The Year in Poetry

Hello all, for the second time today (if you've already seen What's On My Workdesk this Wednesday)... and a very warm welcome (back) to Words and Pictures!  (Gotta love all those Wws in that first sentence!)

As I mentioned earlier, I'm absolutely delighted to have been invited to design for Nicecrane Designs.

Ignacio Molina, as well as producing sets of gorgeous vintage images for an absolute song, is one of the loveliest people to buy from and do business with... you get emails so full of enthusiasm (and commas) that it brings a huge smile to your face.

As well as the online store, there's a lovely blog where you can find lots of inspiration for how to use the images.

I've used Nicecrane images on past projects, and have bought quite a few more, which are still sitting waiting for me to play with them... so it's a real treat to be able to show off some of the latest ranges he's been creating.

Here I've used the lovely Country Lady Save Pack, inspired by the illustrations from Edith Holden's Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.

Since there are twelve months to get through, I'm issuing a Long Photo-Heavy Post Warning!!








This was one of those projects where it really felt as though I was just along for the ride... I didn't know very much about it!  That may be the effect of it all arriving in my head in the middle of the night, and half of it being made in the early hours of the morning, but I think it's also a good sign that you're "in the zone", or at least "in the moment" as you're creating... just letting things happen, and enjoying the ride.

It was also clear that the universe was on my side when, after a snowy night, the sun came out to allow me to capture some some photos in its late afternoon golden rays.






There's part of a photo from the earlier shots of my desk that will give you some idea of the journey of this piece.

I used sheets from a cheap watercolour pad (bought from The Works for a couple of pounds), and tore them to the size I wanted.

I printed the lovely monthly illustrations on some canvas weave printer paper which gives them a lovely weight and texture, slightly fabric like... I think you can see something of what I mean in later photographs.

To weather the papers, and tone them in with the images, I did a lot of spritzing.  I started with coffee (yes, actual coffee), but wanted a bit more colour, so I mixed a bit of Mushroom Color Wash in with it.

This gave a good base colour; then, for extra texture and colour I spritzed very lightly with the Mushroom again, or with Espresso Color Wash, and sometimes with both to build up the interest.







Once that was done, I blended Vintage Photo and Wild Honey DIs onto the edges of the pages.  The Wild Honey is great for warming up the tone of whatever colour you're using, and given that these images had quite honeyed tones in them anyway, it seemed the perfect ingredient.

You can see the eventual look on the back cover and these close-ups... and what I love is that each page is unique, with its own colour combination and splatter pattern!

And of course I used the Tim Holtz paper distresser and some more Vintage Photo DI on the edges of the illustrations.  I think you can probably see the woven texture of the paper I printed on here too, as well, obviously, as the lovely texture of the watercolour paper.

Some twine and raffia to bind the pages together... and we're pretty much done.






I'm going to leave you in peace to look through the journal shortly, but I should just say that the stamps come from a variety of sets: the front cover is Tim Holtz's Book Cover (simply love this stamp, and must use it more often!), and inside there are more TH stamps, as well as Stampology, Tattered Angels and Artemio images.

They're stamped mainly in Archival, but blending colours and sometimes including DIs on there too.



If you really desperately want to know more precisely, then drop me a comment or email with the month you want to know about, and I'll share the details with you.

But for now, I'm going to leave you to enjoy the winter sunshine... All I will add are the poem extracts from each page (in case the photos are not clear enough, or you can't read my handwriting) and sometimes a little something about the poems themselves, or perhaps the poem in full, or at least slightly expanded.

Some of the poems arrived on the pages here as inevitable participants, long-loved poems I've lived with for years; some I had to go in search of, and am delighted to have discovered some new poetical treasures!




So, on to the quotations, and the photographs of course!  Don't forget you can click on them for close-ups.

January is here, with eyes that keenly glow,





A frost-mailed warrior striding a shadowy steed of snow.
Edgar Fawcett

February.  Get Ink.  Weep.

Write the heart out about it.  Sing

Another song of February

While raucous slush burns black with Spring.

Boris Pasternak

Another day in March.  Late
rawness and wetness.  I hear my mind say
If only I could paint essences.

Such as the mudness of mud
On this rain-soaked dyke where coltsfoot
displays its yellow misleading daisy.

Anne Stevenson

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring 

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering  
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

From The Wasteland by T.S.Eliot

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
William Shakespeare

I went down the ways of the roses this noon,
     The birds were in tune with the infinite skies,
And all my heart sang, "It is June, it is June,"

And all my soul teemed with the lovely surprise,
As I went down the ways of the roses this noon.

     William Stanley Braithwaite

Hot July brings cooling showers,

Apricots and gillyflowers.

Sara Coleridge

I want to walk through crisp gold harvest fields,
Through meadows yellowed by the August heat;
To loiter through the cool dim wood, that yields
Such perfect flowers and quiet so complete—
The happy woods, where every bud and leaf
Is full of dreams as life is full of grief.

From August by Edith Nesbit

September Song
(born 19.6.32 - deported 24.9.42)

Undesirable you may have been, untouchable
you were not. Not forgotten
or passed over at the proper time.

As estimated, you died. Things marched,
sufficient, to that end.
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented
terror, so many routine cries.

(I have made
an elegy for myself it
is true)

September fattens on vines. Roses
flake from the wall. The smoke
of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.

This is plenty. This is more than enough.

                                                                                                     Geoffrey Hill

A springful of larks in a rolling

Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling

Blackbirds and the sun of October

Summery

On the hill's shoulder...

From Poem in October by Dylan Thomas

So dull and dark are the November days.

The lazy mist high up the evening curled,

And now the morn quite hides in smoke and haze;

The place we occupy seems all the world.

From November by John Clare

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Christina Rossetti










I'm entering this in the following:

Sugar Creek Hollow's challenge Distressing
Try It On Tuesday would like us to Get Inky
Crafty Boots who are playing Anything Goes

Inspire Me Fridays which is also Anything Goes
Artful Times - guess what... Anything Goes












Click here to go direct to the lovely Country Lady Save Pack...