High blue skies. No clouds. Wind is up giving us a little whitecap action on the water surges towards us with the wind being distinctly from the North. Same olive leaves. Tinges on color on the edges, but not much. It is very much the tail end of summer--with no autumn in sight.
Started in on the baskets of tomatoes this morning. Endless amounts of leeks, carrots, tomatoes, carrots, garlic, pepper, salt, parsley and basil stewing down to nothingness (or at least my hope). It should be a couple of days to get this going...but now thinking about it...a few pots on the stove versus one might help. The lady at the Kingtown Road apple stand says that this is the season that her Nesco (an enormous, church supper style slow cooker) comes in handy. I Now....can understand. I've always wanted to have a reason to own a Nesco....and it might be within our sights. We'll see.
Poor Shady with her cast was the talk of the cross country meet. Everyone had the universal opinion and remarks...with all of our hearts touched in her sweet demeanor, trying hard to be a good sport and amble along on three legs versus her full set. Lots of positive reinforcement for A. and his good time and placement. He is on top of the world. He is reading a book (!! not something that he often puts forth as an option) right now and is planning an afternoon with friends.
There is the lawn and some trumpet vine management for his parents. The fragrant hosta have died down. The second generation of day lilies are coming up.
Memento mori marches forward. It is interesting to look at William Morris more closely. He is very good at moving the forms into the foreground and background--forcing leaves to bend and have a plane in front and back. He has a little signature curly shape/tube that he uses as fill from the big plants he imposes on the canvas. The color is linear or blocked in...allowing overlap and shapes (a la the tiger teeth) to give the viewer another color in that transition. Color helps his illustrations, enlivens them--but relative to the composition, seems almost incidental. I am going to work with these ideas a bit. Maybe not Now, now. But soon.
So, the book finishing on October 1 will be all black and white. I think the next one will be the same...and then a slow introduction of color if it feels right. I like having these self-imposed guidelines on the work as there is so much in each space, that some constraints force me back into the image and hand without color, the sword of Damocles, hanging over my head. The work seems better/ tighter with limitations on topic , color and size. I will continue to use this wonderful Canson paper (Montval Field Sketch book) but will only use one side of the paper as R and I concurrently came to the conclusion that the work may want to be removed from the books without worrying about what's on the back. Using that think, it is a dilemma about what to show, what to remove etc. Though there are scans, there is a liveliness to the real ink on paper. The real thing.
Priced a 128 page book (black and white text, color color, perfect bound) with a limited quantity being 35 books, and it figured at $5.92. If I boost my quantity to 50--they figure in at $5.47. And at 100 pcs it goes to $4.93. So, even doing 50 will not break the bank. Full color doesnt cost much more than black and white.The other cost is the gorgeous epson print for the cover and ribbon...but even at $2. a pop...how bad is that for cost of goods? or cost of promotion?
Another thought, take the patterns that are evolving in this process and create a separate publication for them. The thing that would take this one step further is to include a cd of these files (in illustrator or in a vector format) and include the art as part of the pub. allowing whoever purchased the piece to have a library of scrap they can utilize. It goes against the exclusivity thing, but could be a nice extra particularly if it had borders and frames? Another way to get the work out there...and if the Roger DeMuth "I can easily do 700 of them in a week" holds true...there are plenty of patterns where they have come from... Thoughts?
More later>>
Image above:
William Morris, "Brer Rabbit" block printed furnishing cotton, manufactured by Morris & Co., 1882, England, Fashion Institute of Technology, NYC.