Sunday, March 1, 2015

phase 6 - each art thing is a responsibility, update

It started with wings...somehow, it always seems to start with wings for me. Let me explain:

So this week, I spent a good bit of time at home resting, but since carving is what I most want to do, not making any new blocks wouldn't be restful to me, it would be (art-)painful, so I finished this lovely plant block:



Then, I decided it needed new flowers...


and, of course, the flowers needed to be on marbled paper...



Once I finished the plant, I decided, I would take it easy and just finish the composition I'd arranged 2 weeks ago...but when I looked at it, it occurred to me that there was a reason I had left it unfinished and didn't want to go back to it. It wasn't glued down, so no harm in disassembling it. Thinking, thinking, thinking -  if it could be anything - what would I most want to put in this composition? Answer: wings. I like the new creatures but feel like they would be even better with wings. Even though I have (1...or maybe 3) wing blocks already...it turns out they aren't quiiiite the right size, and then, maybe I could make better ones if I tried again...





True.


I had fun printing them, using up all the scraps of  different marbled paper...but, there are 6 different color wings, and I only had 5 creatures, so...

partly inspired by last week's carousel horse
And, before you know it...
Still in process, but I like this much better (what composition isn't improved by the addition of a winged elephant? ;) )





I also continued organizing the studio. I thought I'd solved the "block storage" issue, and in a way, I did - the 'long-term' block storage situation, but it turns out, there may have been more than one issue there because the blocks were taking over the studio again. I'd been mulling over an "intermediate storage" solution (with a budget of 10 fancy coffees or less) and came up with this - it's a rack usually used to hold silkscreens with cookie sheets and oven liners. I like that I can look in and see the blocks, and start to sort them by type, but the limited space also puts a limit on how many blocks I can have out at once (which is probably a good thing ;).)

random photo of the week - Move over February, March is here!