THESE BIRDS MAY BITE

Went to the Wildfowl and Wetland Centre (one of our favourite haunts) a week or so ago.  I am always quite tickled by this sign.


I was trying to find a particular image to match one of the pages in the Mess book, which says to find examples of a mess or imperfection in nature.  I've thought about this page quite a lot, and decided there are no messes in nature - whenever I think I've found one I've realised it's only a mess because of the intervention of mankind/womankind.

The whole area around here looked a mess, but it only proved my point - it looked a mess because the plants had been cut back by the staff at the Centre.  The plant remnants themselves were fabulous.  Lovely curly whorls, like rolled up calligraphy scrolling.


This was the nearest I could get to a mess, but the trouble is I LIKE it.

The ducks had had a lovely time in the mud at the edge of one of the lakes, squelching around in their bare feet.  

MESSING UP THE 'PERFECT' PAGE

Opened the 'Mess' book at the page that simply has the word PERFECT written in large letters.  Kristin actually painted her car tyre and drove it over the book, but I chickened out of asking the bin-men to drive their lorry over it when they did their collection this morning.  So this is rather a tame mess.

This is an out-take of part of it, just to show my favourite part.  Here's the full page in all its glory:

Well, I enjoyed doing it, and that's what it's all about.  Here are a couple of photos I took early this morning with my iPhone (the only camera I use these days), just to show I still appreciate beauty.

Mine is only the iPhone 4, not the 4S, but the camera is still pretty fantastic for a phone.  Here's even more of a close-up:

That's brightened my day.  And now I'm off to tackle the first assignment on Lisa's e-course.  If it turns out OK I'll post it on the blog in a couple of days.

McMESSY PANORAMA - A BIG MESS

This is the story of my panoramic mess.   The picture above is just a small out-take section - I love it.

The instructions in the book were to create an extra-long page by taping extra paper to the page in the book.  I decided I wanted an extra-wide page (why obey instructions) to do a panoramic landscape.  The idea of plain paper didn't appeal and I used two McDonald bags, saved from when we had a blueberry muffin the other day - and I knew the bags would come in useful somehow.

 Of course I made a mess to start with.  Instead of cutting down one side of the bags and opening them out, I cut down each side and then had to think of a way of sticking them together again.  Glue and tape would not take the sloshes of paint I planned to throw on them, so I stapled them together and onto the book. When the completed pages are folded into the book, this is what you can see:

And when the extra bag pages are opened out, this is what the panorama looks like - it measures 36 inches (almost a metre).  It's a bit small to see here, so I'll show the three sections after this.

 Here's the left-hand side:

and the centre two pages of the book:

and then the right hand section:

I am really quite pleased with it, never done anything like it before, and I really had a lot of fun.

Husband said 'Well, it's different!  But you planned on making a mess, and you've made a mess, so you've been successful.'

MESSY DRESSES

I'll just start with a very quick sketch done in MacDonalds of a chap absorbed in working on his I-Pad on the way to a show/exhibition last week near Liverpool, and then carry on with the Messy Dresses. 

 

We had a lovely day at the show - which started well because a lady gave us a free ticket just as we were about to go in.  Apart from buying 'stuff' which is bound to come in useful when we are painting, the best fun was looking at the exhibition section and talking to the people on the stands.

This was a good exhibit - dresses made by students on a fashion course at Liverpool Community College, together with photos showing models wearing the clothes.  This dress is made from Tesco plastic bags -

and here's a close up of the waist area showing the complicated plaiting and stitching.  I was really impressed.

This one is made with black plastic bin bags and bits of mirror -

not too sure if this next one is a dress, an apron or a swimming costume, but it's a good bit of collage -

At the other end of the fashion continuum was an exhibit of some of the costumes from the historical TV 'soap' Downton Abbey.  Not a program I watch, but I love historical costumes.  I just wish I'd had time to do some sketching, but thank goodness for a camera.

A good day out, worth the journey.

MESSY BOOK - ICE IS NICE

This is an experiment that's not suggested in the Mess Book, and I've never done it before, but I encourage you to have a go.  I warn you, this is a long post, but it's the only way I can describe the process.


A week or so ago I did the initial freezing of a small block of ice-plus-paint in a plastic tub about 4" x 3".  First I froze a thin layer of water (in the freezer), then squirted red and yellow watercolour paint from a tube onto it, covered it with just enough water and froze that level.  I did a few other levels of ice in the same way, but with different colours. 


Yesterday I tipped the ice out into a strong plastic bag and hammered the daylights out of it, because I thought it would take forever to melt on the paper otherwise.

I knew the whole procedure would be very wet and I couldn't see any way of doing it in the book without making all the pages soggy, so I used a piece of photocopier paper cut in two, put each piece on an old plate and then poured the ice pieces over each of them.  Whoops, I thought, too much ice per page and it all looks green - failure ahead (positive thinking mode in use!).

So I shoved them both in the airing cupboard and left them all day, except for the odd check visit, during which I poured off as much water as possible and put paper kitchen towel underneath them.  


Here's the first one when it was completely dry - wow, I am pleased with that, the green watery area has turned blue.  Not all of the tube paint has dissolved and gives lovely bright areas of colour.

And here's the smaller one.  I like the look of this one sideways on.

I have a feeling the lumps of solid paint will crack and flake off, but this will add to the unexpected result in the true Andy Goldsworthy spirit.  Really quite pleased with the experiment.


JUST ONE SAD NOTE IN THE DAY:  Tree surgeons are bit by bit sawing down a big old tree (about 60 ft high) in the grounds of the building opposite.  It's very old, but looks fine, so I can only assume that the dreaded 'elf-and-safety' has kicked in.  Very sad.

MESSY BOOK - REALLY MESSING IT UP

Still working on the messy book and having fun.  This page went from this:

to this:

The page in the book said to wet the page and drop ink blots on to it, which I did, but the result was very disappointing - not really messy at all.  So I decided to paint heavily on the page with neat Domestos thick bleach, and stuck it in a cupboard to dry and keep the smell out of the way.  But when it dried it still looked like this.

So I POURED bleach on the page - and boy did it stink.  But when it dried it still looked no different.  I was so annoyed that I was determined to show it who was master and stabbed and stabbed the page with scissors.  Then I stuck a failed painting behind it. 

 I think I won - now it looks a mess ....... but it doesn't smell like roses or oranges. 

MESSY BOOK GROUP - ALL SCREWED UP

Here's an experiment I really didn't want to start.  Lisa challenged us to tear a page at random out of our book and really destroy it.  Had to force myself to do it, but I opened a page at random and tore it out (good, it was a page I didn't like).

To get me going I started by following Lisa's lead and crumpled the page up, opened it again and washed it with soap.  Ooops, it fell to pieces, which I didn't mean to happen, so from there on I was on my own.

So, I tried to re-assemble it by laying it on a plastic folder, then stuck wet tissue paper on it with PVA glue - ooops, fingers went green.  I needed it to dry then, but was too impatient to wait, so I dried it with the hairdryer, sticking bits together with masking tape as they started to fly about.

When it was dry I crumpled it up again, then opened it, and used the sewing machine to stitch on random bits from the waste paper basket with various stitches, scrunched it up again and gave it another cold bath treatment.  Straightened it out again and dried it with the hair drier.  Whew!

Quite pleased with that, and it looks a little like a map.  When I turned it over I decided I liked the reverse  side better, and it looked even more like a map, so I stapled it onto a blank page in the Mess Book -

I think the experiment was a success and I can see ways of using the destruction technique in the future, so I'm glad I was brave!

MESS BOOK - ANOTHER FINE MESS!

'DO A DRAWING WITH A PIN' it said.  Never done that before.  I have to tell you, if you are thinking of trying this page, it was fiendishly difficult!  But the more I struggled, the more interested I got and found myself experimenting with different ways of getting the ink from the pin onto the page.  By the time I had finished I was intrigued by the interesting shapes emerging, and the spattering, that I decided to add it to my repertoire of techniques.

These shapes interested me, though I'm blowed if I can remember how I actually did them now.

And look what lovely shapes they formed when I took the image into Photoshop and applied a 'Trace Contour' filter.  I can't wait to colour the shapes in (within the lines, of course!

I even liked the reverse side of the page:

While I'm on the subject of ink, this is one I did a few days ago - on the page to be wetted and then written on with ink or to have ink dropped on it, which was my choice.  And while I was using the pipette I drew a handsome chap with it.

And once again I liked the reverse side, especially the odd bits of paper that stuck on to it from somewhere:

And now ..... I've got to tear out a random page from my book and be violently unkind to it.  Am fighting the 'but it will spoil my book' feeling .........

MESSY BOOK, MESSY LADY

I've already had a lot of fun with the 'Mess' book, thanks to Lisa Wright's book group at    http://thewrightbrainstuff.blogspot.co.uk/


I was lucky enough to get my book early on Amazon, and couldn't wait to get started.  By nature I am a tidy 'colour within the lines' person, and have really enjoyed letting go.  So I've tackled a few pages, but here is my favourite so far, because I would never in a million years have thought of messing up the COVER of a book:

The book is already getting a little bulky, so I had to hold it closed with some small woodworking clamps to make it lie flat enough to photograph.  Even my photographs are messy.  How lovely to be given permission - or even perhaps an instruction - to mess up a book cover like this!  Thank you Lisa.

As for the poor old fellow who needed a face lift and advice on fashion style, I think he is much improved in the messy version.

Having fun - my husband is envious!

http://www.wrightbrainbook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/can-you-mess.html#comment-formMESSY BOOK, MESSY LADY