I know, I know...

...I'm supposed to be purging, but when there's white paper involved, look what can happen!

Acrylic ink on printer paper

Here's the story:  I've been avoiding,  postponing, deferring, delaying, evading, circumventing, skirting, sidestepping, or ducking the purge.   I've been procrastinating for the last ten days years.  Who really, truly wants to do a deep clean in the studio?!

A deep clean means the task of splitting old-style continuous form paper (for use with dot-matrix printers) into useable pieces has been neglected and then rescheduled at least 37 times.  It was the last bit of paper in my large white paper container, and it's been screaming at me for such a long time that I am near-deafened.  At least that's what I tell John when he complains that I'm not listening.

So I started ripping

and tearing

until all the side strips were removed, when I could then start splitting, page by page, by flippin' page.

Now I have a fabulous pile of printer paper or paper for printing (are you thinking what I'm thinking?  Painted paper and Gelli prints are SO fun!).

And of course, all those side strips have to turn into something.  Perhaps they'll be part of another 'Expat' folded book; they certainly fit the strangeness factor.

There were a few spoiled pages from the process, so I crumped them thoroughly and then sprayed with water.  Liberally covering them with painty stuff was a blast.  

Want a closer look at some of the other results?

Fluid acrylics topped with India Ink

India ink on vellum (a stray bit tucked in there from somewhere?)

India ink on continuous feed paper 

More India ink topped with acrylic ink...don't you think this looks like a crime scene?
Maybe I've been reading too many murder mysteries over the holidays!

Now I know I'm not the only one who procrastinates, and I'm betting you can add to the list of words for it in the second paragraph.  What's your favourite?  Lollygagging, perhaps?  Let me know in the comments - I NEED more words for this pastime because I'm becoming first-rate at it, and need to write the book (when I have the inclination).

I'm on a roll...

... or maybe I'm just rolling over.  This purge has me alternating between howls of laughter, amazement and pure unadulterated stunnery (is there such a word?).

I've been working like a fiend to cut papers down to a size small enough to fit into a file folder.  I now have more than a yard of folders, crammed full of colour lusciousness.

 

Apparently, I'm still not done;  I keep finding more and this stack of heavy texture is a case in point.

Years of teaching means that I've a huge stash of material to go through.  At the risk of you thinking I'm absolutely crackers (and truthfully, at this point how could you not?), I have to show you what I found this week - a box crammed full with bags of painted mats, conveniently chopped into odd shapes and sizes.

Obviously, at some point, I decided I had waaaaaay too many painted matboards (done for background demos in workshops) and chopped them just for fun.  I say that because I've no idea now what the end game was, and my mind is whirling with 'what the hecks?'.

At any rate, I have to show you some close-ups of the mouth-watering colour!

  
I hope you can give me some suggestions in your comments below because there must be near 1000 pieces here, and the colour is so good it would be a shame to throw them away.  If I had a wood panel big enough (yup, they're all gone now), I'd be doing something wild and wonderful, but I'm hoping you've got a ton of ideas for me instead.

To end this post on a truly joyous note (apart from the colour, of course) I'd like you to meet our eagerly-awaited first-born grandchild who arrived this week. 

Linkin Nathan Christensen, born Nov. 6/17  6 lbs. 13 oz...welcome home!

May your week have been filled with as much joy and laughter as has ours.