January is well advanced. I've been through the good intentions (the resolutions never did happen), and through the disillusionment caused by not a single one of those good intentions getting off to a flying start (don't they know it's a new year?) and I have more or less reached the point where I remember that there's nothing particularly special about That One Day and that I'm perfectly able to fail my good intentions at any time of the year.
I've signed up for a year long printmaking course at Hot Bed Press. It's a tad indulgent - I've covered a lot of the methods before, and there's no real reason to think that they'll go better or worse this time - but already it's succeeding at what I saw as one of it's aims, in that I'm busy printing more, and just for the hell of it! No masterpieces yet, mind you. I have an inkling that they might need more than enthusiasm. Preparation, perhaps. Planning ahead, maybe. Well thought-out ideas, even.
Aside from the course, my brain is buzzing with plenty of ideas for prints and bookarts. Just the way one might hope at the start of the year, and especially with two book fairs looming (Leeds and Bristol) and no progress on anything much outside of my head. There's still time, but there won't be if I don't get down to firming these ideas up into something a lot more solid and organised, and soon. I can't decide if following Sarah Bryant's Big Jump Press blog makes me more or less likely to get on with working - she's just so organised and methodical, and while I tell myself I could be more like that, I'm not convinced at all that it's true. But I do not want another week like the Tiger Blue week, and so long as I keep reminding myself of that (how to spoil a really quite well planned project by not leaving anything like enough time, and therefore being disappointed with the results while knowing that it's done now and it can't be re-done) then maybe it'll be enough to push me to get on with things.
Can I just make a claim that the snow (good grief, the snow! Spent much of today digging the road out, in spite of the possibility that it might all thaw overnight) and the cold and short days and the weather and January in general don't help? Is that even true? No, no excuses. What I need to do is to build up a stock of prints and books ready for when I need them. What I need to do is to do.
I've signed up for a year long printmaking course at Hot Bed Press. It's a tad indulgent - I've covered a lot of the methods before, and there's no real reason to think that they'll go better or worse this time - but already it's succeeding at what I saw as one of it's aims, in that I'm busy printing more, and just for the hell of it! No masterpieces yet, mind you. I have an inkling that they might need more than enthusiasm. Preparation, perhaps. Planning ahead, maybe. Well thought-out ideas, even.
Aside from the course, my brain is buzzing with plenty of ideas for prints and bookarts. Just the way one might hope at the start of the year, and especially with two book fairs looming (Leeds and Bristol) and no progress on anything much outside of my head. There's still time, but there won't be if I don't get down to firming these ideas up into something a lot more solid and organised, and soon. I can't decide if following Sarah Bryant's Big Jump Press blog makes me more or less likely to get on with working - she's just so organised and methodical, and while I tell myself I could be more like that, I'm not convinced at all that it's true. But I do not want another week like the Tiger Blue week, and so long as I keep reminding myself of that (how to spoil a really quite well planned project by not leaving anything like enough time, and therefore being disappointed with the results while knowing that it's done now and it can't be re-done) then maybe it'll be enough to push me to get on with things.
Can I just make a claim that the snow (good grief, the snow! Spent much of today digging the road out, in spite of the possibility that it might all thaw overnight) and the cold and short days and the weather and January in general don't help? Is that even true? No, no excuses. What I need to do is to build up a stock of prints and books ready for when I need them. What I need to do is to do.
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