Spring surprises

Up here in Scotland west of Aberdeen for a few days, we've been so lucky to find glorious spring weather. The days have been warm and sunshine unbroken. We have walked and visited some favourite spots. Everywhere daffodils are flowering and tree buds fattening.

Today, we visited Crathes Castle and walked around the lake and into the formal gardens. I unfortunately left my card reader for my iPad at home so my photos are restricted to those I rembered to take on my phone. Here are just two to give a flavour of this lovely time.

        

                                  

 
We come here regularly and the weather this time has been warmer than it often is in July. How extraordinary is that!

Graphite and Pine Trees

I spent some time this afternoon playing with one from a favourite series of line drawings of Scots Pine trees, adding graphite to exploit the negative spaces.

Some while back, I bought some Derwent Graphitone pencils and two paper blending stumps (also from Derwent) and thought it was time to experiment with them. Since I've played with this pine tree image (and similar) many times before, it seemed like a good and familiar place to start on a rather showery and cold afternoon. These pencils are water soluble but I found they also blend well with the stumps. I used the darkest pencil (an 8B) but I also have a 6B and a 4B and will now give those a try too - perhaps with some water the next time.

On the basis of this afternoon, I think I'll find them most useful and will be taking them with me when I go to Scotland for a short break this weekend. 

Now I look at the post on Blogger, I must apologise for the poorly reproduced photo. As is often the case, Photoshop hasn't coped well with enhancing a pencil drawing - and this time seems worse than most!

A card for a friend

Now a birthday card made for a good friend who says she enjoys my work ... such friends are always to be encouraged!


The image for this card was cropped from the much larger one shown in the accordion fold book in the last post. It was inkjet printed as before on Smooth Pearl 290 paper from Fotospeed. It was further cropped in Photoshop and then hand cut to exploit the negative shapes as an experiment to see whether this was something I wanted to pursue.

I think it is, either in this flat-mounted form or perhaps in an accordion book with cut-outs. Mounting the image away from the card on small supports helped to create a slight shadow. If the depth of the supports was increased, it might be even more effective - I will try this out too.

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. 

Hedges and Artists' Books

This is a post about learning and work in progress - work which follows recent experiments with photographs of trees and hedges and then an excellent artist's books workshop last Saturday with Lesley Crawley up at the yard:Artspace in Cheltenham.

For anyone who is not familiar with this genre, the world of artists' books is huge. Our focus for the day was one of the simplest forms known as accordion folds. Numerous versions were on offer and wonderful and inspiring examples were shown. I was amazed at the variety and complexity that was possible with such a simple basic idea.

I dived straight in and chose to work on folding some of the modules needed to make up a version of the star accordion book. I used two copies of an image of a hedgerow taken on South Island New Zealand 18 months ago which I had previously manipulated in Photoshop and printed onto A4 photocopier paper. I trimmed the photos to give a long narrow shape and stuck them onto light-weight white card. Manipulating and lining up the image gave me something to think about and much useful practice in the folding techniques.

Unfortunately, I was unable to complete the whole star as I didn't have enough of the photographic material with me. Anyway the wish to try out other forms of accordion book overtook me. First of all, I tried a basic accordion fold with no frills which I made with simple computer paper for speed. It used an inverted version of another very similar hedge photo to the first ...

I then tried a much more complex form involving careful measurement (and the oportunity to cut in the wrong place!) - a panel accordion where a shape is partially cut out of each fold which allows panels to swivel when opened out ...

Last of all and with time running out, I had a go at a flag book where small 'flags' are stuck onto a narrow accordion folded spine ...

Perhaps, on reflection, I should have explored those basic forms in plain white card first as I might then have chosen to make a form which I could have finished in the session. I have the tendency at workshops to choose, usually unwittingly, the most complicated option which means I take home unfinished work which is frustrating.

The next steps in all this will be to do a proper, full version of the star book, thinking about backing colour (maybe black instead of white?), methods of joining the modules of the star together and the making of a cover. This is important as it anchors the form when it is open as well as protecting the 'pages' when closed.

I had been feeling for sometime that artists' books were something I wanted to explore, linked to my photographs. I realised that I needed to develop my practical book making skills and also my awareness of what is possible. This workshop was an excellent beginning.

You will find more about Lesley on her Printed Material blog  and by googling Lesley Crawley artist. Star accordion books and others of this type can be found by googling Artists' Books, accordion folds, and any other of the folds that take your fancy. The opportunities and the information are endless!

Packaging lunacy

Today I received this new Janome quilting ruler via Amazon UK ...

It measures 24 inches long by 6 inches wide by about 1/4 inch thick. It arrived in this box ...

... which measures 40 inches long (that's over a metre) by 25 inches wide by (and this seemed somehow the most ridiculous bit) 6 inches deep. It was stuffed full to the brim with a year's supply of rolled up paper for protection. 

I wish these photos could convey the absurdity of the situation. My 3 year old grandson would have loved to have the box to play in if he'd been here ... a boat? a car? a space rocket? a bunk bed? a house for his teddies? The possibilities would have been endless.

I hope the ruler will be worth all this effort and consumption of resources. I'm only glad that, as an Amazon Prime subscriber, I didn't have to pay separately for carriage!

Pages from a sketchbook

I'm posting here a small selection of pages from my current sketch book - featuring trees. The photos on which these pages were based are from my large archive of such things and were taken in New Zealand and Italy.

The experiments involved the photos themselves, tracings and tracing paper overlays. They vary in their effectiveness, but then the freedom to try out ideas without minding what happens is what sketchbooks are all about.