smudges in a new book - "thin red line"

Recently, a very good friend gave me a beautiful tiny book with thin paper and a red elastic tie that keeps it closed. It was blank. She has an identical book and will also work in it when she gets a chance. When we are finished we will share the results.
At the moment, I try to draw in this book every day till I hit a snag. The other day I took a few very simple little directions that completely changed my drawings in an exciting way and thought I'd share them with you while they're still hot on the page.....

We all have different strategies we use while we procrastinate with a difficult problem. I find it useful to give my mind time to think about different possible solutions but don't like doing "nothing" in the mean time. 

So one of my strategies is to draw in many little books at the same time and keep drawing till I encounter another problem and stop. I have these books all going together and don't finish any all in one attempt. I keep returning to each book and often find the problems solved in one book unlock some in another and I can keep going forward. (I often don't "finish" some books and find them years later and continue working in them, but not always) 

Exploring the properties of various media and trying new ones, also helps me find new areas to investigate. In these drawings I was interested in having some transparent/translucent areas and was using stand oil(any oil would do but some take a long time to dry or are smelly, which could be good?) to create this. 

This works well in the collage area with text on both sides as the text from both sides is visible at the one time. To enable me to draw on the oily paper, I used china graph pencils. Being waxy, they are easy to smudge and I started to do this deliberately with a paper stub as another way of mark making.

Instead of oil, I have just started to use Shellac which also make the paper a little transparent but id darker and easier to draw into. All of these materials have been used in these little drawings for different visual marks. I hope you find them interesting and will  explore them yourselves in your drawings.

Who would think that a scrap of paper torn from the page of an old book of poetry found in a garage in Tasmania, could be the starting point of a series of drawings that break new ground for an artist.