Beauty sometimes comes by surprise, totally unexpected, and always a gift when it arrives. Thus it was for me when I began this drawing challenge. I'd chosen a haiku to illustrate, using watercolour paints on a beautiful sample of Saint Armand paper from Montreal. I decided to cut and paste small size words from an English-Chinese dictionary which is in my stash of books that I cut up to use for art. The first word of the haiku was 'still' and so I hunted for that word and then when I found it I started reading the translation of it and came across this phrase 'still the pain of a wound' as an example of how to use the word 'still.' THAT was beautiful to me and that is what launched me into what I would offer for this drawing challenge with the theme BEAUTY.
So above you see the front cover of a little book which has two folds in an accordion style book. The dimensions are: 2 1/4" wide X 3 1/2" tall when closed. The book is tied closed with linen or flax or hemp [some unknown natural fibre] string, threaded with gold seed beads. Here is the back of the book closed:
I'm playing with sumi-e style painting using non sumi-e brushes which is not as easy as it would be with proper brushes, and my red ink for my stone stamps has dried up considerably since I last used it, and there are a number of issues but oh how I enjoyed making this book! Here it is opened [strings untied] with a view of both sides:
Our illustrious host Nadine chose the theme of BEAUTY and if you want to see more delicious and beautiful offerings with this theme, drop by to Nadine's blog to view many more sights. Thank you for dropping by today and I hope to see you again soon. May all of you, friends, have the pain of your wounds stilled. Norma, x
