D is for ??? and more...

In our Living Your Word of the Year group we are using a fortnightly (bi-weekly) A-Z challenge throughout the year to help us focus on our word and live it out.

Because of the way I have made my journal it's a case of going with the flow of what background the pages have when I turn to them.

I could not decide what D word to use for these pages.  Why was a decision so hard to make?   In fact I did the E pages before the D pages which is just as well as it turned out.

Psalm 37 has come up several times so I am now assuming it is my verse or verses of the year.  So I looked at it again and found that verse 4 says: 'Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart'.

So there we have it: D is for delight.

As I said, I did the E pages first and needed to extend the pages.  I found a Teresa Collins folder in my scrapbooking stash and stuck it down on the D page so that it folded out for the E pages.  That's the cream bit with black pattern.

I searched on Biblegateway for delight and also looked for quotes online.  I thought the e.e.cummings quote sat well with the design on the page.

I printed out the other verses I found, cut them up and stuck them on the page.  I don't really doodle but I thought I could always come back to this page and doodle round the verses with a black pen.

Here are my pages together.

And now for a sneak peek at E.  Valerie has suggested we do vision boards for E.  So I hvae chosen the word Envision for E.   Valerie has made some suggestions to get you started on her Dig Deeper blog post.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice


Join Mary Brack, Valerie Sjodin and I in our Facebook group where we are giving participants the opportunity to live out an A-Z of their own word throughout 2019.  Mary explains what we are doing in her blog post.  We don't like a lot of rules, so we will have suggestions and options to spark creativity, and to help in recording and exploring our word’s meaning in visual and fun ways. We will each blog about our experiences and our art.

Hashtags on Instagram:  #livingyourword2019

Check out the other blogs:
Mary: www.foundonbrighton.com
Valerie: www.valeriesjodin.com/blog

To ensure you get updates from Valerie, Mary & I why not subscribe to our blogs.

Over the years I have taken many photographs of texture, intending them to be inspiration for my art or textile pieces.  Some of the photos never see the light of day again!  Do you have photos like that?

Whilst I was at Committed to Cloth I saw a book called Mark-making in Textile Art by Helen Parrot.  Never one to pass up an opportunity to buy another book, I duly ordered it from Amazon and it was waiting for me when I got home.

I have tended to see marks as something done with pens or brushes or maybe stitch.  I have never equated my photos of texture with marks.  So whilst we were at Evenley Wood Gardens I deliberately looked for marks.

With these first two photographs I can really see the relationship between nature and mark making.


The next few photos display shape and line.






And lastly two photos of a wooden bench that really looks like stone.  So many of the marks could be interpreted as stitch.


Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

We decided to go to Evenley Wood Gardens to see the snowdrops.  We were sure we hadn't been there before.  Until we arrived at the village of Evenley and had the whole déjà vu experience.

Yes, we had been there in 2017.  And looking back at the photos from then, I discovered that I took many of the same photos - standing in the same spot!

The major difference was that my 2017 photos had raindrops.

So, onto the 2019 visit.


















In 2017 we went to the Great Western Arms near Aynho for lunch.  This time we drove into Buckingham and had a walkabout and lunch at The Woolpack.

Another great day out.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

In our Living Your Word of the Year group we are using a fortnightly (bi-weekly) A-Z challenge throughout the year to help us focus on our word and live it out.

Because of the way I have made my journal it's a case of going with the flow of what background the pages have when I turn to them.

I chose Commit for my C word.

Commit?  Isn't that my word of the year?  Why, yes it is.  And I haven't done anything with the word so I thought this letter was the right time to start.

But first, I started with the February calendar.  At the end of the month I will put a photo on either side of the flap to show a couple of things I've done during the month.


I had read Valerie's Washi Tape Adventure blog post and tried out  putting strips of washi over the highly patterned page.  I wrote various scriptures in the gaps.

More washi tape with arrows!  Then I wrote a definition of commit, some synonyms and a different translation of Psalm 37:5


Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice



Join Mary Brack, Valerie Sjodin and I in our Facebook group where we are giving participants the opportunity to live out an A-Z of their own word throughout 2019.  Mary explains what we are doing in her blog post.  We don't like a lot of rules, so we will have suggestions and options to spark creativity, and to help in recording and exploring our word’s meaning in visual and fun ways. We will each blog about our experiences and our art.

Hashtags on Instagram:  #livingyourword2019

Check out the other blogs:
Mary: www.foundonbrighton.com
Valerie: www.valeriesjodin.com/blog

To ensure you get updates from Valerie, Mary & I why not subscribe to our blogs.

I have just got back from a 5 day retreat at Committed to Cloth called Unlocking the Mystery of Creative Play.  I went last year to the same course - only to find that it was totally different this year.  Partly due to the make up of the group and partly to do with my thought and design processes having moved on in 12 months.

My starting point was the theme of 'taste' for a new series of work on Senses.  I had in my head the idea of oranges and lemons and the nursery rhyme to go with it.   However as you will see from the photos it developed into a more abstract form.

I started with mark making - first trying a rubbing with a commercial stencil.

I moved on to making marks with various circular objects.


And then tried words with various tools.  I love drippage.


I cut some of the pieces up very small to make mini collages.

I played with the bits left over after I'd cut circles out.  I loved the circular mark at the bottom of this page which reminded me of the spray from peeling an orange.  I had this made into thermofax screens with 3 different sizes of the image.

I joined four A3 sheets of black card together and glued all the bits down - the circles and the bits from round the circles.

I took numerous photos of sections of the above using grey 'L' shapes.  I've just put one photo here to represent the 12 I took.

I used my new thermofax screens over the top of the large sheet.

Then I took the sheets apart and worked on the individual A3 sheets.


I looked at segments.

I played again with the 'L' shapes


The next 4 photos show the sequence of auditioning and the final cut.




Here are some of the other pieces I made.   Each of them went through the auditioning process and the cutting process before being pinned to the wall.



And then more mark making



And my final gallery displaying my 5 days of work.

In the last hour I was there I took the original sheets of mark making and tore them up and glued each of 2 pieces of paper together to make a book.  I'll do another blog post on that soon.


I don't know whether any of these ideas will make into a textile piece.  I don't think it matters really - I just had a happy creative time and that's what matters.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice