Rainwoman
What to do when life throws rain at you, plus a progress report on #the100dayproject
The rain blimmin’well insists it should raineth every day
Apparently England has experienced its wettest 18 month period since records began in 1836. For the whole of the UK, it’s the fourth wettest recorded. Tell me about it.
Has it rained today? No! But it will later.
Did it rain yesterday? Yes, next question!
Will it rain tomorrow? Undoubtedly!
Some artists paint rain
There’s the usual suspects:
And then there’s the outliers
Pat Steir lets the paint flow like rain
And these guys created a rain room, where you don’t get wet…
You can even buy an ‘invisible spray’ to create patterns on outdoor surfaces that are only revealed when it rains. SO TEMPTING! You have to be pretty confident with your design because I think it sticks around…and a quick google tells me you don’t have to pay £17, just use a can of antiperspirant spray. Do please let me know if you try this!!
Might as well make the most of the damn stuff
Cast your mind back here, to the moment when my sketchbook began to look a bit too pretty and I had an overwhelming urge to do something radical. Fling paint. Make a bold move. Chuck black ink over everything. So cathartic.
So when I found myself creating another thing that was far too harmonious (felt-tip colouring pens while sitting on the floor with my daughter - she drew cartoons of the person who tried to hack her Spotify account; I coloured in blobs) I knew what I had to do next, to shake it up a bit. And one look out of the window told me exactly what.
Here’s the first version, the ‘vanilla’ flavour:
Felt tips? They’re water soluble.…Felt Tips, meet Rain. Ha!
Click through to find a video of the rain doing its thing.
The result was a bit more muted than I usually like, so rather than just stitch the offcuts together and call it a day for another page in the sketchbook (my original plan) I reached instead for what I thought was a little squeezy bottle of dilute white acrylic paint, and gave it all a quick squirt over the top…which was when I realised it wasn’t paint at all, but acrylic medium. Huh. What a let down.
So I flipped it over and stuck it to the table
True story.
Leave it to dry overnight, then peel away carefully, and all the leftover paint on your worktop (protected with thin polythene sheet from the DIY shop) will magically transfer to whatever you stuck down. Well, that’s the plan - it doesn’t always work. I tried lifting a few ‘transfers’ from the oilcloth on my other desk, but I think there was a load of old gesso - it all came out a bit gummy, and I didn’t get such wondrous colours as from the polythene sheet. Undeterred, I stuck more bits onto other bits, stitched a few, and ticked off another batch of sketchbook pages.
Back to the rain (it’s not like we have long to wait for more)
I’ve had a bit of a hiatus from creating new things for the ‘project’ - probably because we’re over half-way now. At a creative loss, I had a quick scroll of the interwebs, saw mention of ‘ink blobs’ and instantly knew what to do.
Check the weather app - when will it rain??
Dribble acrylic ink onto paper and weigh it down so it doesn’t blow away
Watch with glee while the heavens open and ink starts to run
Best thing about acrylic ink? It’s permanent - so you can paint over it with watery paints (I used gouache but it could be watercolour) and paint the background, after the ink has dried. So that’s now neatly taken me up to present day for #the100dayproject, and I think I’m back on track.
Here’s a quick flip through of the first 58 days and the first complete book:
Interim thoughts about the project and why I hit a sticky patch
I’m currently up to 11 minutes a day, which is getting to the point where it’s a bit much to do a quick sketch and call it job done, but not really enough to allow for ‘next steps’ - things that need to dry before they can be stitched, or have the next layer.
I still haven’t worked out the best time of day. For some reason I can do my daily German practice religiously at 6.30am, but I can’t commit to a regular ‘art time’. Stuff always seems to crop up.
If my goal was a full sketchbook, it would suit me better to ‘batch’ create: work on a few pieces, or a larger piece to be divided and added to, than to create something every single day. I could aim for ‘seven pages a week’. But to me, that’s not ‘one hundred days’, that’s 10x7 (and of course it’s not that either, but, maths…).
My goal isn’t the full sketchbook (no denying I’d love it as an outcome) it’s to actually create the habit. So this is still a work in progress, and I have just shy of 40 days left* to work it out.
*plus the rest of my life
Are you doing #the100dayproject? How are you getting along? And have you ever tried painting with the elements, a spot of plein air? Let me know in the comments!
Until next time,
I so enjoyed seeing your sketchbook Izzy. :) Your art pieces are fabulous! As you say it's about creating a habit for your art practice. You'll do it I'm sure.
The 100 day project pages look good together!