Gallery of past work

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Leggy hedges

I grabbed some time in my workroom the other afternoon to complete a simple accordion fold book form. The photos for this were taken in New Zealand 18 months ago, where such tall, leggy hedges are seen around fields all over the eastern side of South Island. I've found the lines and positive and negative shapes they create fascinating and they seem to respond particularly well to manipulation in black and white in Photoshop.


I used positive and inverted versions of this image, and printed them out to A3 size on photographic paper. The prints were folded and then placed back to back as a perpetual mirror image of themselves. Although there is stitching in this piece, it’s structural rather than decorative, holding the pages together in the valleys of the folds. A black cover was added at each end of the piece to make a positive full stop. 


The image seemed not to need embellishment. The only details I added were small burred holes to give texture to the areas of leaves. I’ve used this technique before many times and call it ‘blind' (or empty) stitches. These are made by poking a darning needle through into each image from the back. In the photographs, this treatment seems to show up more noticeably in the positive image where the holes were coming through into black, though on the computer screen, neither shows them well.


In reality, I think those in the inverted version are more interesting because they create delicate texture and small shadows on the white surface. 


I've just begun to explore stitch versions of these images ... lots to think about, not least, how to add meaningful stitches to an already very striking image. 



10 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thank you, Olga ... having fun too!

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    2. And I so love the title of this post - the words roll in the mouth and conjure delightful images in my brain. The phrase keeps popping up for me to enjoy through the days.

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    3. I'm very glad to give you pleasure. I'm not sure quite where the title came from - I guess it popped into my brain too - though I wasn't quite sure about it after I'd posted!

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  2. The accordian book is such an effective form to present positive/negative images. And speaking of positive & negative, how interesting that you have taken what normally would be considered a negative - a hole in the paper - and turned it into a positive.

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    1. Your comment about negative holes becoming a positive asset is an interesting one, and not one I'd thought about, but you're right. Thank you. It's a nice twist!

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  3. Wow ... these are beautiful !!!!!!

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  4. What dramatic and striking images! X

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    1. Thank you - and welcome. I'm something of a slave to black and white!
      I'm really glad to have found your great blog and will no doubt be visiting again.

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