keeping the colour

 

Well, the weather has been every-which-way as the tail end of the ex-hurricane sweeps through, and as the high winds have been making me restless, but the barometric pressure was making me ache, and my arm was really swollen and painful from crochet and knitting, I was really ready for something different, full of colour and…smell!

 

I realize I have very fond memories that surge up when I smell scorching wood or paper, watching Andy make his amazing art pieces by the fire, knives red hot on the grate, flowers and trees and stars springing out from the grain…my work is very different, no sacred geometry, all freeform as usual, but the scorch smell makes me smile all the same…Some friends came round to play with fire on Saturday and there was a lot of laughter and fun, and it was a lovely feeling to pass on his skills and show them the tools he made as well as finished pieces…they can never meet him, but they have a much stronger sense of him now, I’m sure. People aren’t really dead when their work is so alive…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then today I cleaned my sewing machine and played with the leaf stitch, using 3 threads at once, 2 up top, 1 in the bobbin. If you want to try this, a few tips: go slowly! And put the needle down before you start, have the heaviest thread in the bobbin, so the two ornamental threads balance it and keep your eye on the needle – if there seems too much tension, stop immediately, you don’t want a broken needle flying up in your face.

 

For  a post on using paper punches and scorching paper:

tooling up 😉

 

For a post on heat guns and fabric:

hot fabrics 1 the organza sandwich

box of delights

Suella asked about the tools Andy made to hot knife/scorch work. If you look at this box, he has used a few tools, the thin edge of a fish knife to draw the straight lines, the curved point of a fish knife to make the thickened ovals, and a blade cut to a chunky serrated edge for the centre spirals of the chrysanthemum sun and the conifer trees on the left hand side in the top image. The trees on the right are made with a knife cut to a five point star.

He was very fond of a rainbow palette and meticulous at varnishing to keep the vivid bolds of the pencils and watercolours he used. Till I met him I’d never seen anyone paint opaquely with watercolours, and I found it a bit perverse, but it does make for glowing colours.

If he’d lived, it would have been his 58th birthday…so I am a bit sad, not overwhelmed, but a bit blue…He was such a great artist/craftsman and poet, his performances were so funny, with the odd eco-warrior piece or mental health survivor piece thrown in to shake people up….such a box of delights all in one person 😉

He made this box as an anniversary/birthday gift for me and I keep my engagement necklace in it and some other treasures, including a note he wrote to apologise for being a grumpy old man in the morning! 😉 He mentions doing penance by washing up (which was his chore, I cooked!!!) so it always makes me laugh. I was reading a blog where a woman was sad she doesn’t get presents from her partner on Valentine’s Day, even though he is a lovely guy, he just hates commercialism. I commented that it’s not the presents, it’s the presence…and I don’t mean just because Andy’s dead, I mean that when he was alive we laughed and teased and gardened and made art and fell out about chores/tidiness (both at fault!) and were very present to each other in the everydayness of life…sharing your days makes life richer, much more than expensive holidays or bought jewellery. Time together is the great luxury, and the special moments are often the simple ones…