Miró's Little Toe alphabet
On 15 January I put in the mail my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project 2013. I blogged about it, so I won't repeat the details here. I am only mentioning it because it was my work on the sketchbook that inspired this alphabet. Same style, similar doodles. It humbly reminds me of Joan Miró's work and I had great fun doodling out of character (for me). So I came up with a fun name for it: Miró's Little Toe.
a - A
As you can see, each design includes a lower-case and a capital letter. The palette changes on a whim, in keeping with the playful character of the letters.
b - B
I am using graphite, watercolour and china ink, not necessarily all of them on every letter. Everything has been drawn and painted by hand.
c - C
I started out with a large sheet of fine-grain watercolour paper where I traced the 26 7 x 7 cm squares allotted to each letter. Then I doodled haphazardly all over the sheet, without thinking about the letter-forms or their final placement.
d - D
Then I cut along the straight lines and shuffled the 26 pieces of paper just as if they were a deck of cards. Only then did I go through the random doodles to see which ones were suitable for which letter. A, B, C and D are finished. The rest of the alphabet still needs to be re-shuffled and investigated. More to come in February.
P.S. This is obviously my free-style alphabet for the year. I wanted to start with the Peace alphabet but haven't been able to decide on the process. Too many ideas, some of them quite complex, involving fabric and/or stitching. I am pressed for time now that I am preparing my solo exhibition in May, so Miró's Little Toe was the easy way ahead. Please don't step on it!
