5th Annual Artist Retreat - Day 2, inspiration

Monday is Oz began much the same as days begin here - a cuppa or two of coffee enjoyed with a morning chat while reading the paper/perusing favorite blogs.

Pam was kind enough to lay out the indigo book I'd made for her. It's antique Japanese receipt book paper that I painted, mono printed, run through the printer, tore, stitched, burned (shhh...don't tell) and covered with recycled denim. There are snippets of the red boat from Newburgh throughout as Pam was with me in spirit last year for Sandra Brownlee's Tactile Notebooks class in Scotland.

Before the real work began, I took advantage of the table sized cutting board to trim a bit of silky merino that I'd dyed and rusted. Christine - it is beautiful!

Down in the studio, we were wondering just what to do with the papers we'd painted, printed, scratched, torn, poked holes in, etc. on Sunday and were drawing a blank. Did we want to end the week with samples or a book or wall pieces?

Just when all seemed lost, Pam clicked the link to Day In & Day Out. Karen's post of her Composition in Red 3 inspired us. Karen, we hope you don't mind that we took your idea and ran with it.

Suddenly, sheets of paper that had been uninspiring took flight.

We soon needed more papers to work with. Thinking of our friend Julie had me experimenting with a shallot

while Pam played with the antique Japanese paper. 

All in all, day 2 was very productive. 84 tags of possibilities.



Christine, Fiona, Julie, Lotta and Susan - if you felt that you were being talked about/to yesterday...well...you were...by Pam and I. Your presence was felt in the studio and it had fun.