Sketching – Jen Fries Arts

Happy Thanksgiving: Autumn Book and Pumpkin Pie

November 28, 2019January 13, 2020 Jen

Well, the holiday season is officially upon us, and in the midst of life’s battles, I have to admit I have a lot to be thankful for. We have our health at my house (knock wood). I enjoy my work, my town, my friends. There are birds outside my window and cats sleeping on my bed. What more can anyone want?

Later, I’ll rant about all the things that are off the rails, going wrong, just plain nuts, and utterly intolerable, but that’s not what this weekend is for. Today, it’s about feasting and merriment, football, parades, and King Kong. You know, the traditions.

I finished rebuilding my blue sketchbook into an autumn book for sketching, journaling, and collecting field specimens, all the leaves, twigs, feathers, etc., I tend to pick up. I was inspired by the “junk journal” phenomenon, which is a great way to find beauty and function out of detritus. Even these gussied-up pocket inserts are part of my sketchbook practice, as I used them to work out experiments in paper building and collaging with natural botanicals. The binding is my favorite tetsuyoso style. Superficially, it resembles Coptic stitch, but this is in fact a very old binding from Japan. It lacks the external knots of Coptic, maintains neater tension with less fuss, and is flexible and resilient. Traditionally, the covers would be pasted on, but I adapted the Coptic method of sewing the covers on for a totally adhesive-free binding.

It might seem a little odd to make such a fancy thing just to sketch and brainstorm in, but kind of the point of being an artist is to get our thoughts outside of our heads, to make everything be an expression of how we see the world, to unify the inside and outside realities. So I think the book where I work out the kinks in my creativity should be a product of my creativity. This is what I came up with.

And I made the pie this year. It came out fancy, too. 😉

Happy holiday, all. Enjoy. Relax.
Express yourself.

Current Projects on My Desk; Autumn Beauty in My Garden

October 1, 2019January 13, 2020 Jen2 Comments

Work continues on selected projects, including some treats for Halloween, as well as coordinating the illustrated essay on magic, using a writing tool I’ll talk about more in a future post.

But the grand theme of the start of autumn has been the garden. Ten-foot sunflowers (brown Autumn Beauty and light yellow-dark brown Lemon Queen), pink cosmos, and 60’s-mod zinnias are off the hook, and the bees and butterflies are feasting to their hearts’ content. I’ve been basking in the glory of these final days of growing and getting ready to dive into the darkness of winter.

Sketchbook Visit: They Say Practice Makes Perfect

September 23, 2019January 14, 2020 Jen

Working on the words aspects of a couple of projects, which is not very visual as processes go, so I thought this week I’d share a glimpse into my sketchbook.

I’m training myself to do more drawing. My poor book – I made it at New Year’s, for encouragement, using a variation on the Japanese tetsuyoso binding – and now it’s being filled with mad randomness. I think I have too much on my mind.

Book Nerdery: This binding was a bit of an experiment, combining coptic and tetsuyoso techniques. With the tetsuyoso binding, covers are usually glued on, but to make the book with no adhesives at all, I adapted the Coptic binding method of attaching covers. I like the way it worked.

Journal sketch, Daedalus, and last season’s mums

January 10, 2018January 14, 2020 Jen

I found these little chrysanthemum flowers floating loose in my journal from last October. They looked like suns to me, so I made this collage sketch, with another of my collection of fortune cookie messages, musing on the dangers of ideas, as in the Greek myth.

Daedalus's Promising Idea — Daedalus’s Promising Idea, collage with pressed mums

First art of 2018, journal and mushrooms

January 2, 2018January 14, 2020 Jen

I heard somewhere once, many years ago, that at a certain latitude, if the sky is clear and you look due north at an unobstructed horizon, at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s night, you will see Sirius, Orion’s dog, at its apogee, with winter’s Orion setting to the west of it, and his mortal enemy, spring’s Scorpio rising to the east of it, and the two constellations will be equidistant above the Earth. So the story of Orion the Hunter, lover of Artemis, killed by the poisoned sting of Hera’s scorpion, marks the passage of winter and the new year.

I don’t know if this is true, but I think it should be, and already, the sun is setting a little later, haven’t you noticed?

This little journal collage is my first artwork of 2018. I’m calling it The Future of Orion, inspired by this video from the European Space Agency: Youtube Link.

The little snippet of text is my New Year’s dinner fortune cookie message. “Your fate is in no one else but you, in no hands but yours.”

Plus, I made some little crumpled-paper mushrooms – my first attempts – out of napkins. Super ephemeral, but I rather like them. I’ll play with these a bit more.

Happy New Year!