Paw Prints

Inspiration books arrived yesterday:

• Crochet Me: Designs to Fuel the Crochet Revolution
• Couture Crochet Workshop: Mastering Fit, Fashion, and Finesse
• Everyday Crochet: Wearable Designs Just for You

They’re all encouraging and daunting at the same time. My ambitions aren’t quite reflected in any of the books, but they’ll help, i hope.

Inspired yet conflicted, I ripped out most of one seam of the first dress that i’ll be altering by adding top down shell inserts as additional gores.

Later in the evening i found my acrylic palette that is designed to keep paint moist, found the block of palette paper, and cut a template to make the palette paper insert into the sealable palette. This was the second step in returning to smaller scale work. (Ooh, that sounds so much like i know what i’m doing.) The giant clipboard was the first step, making it easier to work away from the easel.

I did play a bit with tar gel media mixed with the fluid acrylics. I ended up with a strong “primary” color palette, and fiddled for a while. I also discovered that i had bought Colour Shapers a while back, and found those fun to use after smearing pain all over my hand.

Left Wing (021110LeftW.JPG)

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

My friend Gurdonark writes this morning of a physics project that took many semesters. I have a project, too, that has languished.

I quit being an official graduate student in spring of 1998. I had made some valiant work on writing my dissertation over the winter, then had gotten pneumonia, broke the flow, and decided it was time to say, “The End.” I got a job and eventually got a master’s degree based on a paper i wrote very early in my graduate tenure. I’ve a bucket of frustrations in the area of my dissertation, knowing belatedly that the work i did out-stripped others’ PhD work, but i missed having someone help me understand when enough was enough.

After that experience, i started a project making a phoenix “costume” out of neckties. I envision a whole series of images: woman in bodysuit and necktie, woman bound in more neckties, woman cocooned in neckties, woman freed as bird with neckties as feathers. I worked a great deal in the last few years i lived in Philadelphia; once we moved to California, other concerns took over. For several years the completed right wing hung in our living room. I’d forgotten the simple work of stitching the left wing together was still needed.

This past March i set a deadline for this project, as the boxes of neckties do take up a bit of space that could be used for yarn. Also, i’ve risen my phoenix self from those ashes. I have discovered how i can crochet a torso piece, which answers a design question that has stalled me: how would i make the body of the costume?

Will i pull this out and complete it? Or will it suffer the same end as my dissertation? A third of the year stretches before me.

I could finish this.

Test: cube wall collage

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

I’ve been injured and not able to really use my left hand — and because i needed to keep my hand and arm elevated above my heart, it’s not been comfortable to sit much of anywhere but the sofa. I’ve read quite a bit.

I did make a collage/scrapbook/altered book from these things that were on my cube wall and some old corporate documentation. I took some photos this evening and will upload them eventually.

Tonight i did some gesso work on a three ring binder. I think i’ll just provide an abstract base painting (maybe with sponge work? maybe another experiment in different media and a glaze?) then collage on top some artistamps, and use the binder to hold received mail art.
artsomofo

GreyBrother in Leaves

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

No ArtSoMoFo today, i have looked around at some of my digitial images on my computer as i wind down from an evening doing Library Committee work at the Meetinghouse. This image asked to be posted — a series of three shots taken of GreyBrother when we lived in Philadelphia, digitized in 2002.

ArtSoMoFo-02

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

This is my Oct 2nd effort. My Oct 3rd effort is possibly something that “doesn’t count” but is what i could do for the evening, a Paw Prints Flickr set.

Another collection of images that might be useful would be a collage of “still in progress” images!
artsomofo

Hands

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

This painting probably doesn’t count as an ArtSoMoFo submission as the underlayer work in media and hansa yellow was done last night. When i mixed the paint to stain the un painted surface, though, i had to mix so much (because the ratios are like 40 magenta to twenty hansa yellow to one pthalo green) that i ended up painting two other paintings and still had paint on the palette at the end.

And all over my hands.