The Season

of cobwebs

misty mornings

and many meetings.

The time for one last lunch in the garden

the last village show for me to judge

and possibly the last opportunity to wear sandals.

I love the Autumn and look forward to wrapping up warm, snuggling under the duvet and sitting by the stove for a cosy evening at home.  I looked at my journal from last year and noted that we spotted the first leaves changing on September 2nd.   This year, all was still green, until the cold and almost frosty morning earlier in the week.  Now, there’s a distinct chill in the air and the washing comes in from the line feeling cold and damp.

Lesley, I agree that sometimes, it’s more fun to live the life than to journal it.  A quiet day at home today meant that both Mary and I were able to catch up and we are both now back on track. 

For Jane

Jane tells me she’s tired of seeing the zebrafish, so this tray of tomatoes is for her.  There’s been way too much going on around here in the last few days to blog about, but please, bear with me and normal service will be resumed shortly.

The tomatoes were at Daylesford Organics this afternoon, when we dropped in on the way home from lunch at The Plough at Kingham and Whichford Pottery.

Have a peek at the yummy damson parfait I had at The Plough whilst you’re here!

Yes, I’m four days behind with the journal…

Patchwork and Zebrafish

I love my work.  I never know what fascinating things I’m going to encounter and what unexpected diversions I’m going to take in a day and yesterday, day 4 of the ongoing project was the perfect example.  This little fish was going to play a starring role.

From time to time, a large parcel will arrive, containing the work of a student taking a creative arts certificate, for me to assess.  I never know what’s inside these parcels, don’t really know the student unless, as happens occasionally, I find myself assessing more than one module of their course.  On this occasion, I opened the box to find two lovely patchwork cushions, inspired by the student’s son’s work in marine biology.  The design was based on the nucleotide sequences of the zebra fish.

What?

Thankfully, K  had explained the foundation for the design in her notes, so I was able to see how clever she’d been in choosing the inspiration for her work.  But having completed my assessment and packed the parcel up again, I wanted to know more.

I also recognised how much I’d learned about genetic sequences of this little fish already and thought I’d use it as the theme for page 4 of my journal, prepared as above.  I mulled over the possibilities and the design potential of the seemingly random lists of letters and thought they’d work well as a background.

I know I’d said that I wasn’t going to use my computer at all in this project, but I can break my own rules!  I went online and found the nucleotide sequence to print out before auditioning it on the page.

Too big.  Too heavy. 

I went back and printed it out on tissue paper instead.  (You know how to do that, don’t you?  Tape a piece of tissue to a normal sheet of printer paper and put it through the printer as usual.  Peel off the printed tissue and you’re done..)

I printed off a sheet of zebrafish at the same time, thinking that the tissue would look good over the piece of pearly card I’d glued on the foundation for this page (thanks, Jordi…that was in one of the lucky bags you’ve shared with me!)  It was finding this picture which sent me off on a whole new path of discovery.

Who knew about the importance of Zebrafish?  Not me!  But reading more, I could see the relevance of studying the genetics of this small fish and I was delighted that my curiosity had led me down this road.

Rather than use a slab of genetic code, I decided to cut it into strips, to align with those two coloured lines I’d zigzagged onto the foundation using my sewing machine.

I even tried to squeeze the strip under the stitches but soon gave up on that!

I stuck them down instead, and carried the lines of type over to the next page, because it seemed odd to cut them off mid sequence.

I mod-podged the tissue paper fish down over the pearly card, feeling cross that I not only managed to stick them upside down but also made a hole in it as well.  Grrrr. 

I auditioned a couple of wavy, watery lines created with a rubber stamp but rejected them, preferring to stick with the limited palette I’d got so far.

But I assembled the word “zebrafish” as the title for the page and tried it in a few places before settling on what I thought was the best position.

Last, I needed a little text block to explain the significance.  I’ve been using sticky labels from a packet of Martha Stewart designs, bought whilst on holiday in Utah.  But though I tried several positions, it just didn’t seem to fit.

My hero offered his opinion (when asked!) and agreed, it wasn’t right.  I quickly punched a circle, stamped a border with the same brick red ink as the title and thought it looked better.

Lastly, I stuck a larger sized fish over the hole in the tissue paper.

