Hairy Paper

Please note; this article was originally written for The Northern Sun News on July 30th in the middle of a heat wave. Even though there are many references to summer, the ideas can still apply! 

We are in the thick of summer and I don’t know about you but I’m basking in the heat, not daring to complain after the miserable 50 below winter we had. It will come all too soon so I’m soaking up as much vitamin D as I can, as healthily as I can. It means taking my studio outdoors and painting on my deck, hoping that the papers I’m working on will also reap the benefits of the positive energy being absorbed. It makes me reflective of all the different projects I have worked on outside and hope that the following list of past projects I have done will give you fodder for your own creative adventures:

1.     I once made “hairy paper” with my friend Martha. We collected dryer lint, shred it up with ripped up pieces of scrap paper, boiled it all, threw it in a blender, and then added the pulp to a kiddie swimming pool full of water. We used homemade screens to scoop up the pulp to make our sheets of paper. When the paper dried we learned that you shouldn’t use dryer lint to make paper if you own a dog, hence the hairy paper.

2.       I have been known to annihilate pansies by hammering them into paper. Pansies make an excellent imprint on paper when you pound the snot out of them.

3.       I take a small package of art supplies with me when I travel; my sketch pad, a set of coloured pens, some Sharpie markers, a few pencils, an eraser, and a variety of pencil crayons. I have drawn the Altantic Ocean on the beach of Meat Cove on Cape Breton Island. I have drawn the Altantic from the beaches of Holland a la van Gogh.  I have used the architecture of a chateau in Southern France surrounded by hedges dripping in hot pink hydrangeas as inspiration for a full coloured realistic drawing. I have gesturally sketched the fiercely strong jack pines in the Woodland Caribou Park that seem to defy logic as they pierce through the smallest cracks in the granite. These sketches are better than a photograph because it takes me right back to that moment in time, capturing all of the smells, the brightness of the sun, the breeze off the ocean and the opportunity I had to be truly reflective of the environment I was in.

4.       I put out pans of watery paint in an assortment of colours and then rolled large sheets of paper across the ground. Alexander stepped right into the pans, using his feet as brushes for beautifully colourful abstract art. The bath water was pretty interesting looking after that artistic endeavor!

5.       I like to tap into my inner Banksy (check out his graffiti online) by spray painting found objects such as an old, unfixable violin, and a large taxidermied jack fish and hang them in my sunroom. They always stimulate conversation and intrigue! I find most of these objects at the dump and figure if my art piece doesn’t really work the way I want it, then I can just take it right back there again!

6.       I have doodled with a Sharpie on my husband’s back at the Winnipeg Folk Fest, letting the music summon the lines and shapes that become a part of his skin for a while. Automatic drawing is a fun way to create without feeling like you have to have specific results when the drawing is complete. Simply listen to music, put a pen in your hands and start drawing whatever comes to mind without lifting your pen. Once the song is over, look at what you’ve created and see what happens when you let your mind wander to music. There might be something doodled in those lines that are worth exploring further!

You don’t need a plan to create outdoors. You don’t need a whole lot of supplies. You don’t need to first find something to do on Pinterest. You just need to sit down, soak in the rays, let your senses take over for a while, and trust that Mother Nature will give you some excellent guidance as to what your artistic endeavour is going to be for that moment in time. You won’t be disappointed; only if you forget to put on sunblock. Don’t forget the sunblock.