Skapande

I pray to the almighty woodwork God that this day will bring a lot of good woodwork!

Amen!

This week’s topic for Studio Friday February 16th: Drawing a blank!

It’s one of the most feared events in the life of an artist. Sometimes it can take a long time to overcome this sudden stop of the creative juices. What do you do? How do you act and react? How do you get back to splashing around in all colours? Do you fight it or work with it?

One really good thing with working in many different materials and genre like I do, are that I seldom or never have a totally stop of creative flow. Of course I sometimes have a hard time too get started. It happens when I have to think a lot on how I will do something and can’t decide how I will make it. But when I get stuck in one thing I most of the time only change project and work with something else. I have always ideas of stuff I want to do. But for example, if I have a lot at work I sometimes get problems with focus on my project when I come home from work. But that I don’t call a stop, it’s more that I’m not in the mood. And then I give it a day or two and then I’m back on track working again.

Like now for example: I’m working with wool embroidery. I made the pattern Sunday but didn’t feel 100% sure that I found it perfect. Therefore it took med five days before I could start sew on it because I hade to think, and rethink again. But now I have started to sew. I don’t call that a stop, I only don’t like rushing things out.

If I have problems with my ideas I surf some of the blogs I like, looking true my notebooks and old ideas that I don’t had time to carry out get. That always helps too.

I’m feeling happy that I don’t have had any bigger stops or totally meltdown in my creative work. I guess that I probably will experience it sometime or somewhere. Don’t we all do that?

Or maybe I should put down the spade and just rest and don’t create or work with any projects fore a while sometime? I don’t really know? Have to think about that…

Det är många som kommer till min blogg genom att söka på ordet krympburk/ar. Därför tänkte jag att det är dags att skriva ett inlägg helt på svenska för en gångs skull.

Krympburkstillverkningen bygger på att man holkar ur en färsk trädstam och därefter sätter in en torr botten. Men en något mer ingående beskrivningen kan vara på sin plats, även om jag tidigare har beskrivit det, men då på engelska.

När man skall tillverka sin burk bör man tänka på några saker innan man börjar. Dels att hitta ett bra ämne, vad är då det? Jo, ett lövträ, personligen använder jag oftast björk, inte för inte, jag bor ju faktiskt i Björkarnas stad och tillgången är god. Kom alltid ihåg att fråga markägaren om tillstånd innan du börjar kapa! Ett litet lager av torkat trä är också viktigt att ha annars blir det svårt med materialet till bottenplattan.

Det behövs vissa verktyg, du kommer långt på kniv, navare (borr) och såg. Men det underlättar avsevärt om du har tillgång till yxa, bandkniv och skedkniv. Samt något att spänna fast din bit i. En vanlig slöjdbänk funkar bra, täljhästen är även den mycket användbar.

Nu är det bara att börja jobba. Personligen burkar jag göra på följande sätt: först väljer jag en bit av en trädstam som är kvistfri. Det går bra att ha någon liten kvist men det blir ju alltid lite svårbearbetat. Därefter spänner jag fast biten i arbetsbänken och med hjälp av bandkniven skär jag ett antal faser på mitt ämne, tar bort nävret. Har man inte tillgång till en bandkniv kan man skära med en vanlig kniv. Men det blir svårare att få breda plana faser vilket jag personligen gillar! Men beroende på vad man sedan vill göra för dekor kan man med fördel göra den slät också.
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Just one photo I took before going home from work this afternoon! So beautiful!

Thursday I sat in Hanna’s sofa and said that new curtains for my kitchen would be nice, but buying something new was out of the question. I have too many curtains already. Friday me and sis went for some shopping. Or I should only steer Linus perambulator because he wasn’t at kindergarten and my sister had to steer Wilma’s perambulator. Anyhow, we went to one of the material store here in town and then I saw this really nice fabric. Of course I couldn’t resist buying it when I saw the price, only 29 SEK/m.

So, here it is Hanna, and everyone else reading this. My new curtain that I said two days ago wasn’t going to happen! Easy to do only took me half an hour to make.

Now I think I will have another cup of tea!

In May last year I made a felted skull bag which I found at Hello yarn, it was simple to do, but much fun! I had knitted it in almost no time. After finishing it I haven’t used it so much because it became a bit unsteady. And a bag without pockets is hard to use. Everything ends up at the bottom and gets hard to find. Therefore I have now made a lining to the bag. I found a grey fabric in my closet that I used.

I only used the bag as a pattern and cut out the parts to the lining. I also made a pocket that I thought would be in a suitable size. I tried to find a zipper that I could use for the pocket, but couldn’t find one even if I looked everywhere. However, found some Velcro that I could use instead. I Sewed everything together and tried it out in the bag, I had do make one or two new seams in the bottom before I got is as I wonted. I had first made it to round, and the shape of the bag was more flat than I first thought. The last thing I made was to sew the lining to the bag. I made it by hand to reach the best result!

I find it easier to use now! Have start thinking of knitting one more bag and then felt too. Because it’s fun, so fun! You should try it if you haven’t!

I have made three small embroideries the last craft-nights I have been too. It’s nice to meet with friends and create something. But I have had some problems with ideas these past weeks, even if I have hundreds of them really. But these three embroideries have motifs that I really like. It can never be too many hearts, crowns or birds. And if you have read my blog before you can say that it’s not unusual that I make birds and crowns. Some examples of Crowns and birds. Bulan and his heart.

These small frames are in the size 7*7 cm. I bought them at Lagerhaus sometime last year. They became unused for a while so I’m happy that I now have made something to frame in them. And I have also found a place for them, I should have had one more… Typical!

Studio Friday

This week’s topic PORTFOLIO! February 2nd

“I’ve never put one together. I would be very interested to see and hear what everyone else has as a portfolio and what makes up one”~ Jo

I don’t have a portfolio in the way Jo probably thought of a portfolio, but I have my blog and that is a big portfolio of all my stuff, I would like to say. In one way I see my blog as an online portfolio for me and everybody else surfing it. Like a big folder torummage around in and finding nice things to look at and get inspiration from.

Having a portfolio when you work in wood is a bit hard if you feel like store the stuff in there, but sometime when I get the time I will put together a photo album with my best things in there. That will become a portfolio. The way I see a portfolio, of course there are other ways to look at it.

Having a portfolio makes it easier to show your stuff for people that are interested in what you do and it can be good to have it if someone would like to order something from you.

Some art not stored in a portfolio, they are hanging on my wall. Love them both.

To the left “Ella Darling” by Lisa Rinnevuo
To the right “Gata i Reykjavik” by my friend Jonna