I have so many ideas and test images/sketches /backgrounds that I’m now totally overwhelmed as to which I would like to incorporate in my work. Reflecting on the feedback from my last tutorial and discussions with Rachel, I have pared down the images I want include in my mindfulness map. I had too many elements in there and need to narrow my content down further. I have developed my backgrounds further with combinations of map sections washed with gesso, emulsion paint and matt medium and will test out watercolour backgrounds on these and decide which colours are most pleasing. I have also experimented printing mandalas with leaves and ferns using watercolours, and researched Andy Goldsworthy’s inspirational land art and ephemeral leaf nature sculptures https://www.sculptureplacementgroup.org.uk/sculptures-at-home-3-andy-goldsworthy/
Initially, I envisaged that the Map of Mindfulness could be a “seascape” on one side and “land/nature” on the other, but I realise now that this is too much – there would be too many elements to incorporate and it would not look cohesive. It needs to be less cluttered and more non-figurative. I have edited a good, smaller selection of sketches now for images I will incorporate, and will definitely include tree branches, leaf fractals and a meditating face (but NOT a Buddha – that’s far too typical and conventional!). Also, I have decided that the map will be single-sided and will not fold. I want it to be shown in a gallery setting.
A suggestion from my last tutorial was that I could incorporate collograph printing and I spent a while researching this possibility further. West Dean College of Arts & Conservation had a good home collograph tutorial by Vicky Oldfield on You Tube which I watched several times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2jwWjSyweQ . Having given this careful consideration I have decided not to include this in my work at this stage, as it will add another element which I don’t think is not the look and feel I am wanting to achieve, which is filmy and ethereal. It is also difficult to visualise how to create an image which would fit with my work, giving it a dream-like opaque quality. I want to achieve the effect of thin transparent, ephemeral layers. I am continuing to explore other collograph printing websites by printmaker artists Anna Curtius, Belinda Del Pesco, and other You Tube art education videos, so I have not completely dismissed this.
https://www.annacurtius.com/blog/how-to-make-a-collagraph-print-in-four-steps
In my ongoing research of cartography I have also been researching map illustrators from a magazine article, “Well Mapped Out” in the March 2021 edition of The Guildford Magazine https://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=0ab41d9a-e86e-4151-8f6e-7c66de32ff2f&pnum=16
– Nicola Howell, Camilla Charnock and Lisa Tolley and create stylised maps of places, and looked at Roberta Faulhaber’s art mapping/mind mapping work. https://robertafaulhaber.typepad.com/blog/2010/03/artmapping.html
There are some thought-provoking gentle meditative Zen mindfulness poems which have led me to think about including a few words or possibly a quote? This inspired me to experiment with creating my own “found” poems by using words cut from magazines and books to create my own sentences about mindfulness. It’s an enjoyable process, but am I digressing again?
Look After Yourself
Look at the world differently.
Discard the bottled torrent river.
Unwind with the breath in the smallest of moments.
Step by step you reveal an oasis of calm.
Appreciation. Being. Watching.
Experience the now.
Looking to Focus
Connect yourself with nature.
The present moment unfolds.
Breathe slow, make strands that flow.
Shine from the inside, let go.