Finished.  Done.  Except that word “bra” keeps jumping out at me.  I might do something about that in a minute…

The creative process isn’t easy, is it?  But how pleased I am to learn more about and celebrate this little hero of a fish!

Update on Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 3:04PM by Gill Thomas

The action I took to remedy the bra situation is my photo of the day!

Day 2 – and I’m keeping up

One of the advantages of binding those pages into a book before I began was that they are in a fixed order…each day, I simply have to work with what’s there.  I know what I’d do otherwise.  I’d spend ages dithering over which page to choose, which colours to work with and all of that.  As it was, I dithered for quite some time anyway.

The next page in the book was blues and peachy colours.  I thought there was too much white space and wanted to perk it up a bit.  The theme for the day was teaching, and though it was really supposed to be a reflection on the events of Sunday, after a day at work, teaching and learning was very much on my mind.  As a result, it refers more to Monday…but it’s my book and I can do what I want!

I added the date in a brick red, punched a star and coloured that with the same stamp pad as I used for the word “teach”.  I used the same denim blue paint for a few dots to fill that space too.  The thought for the day reflects on the discussions in my meeting; I had a good opportunity to watch, to listen and to observe – and to learn, of course.

Off we go

It’s the start of September and time to begin Learning Something New Every Day.  I know, it’s the second of September today, but come on, I’ve got to live the day before I can know what I’ve learned and write it down, haven’t I?

Of course, I was champing at the bit, raring to get going because I knew that I’m working almost every day next week and getting ahead of myself is one way of keeping up.  So, yesterday afternoon, in between getting a few things ready to make a paella for friends last night, I bound those pages I painted into a concertina binding.  Exactly the same method I showed here, but the more pages there are to manage, the trickier it is to keep the whole thing straight.  But hey, I was trying not to be too neat on this one, wasn’t I?

The end result wasn’t half bad, the pages opened flat and gluing them back to back strengthened the pages too.  OK, there were one or two wobbles here and there but once the glue dried, the whole thing hung together rather better than I had dared hope.

Of course, it needed covers though.  Sticking to my principle of keeping this thing all hand made and “unplugged” I pulled out a sheet of random painting I’d done earlier in the year, following a free online class.  I know, it was exactly this kind of instructor-driven stuff I’m trying to avoid, but the painted sheets were there and this seemed a good use for them.  I glued them to stiff cardboard covers and left the thing to dry.

It wasn’t without the occasional minor disaster.  The bottle of glue I’d been using was somewhat fragile; the plastic had become brittle over time and it was already bandaged up with duct tape.  Nevertheless, when it was still half full, I couldn’t bear to throw it away so I was happily squeezing the bottle to get every bit of it out when SPLAT!  The bottom of the bottle burst open and the contents oozed everywhere.  aaagh!   Fortunately, my paint palette was on hand and I dumped the lot in there (yes, still couldn’t throw good glue away…sad, isn’t it?)  Using an old credit card I used every last drop to bind the book and even had the unexpected but very enjoyable experience of peeling all the dried up glue from my palette this morning!

The bound pages are pretty secure and now it’s all dry, it’s pulled together well.  I used a couple of pieces of Japanese linen tape to hold it together – I have a roll of wider, lime green linen tape somewhere but until I track it down, the plum check will have to do!

I used some of the denim blue acrylic paint to colour the edges of the cardboard, too.

So, what about the inside, then?  Time for the first observation and the entry for September 1, 2012.

The paella.  I have never made it before but fancied having a go when friends were coming for supper this weekend. I didn’t think our shallow pans were big enough, so had looked in a couple of shops in Gloucester Quays (Le Creuset outlet and similar) on Friday afternoon after work, but nearly fainted at the price – I was not prepared to spend £100 on a new pan just to make a paella in!  But shopping in Cirencester yesterday, the kitchen shop had a window display featuring…paella pans!!  (The real McCoy too)   One was perfectly sized and at £9.99 a rather more affordable purchase.  My hero and I got all the ingredients prepped in good time and were able to enjoy the company of our friends as I cooked Jamie Oliver’s Paella and ate a few tapas at the same time!

So, the Paella adventure prompts the first observation of the project.  Easy peasy!