then a film at the Francis Crick Institute - Hidden Figures, based on the true story of three African-American "computers" working for NASA in the early days of space flight, when IBM's computers were still under development and calculations were performed by people, usually bright women with maths degrees.

The film is set in 1961 - a time of entrenched segregation as well as American achievements in the space race -  but the women's  personal achievements had occurred earlier. There are also other discrepanicies in this heart-warming crowd pleaser, but hey, it's Hollywood!

So, all in all, I did nothing relating to the watery woodblocks. Next week is the last class.

Miscellany of the week

Yet more apples to cook and freeze - they are windfalls and obviously pesticide-free as each has its wormhole and messy core needing cutting away -

The never-ending saga of the railway bridge, once "home" to about a dozen rough sleepers, who were moved on by the barriers going up purportedly for a scheme to improve the lighting. That was in February, if memory serves.

Big bubbles at a funfair - fun, or humiliating? (or, claustrophobic??)

Lunch at a local cafe - pink tables and a choice of seating. And that Stroud Green Road view....

The grandbaby has returned from her holiday and is now a Big Girl. She has a new seat that expedites playing in the bath...

and another for use out of the bath, eg, joining in family meals. With both, she can't resist trying to get some or any part of it into her mouth, and size is no obstacle, not at first anyway; she gets That Look in her innocent blue eye and in an instant the mouth is approaching or has already reached the desired object -

Some of those windfall apples became a cake, whipped up by Tom -

Sunday morning in Priory Park, doing some bushwhacking the with conservation volunteers, revealing a hidden pond -

Studio Saturday - carving the "Korean doll" woodblocks

My blog holiday continues. Part of the reason is the computer setup - I've been standing at the computer for a year and a half, since an attack of sciatica -

Note the worn area of the floor!

Finally - yesterday - I could bear it no longer, and took everything off the desk. Some "real beeswax" furniture polish emerged from its place in the cupboard, where it had been for nearly 25 years, and gave the surfaces a nice shine -

So I'm sitting down writing this, and getting whiffs of that "old beeswax" smell.

Now for a clearout of the peripherals - the items from the top of the desk are heaped to either side. (Not a pretty sight.)

But first, a report on arty progress this week. No pots were prepared, but some sewing was done in those quiet mornings in the studio - this lap quilt, started some 35 years ago (dreary colour, what was I thinking) will become a play mat -

And there were lots of goings-on with woodblocks, specifically the "Korean dolls" started a couple of weeks ago.

I'm happiest when a project contains, in its final form, traces of its evolution or making. The dolls on which the drawing is based were the result of a lesson in fabric dyeing in the microwave, a long time ago when that technique was new - we dyed and re-dyed, layering the colours.

To replicate that effect, the blocks are divided into three areas for each doll, with the collars a combination of those colours, which may look different depending on the order they are printed.

 One block will be red, one blue, one yellow - but the shades in different areas could be different, or there could be layering of areas. How to do this will evolve once printing starts.

Before carving started, there were minor adjustments to the drawing ... and I almost forgot to turn it over before transferring to the block.

First colour block underway - the many thin lines of the "black" block will have to wait -

The "easy" cutting does give a chance for practice with thin lines. I'm keeping a list of podcast episodes listened to: when podcasts are on autoplay, one tends to slip into another and be forgotten immediately. The hours pass unnoticed!

The shapes look like pieces of dressmaking patterns, which is totally appropriate -

 Another session and the easy bits were all done -

 Starting the tricky bits -

Meanwhile, I'm missing the family - they're having a great time in Greece -

Sunday in the park, and elsewhere

 The windstorm dumped a lot of leaves and small branches onto the ground. Rubbings are so quick and easy ...

 While drawing in the park I got interested in the twiggyness of twigs -

 and the ropey stuff that holds the weathered seeds of London planes on the tree -

 Back home with greengages, apricots and (inevitably) tomatoes from the farmers market -

 Over the hill for more family fun -

Grandbaby and G-ma in mirror. Note the sartorial splendour of matching checks

Family feet under the table (Tom made the table)

Back home at dusk; this sort of shadow might be useful for a woodblock...

 Hello moon!

That's Jupiter off to the left