I’m much more organized…

now I’ve made myself an organizer.

In theory, anyway.

By consulting my organiser I can tell you that today was marked out for getting ready for college tomorrow, and working on my research project.

Of course, that didn’t allow for slippage - this morning was spent finishing off the book of photos instead.

After lunch I got round to looking at the list of requirements for tomorrow – which is ‘student managed sketchbooks’. [No, I don’t know either.] The list includes a sketchbook - we had a discussion last week about whether this meant an old sketchbook or a new one. In the absence of a definitive ruling I made an executive decision and packed a new one – or rather three – a commercial one and two hand made ones, of different sizes.

The next thing was ‘images relevant to your research project’. Like pictures of books? It was at this point that I realised that when I think of artists books, I think of books like these – and it is difficult to see how images like those might relate to working in a sketch book – apart from just drawing them, which I don’t think is the idea.

Which made me think. Maybe I ought to to put something on the pages of the books I make? Like this? [I love Dorothy Krause’s stuff.]

I assembled a few images to explore in paint or collage – mostly sort of grey, blurry, amorphous things. Hey, Picasso had his blue and pink periods – I can have a grey, blurry, amorphous period!

Back to the list.  ‘Materials which reflect your practice or are experimental and will complement what you have planned.’ This of course assumes that you have ‘a practice’ and/or have planned something.

After panicking long, hard thought I  decided my practice was probably splashing left over paint at random on bits of paper, ripping them up, sticking them down and printing computer manipulated images on them – a tiny bit like Krause but without her talent – so I assembled lots of interesting bits of paper and must remember to take the laptop. I shan’t print anything in college, though – I think it will cause less aggro if I don’t wreck their printer by putting strange layered things through it – that might be a bit too experimental.

So now I have 6 bags sitting in the hall, containing paper, sketchbooks, books, paints, glue, and drawing stuff – and the all-important organiser. That’s not counting my lunch bag and my handbag. This is one of the problems of not knowing what you are doing – you take everything you think you might possibly need and you still don’t have the right things.

I think I need a mule.

By now it was mid-afternoon and I hadn’t even thought about the RP – well, apart from the thinking that went into getting ready for college. [My brain hurts.]

To be fair to myself, I have been doing a bit of reading in the evenings – this, which is where I first came across Krause’s work, and this – but I’ve been put off making notes by the thought of working direct into an A3 book. Difficult to manage on your lap, along with the book you are making notes from, a spritzer and a cat.

So use a ring binder, I hear you cry. In the old days, I would have grabbed the nearest ring-binder and got started – but that is no longer good enough.

1. Take one tatty old ring binder.
2. Take two experimental screen prints which almost match, sew them together, quilt them and make a cover.
3. Take two experimental bits of calico, gesso, muslin and wallpaper [inspired by Lynda and Carol] and make end papers. Sew on a page protector to one to make a pocket  and stick them inside the ring binder with carpet tape. [The left hand one is back to front – when I made it I used up left-over bobbins in the machine, so the wrong side is multicoloured, and I decided I liked it better.]
4. Make dividers from an old calendar, and add paper.

Now I feel much more organised.