fine focus

 

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Carving out the internal shapes with color is intoxicating. The base is 40's era service weight linen. My name for it. Loomed at 27 inches wide. The thread count is tight. Mistakes will slap the eye so best to slow down and place the needle rather than stab with it. It's hard to resist the "punk, punk, punk". 

A drawing from my ancient history. In the inside cover of one of those little pink and black test prep books. Copied to tracing and graph paper and enlarged many times. Kept all these years and many iterations. 

It had to be my third year taking the course. The was something on the board, a bunch of lines and arrows. I was listening intently. My flare pen was on autopilot. 

 I believe the 66 I got on the final was a mercy grade. 

How have I not watched Vanilla Sky before now?

Practice

I finished this today. All the lines anyway. Still thinking about what could or should be happening in the interior spaces. 

Or not. To keep up the point of the line, there may be some text. 

There is a disturbance in my force. Yesterday, three different shows or movies featured people in extremely tight spaces. Each time I had to look away within seconds and change the channel. Somehow I bit my tongue. 

Probably spared myself a lot of nonsense. Instead, I rewatched the Deadwood movie and got a masterclass in applying flashbacks. The Usual Suspects instructed pacing and dialogue. 

And rereading one of my own early chapters reminded me to Let It Fly. 

I'm really disappointed with True North. 

Discussion?

There is springtime cattitude around here.

 

Tides turn

It had to happen because I do it every year. When the thread inventory goes dormant, I have a little ritual called Rescuing the Mutts. 

I've come to realize that the images of the hanks of thread are not as visually appealing as those hanks wound onto the cardboard bobbins. Even I prefer looking at those little squared-off bobbins, but the final wind-off was time-consuming, physically detrimental, and very expensive. 

So, to everyone who didn't take an immediate shine to these Leftover Souls, these Mutts...my stash thanks you!

And THIS COLOR is haunting me. 

A deep teal blue trying to sneak up on navy when no one is looking. Even this one is a shade too cool. But I have been seeing a version of it popping off the screen for a while now. Maybe it's my eyes?

In the recent remake of Perry Mason, set in LA during the Depression, it's in almost every frame. The vestments of a quack faith healer, hats, earrings, tiny little details everywhere. In The Kings Garden (Alan Rickman's last film) it was the Royal color, never mentioned always visible. 

Look for it. You'll see what I'm talking about. There is some kind of psychological hook in play here. 

 

As I wound these I was thinking about the course I'm planning. Teaching the Dirty Thread Boogie. 

Why did I call them "dirty" in the first place? Mostly because I work outside on the same wooden table where I do my houseplant cleanup and repotting, with very little of the cleanup factor. 

The deck is uncovered, opened to the sky, the woods, and runoff from the roof. Tree trash is delivered daily, free of charge. All my tools are out there as well. Moldy and mossy. And when I'm slinging dyes things get dirty. 

In the first picture up top, that flash of green in the red and gold? Dirty gloves.

This pinch of brown and lavender? I don't change gloves when I'm flipping the skeins over. Color transfer is inevitable. Desirable even.

The Circle Casting project is on a brief hold while I wait for transfer paper to be delivered. 

In the meantime, another piece of ancient art history was unearthed and slated to be stitched in full color. The original was done inside the back cover of Introduction to Geometry which I failed three times. Small wonder. This version is 8x24 inches.

 

memories wash up daily

2.15.21 

No writing, no stitching, but I was creeped by a handsome Creeper. We ate dreck (thanks, Uncle Josh), watched Pinky Malinky, and renamed the funny bone "The Brutal Bone".

I love how this Hail Mary selfie captured Charlie's attempt to appear menacing despite the giggling. 

Low rails of process

 

Of course, I had a list- never numbered.

First I had to improvise an ironing board. I can't remember ever owning one. Long ago I bought two yards of padded heat-resistant stuff and stapled it to the top of an old dresser. Long gone now. 

Then to select a supporting cloth for the dyed contemporary linen which is lightweight. I still have yards of that 1940's vintage mid-weight linen my brother rescued from a real estate clean out. Perfect support. Weighty, stable yet easy to needle through both. The last image is some test stitching I did right after typing that wishful thinking. Wishes came true. It's a pleasure to stitch.

I really dallied over the ironing. It was emotionally evocative. The same grandmother who gave me the maple embroidery hoops and taught me to cross stitch also taught me to iron. For her, it was a living and a task taken seriously. 

I polished both sides of each cloth, then married them together with steam and pressure. There was much (mostly unnecessary) pinning and basting before measuring and basting on guidelines.

 

All of this a commitment to an outcome. 

Spell casting takes work. 

Then came the fun part. I lost myself and my carers for hours sketching the letterforms. The ampersands will be the death of me, but not the project. 

When the words "and the" wouldn't fit, I couldn't remember what a proper ampersand looked like and had to google some examples. 

I'm still not sure I want to deviate from the original. That would mean starting over with an adjustment to scale and placement. 

Slow and thoughtful steps will keep me from abandoning the whole thing.

This sketch was done on a large drawing pad. What I really needed I knew to be buried deep in the bedroom closet. Tracing paper and the T-square I bought in art school tucked away in the dusty portfolio. 

Not in the same portfolio was an 18"x24" painting I was hoping to find. Nothing more than a large section of type (Times New Roman, if memory serves) meticulously reproduced in acrylics with what I remember as a watercolor brush with about ten hairs. Sable. Black letters on a dark teal background. THE lettering about two inches high. I'm sorry it's gone as it was strangely beautiful.

I also wonder why the actual text had zero significance.

Other things from a typical 60s art portfolio. Some hard-earned psychedelia, the drawing assignment "Don't lift your pen from the page" and a surprisingly effective dab at watercolor - something I love looking at but never studied. 

And yes, the two layers of linen needle very nicely, otherwise I might just take the cloth out in the yard and hang it in the crepe myrtle grove and watch it slip back into nature.

The circle IS cast.