Ruth Bound, Not Fiddling Around...

Last Friday Ruth was busy binding a book (as well as doing some writing & design). I find these sorts of activities fascinating to watch - partly because I'm clueless about book binding, and my writing and design skills aren't much better - but largely because these "little skills" produce so much that make life worth living.

The above drawings are in the order they were done ( a number have been left out). What I find interesting is the way they evolve from tight, awkward, and incoherent (in the top image) to something looser but more coherent in the bottom image, even though it does have some significant proportion issues.  I think that has to do with building of a subconcious model of what one sees, and which is what one actually draws from. She also brought her fiddle, but my drawings from that were a disaster, and I'm too embarrassed to put them up.

On Monday my schedule fell apart (as it is wont to do from time to time) so I spent time working on the paintings of Marissa and Said, two of the coolest people I have ever met. There's still a good deal of work to do on both paintings, but they seem to be coming together.

That was going well, and I figured that - given as rain was predicted for the whole day - I wouldn't get distracted and hence could get something done. But afternoon noon the sky cleared, and with all the rain we've had this spring there was no way I could stay inside. There's a shadowed corner of the garden I've been dying to paint, what with its confusion of knotweed, hawthorn, and forget-me-nots. But as the weather these days is so unpredictable, it had to be quick and dirty....