Past visits and new thoughts

Though lockdown restrictions here in the UK are slowly being lifted, indoor entertainment and foreign travel are still limited by Covid. As a result, I’ve been searching again for diversions at home - often in front of my computer playing with images. I sat down the other day to browse through old photographs looking for forgotten gems from past journeys and the images I’ve developed from them.  

It is extraordinary how memories of certain things, often glimpsed only briefly, stay with me. Such glimpses frequently lead to images that end up at the heart of my work. Those shown here were initially developed in Photoshop Elements following a trip several years ago to Pennsylvania to see very dear friends whom we have known for more than 50 years. 

During our visit, we all drove to the Delaware River to walk along its banks and to see a beautiful old iron footbridge. It was a hot and gloriously sunny day and the structure of the bridge was casting fascinating shadows onto the bridge deck. I took a multitude of photographs. 

In the intervening years, I’ve since developed quite a few images for stitching from those photos but so far, none has figured directly in any completed  work. Here, I was especially playing with colour and with the arching, draping lengths of cable that holds up the suspension bridge and its superstructure. 

There is still more development to go but I think now that sections of these images will find their way into ongoing work for Inhabit in Stroud in September via cut and overlay - and probably a change in colour of the bright blue areas to something that is easier to integrate with other images.  

These are my favourite photos in the original un-manipulated archive of the visit to Pennsylvania from which the images were developed. 

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Seeing these photos again brings back such happy memories. How I long to be able to escape on such trips when it's safe to travel again. 

The glimpses I catch on my travels are the fuel for so much of my work. It seems that the novelty of seeing the new is vital for me. Without the possibility of feeding this wish for novelty, I may have to look closer to home for inspiration in the future. 

This will be a change for me - and maybe not a welcome one.

Modelling in card

I've been working towards making a (hopefully) much larger 3D representation of the structures and reflections seen within high rise buildings. The final size of the piece has yet to be decided. Practical considerations will no doubt pose limitations on my ambition!

So far I've put together my first thoughts for three sides of what will probably be a hexagonal piece and am in the process of making a small maquette in light card to help me evaluate the problems.

The images included all come from manipulations of photographs whose origins I've discussed at some length before. I cut small parts from the manipulations I'd made over the last few months in Photoshop and brought them into new strip-shaped files, repositioning and turning each small addition. Each strip was then combined again into one document for printing. 

I then cut each strip out indivicually again, cut look-throughs and varied the edges before joining them together. 

Tracings

I've been aware for some time that the range of marks in my work often lacks variety. This, I think, comes from my almost exclusive use of images created from photographs and printed almost entirely using digital media to generate my work. Recently, being unable to go out and seek high rise buildings 'in the flesh' owing to lockdown, I've been experimenting with drawing on tracing paper direct from photographs. I selected parts of each image and ignored others in an attempt to vary things. 

These I drew in several ways including without looking at the result as I worked ('blind drawing'), tracing selectively and freehand directly off photos, and tracing using a ruler. I also varied a little the medium I used to HB and 2B pencils, graphite and fineliner pens. 

I then layered the drawings, applied layer by cut in Photoshop Elements and rephotographed and reprinted the results in different light conditions ...

... finally dropping in a small amount of colour.

There is much to look at futher. I especially liked the contrast in marks between the traced areas and the ruler-drawn building (pictured centre at the start of this post). The dark tracing paper and the look-throughs to spaces and images underneath also intrigue me.

Stitch details

Stitch details from an (A3) size piece which is currently work in progress and which develops thoughts on reflections seen in high rise buildings ...

The image was printed onto a fine cotton groud using my Epson P600 printer with its archival inks. It was generated from a photograph in Photoshop Elements, folowing, as usual, much manipulating - repeated layering, cutting, resizing, discarding and repositioning - and many changes in colour and tone. 

The threads being used in the stitching are single-colour DMC stranded floss in a restricted colour palette to echo rather than control the colours in the image and to blurr the whole as in a reflection. Stright, precise, vertical running stitch is being used throughout to mimic the precision of the building's structure. 

 

Book making

 A work-in-progress accordion style book on the high rise buildings theme ... ...

Front to which I will add words (a few)

Back to be presented as is (probably). 

All images were generated in Photoshop Elements as is my usual practice, with much cutting and repositioning of layers, resizing and recolouring. 

There is still much to be worked on - words to be added, size and final format to be decided ... and I'm really not sure about those little punched holes, especially and distractingly visible against good light in these photos. 

Blogging and then looking with the critical eye of the viewer not the creator certainly has its purpose!

High rise surprises

I've been working further from an image posted last year at the very beginning of explorations for Inhabit, Brunel Broderers' exhibition in Stroud later this year. During a visit to Sydney, Australia, a few years ago, I saw and photographed this striking high rise building a few years ago just behind Darling Harbour as I passed by on the top deck of a bus. 

Despite a relatively fleeting impression, this image has remained with me and is providing endless hours of visual challenge as I experiment with the structure, reflections and colour within. It seems to be offering me particularly fruitful opportunities to produce abstract images in Adobe Photoshop Elements for our new theme of Inhabit. 

Some recent manipulations are shown here. Other variaions in colour and effects can be found on my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/charlton_stitcher/ 

In this process, 'What if?' has never been easier. I find it liberating. A large range of different solutions can be generated rapidly on screen at the click of a mouse - and no expensive paper, paint or fabric has been consumed in the process! 

Then there is always the possibility of the unexpected - and also of a happy accident - which intrigues me. 

Above is a happy accident, obtained when I selected and then cut and deleted elements using the layer by cut function in Photoshop Elements. Those fine black lines and the enclosed white areas are the 'ghostlike' remains which are left behind by the editing process when I remove parts of an image. It is a trick I came upon completely by accident when I was working on this version of an image. I've since employed it deliberately in other images - and it's definitely one I've since added to my armoury.

When I work in the way I've described, working repeatedlly into an image, changing colour, selecting, cutting and pasting, and then overlaying small sections of the original to make a new whole, it always surprises me just how far removed from the original image I become (and how quickly) as I try to represent a story. 

This and the lack of ability to predict the final outcome at the start are what fascinate me in the process and keep it fresh for me.