Educational but unproductive.

So, apparently the world doesn't see this as a day for me to actually create anything. I seem to be fighting all my tools today and I have no idea why. I can't even persuade my freezer paper to stick to fabric. So instead I have been spending some time with my new (well new to me) art books. I had been thinking that I aught to learn more about art, but the nagging at the NEC meant I actually started doing something about it. So far I have discovered I really like Victor Vasarely, his word and his life story. Having seen how artistic technical drawing can be I think it will be something I will pursue.

Last night my book on Klee arrived. On the whole his work does nothing for me. I haven't tried reading much ot is yet, so maybe once I do it will be more interesting, but I am not convinced. I do think I could now recognize his work, and possibly work inspired by him, which is really what I wanted. One of his that I do like is Buhneprobe. It has the feel of hand dyed fabric and I like the detail he has added with lines. It is dated 1925, but to me looks like it would be far more recent. The detail is just fantastic, and has me thinking about doing a whole cloth piece where all the quilting is in straight lines. Using cross hatching to put in different shades. It is probably something I will need to do some testing of before I can make it work.

Today, Mondrian, Nature to Abstraction arrived. I've been really looking forward to this book. I saw a television program about Mondrian a while ago and was surprised at how much I liked his work. Coupled with the fact I have a new found interest in how abstraction comes about this book just sounded perfect. Again I haven't had chance to read all of it yet (though liking the pictures seems to encourage me to read more) I am finding this fascinating. I love the fact that I can see how a tree is reduced to it's essential tree-ness. It is written in such a way that I am starting to think I can do this too. Mondrian seems to be very good at capturing the feel of the subject although sometimes there is very little detail. What I really want to learn from this is how the compositions with colour alone work. I can pick colours and cut squares, but they don't have the same impact. If I can improve my designs in that area I will be thrilled. I hope that it would improve all my abstract designs if I had a better appreciation of how to select the colours and locations.

I have a few more books incoming and I will probably let you know how I get on with those too. If there are artists I have missed that I should know about please let me know. It is very hard trying to get a good grounding in a subject you know nothing about as you have no way to search for what you don't know.