Scans of Acer leaves unfurling (once a week from the end of March)
Reconfigured grid drawing (acorn gall+ iron ink and masking fluid)
Grid drawing filled in with natural ink
Single sheet folded book of flowerpot base plasticine prints (and acrylic paint)
Carving and stamping one of the flowerpot prints to create a repeatable pattern
A week of continuing on with projects started earlier in the month… happy to complete April’s daily drawings (now one third of the way through the year - doesn’t time fly when you can’t go anywhere?!) The drawings this month were done with a ruling pen and masking fluid, then coloured with a range of natural inks. Some worked better than others, but I’d like to use these as a starting point for some embroidered drawings. Edging slowly towards using colour as the garden begins to brighten up.
I’ve been scanning buds/leaves from the Acer tree outside my studio each week since the end of March. Fascinating to see the progress of the leaes as the tree comes into full leaf. I’m going to try to remember to keep scanning monthly from now on to capture the colour changes between now and October. I made the sequence into a short animation, which you can see on my Instagram feed.
I photocopied my garden grid drawing from last week and cut each square in half to reconfigure the layout. I tried this out in monochrome with acorn gall/iron ink and then masked out a second version for natural inks. It feels like work in progress rather than a finished piece, but I’m interested to see how it’s shifting into quilty territory. This garden residency is confirming my longstanding interest in switching between paper and fabric.
I also re-visited my flowerpot base plasticine prints - making an A4 sheet of prints into a folded single sheet book (the colour is neon pink acrylic, but looks like a flat red in the photo). Frustrated by the ephemeral nature of the plasticine, I traced one of the early prints and carved it in rubber. This makes a stable block to create a repeat pattern… unexpectedly starts to feel a little like a medieval tiled pattern. Not sure the bottoms of plastic flowerpots were the original inspiration for church floors all those centuries ago!