Two months with no postings is very neglectful on my part. The first month I was busy packing up my life and scouting ahead to prepare for the move to Sydney. The second month has been spent getting to know my new house, my new city and my new job.
A project I planned to commence in Melbourne was postponed for this upheaval. It has now begun with a book that borders on a prototype. Exploring, charting history through geographic navigational tools this book documents the chronology of Australian Prime Ministers, their names laid down as roads straddling the landscape.
Miniature covers to be embroidered for a miniature book.
Filed under: surrounds
Working out ideas and images for a new book this time in photoshop, a whole other workspace. This one will play with photographic images in a way I have not attempted before. Not sure it will work out as there is a technological element that is uncertain but I’m definitely up to trying it out.
Filed under: printmaking, surrounds | Tags: botanic illustration, copper, etching
Drawing onto copper is one of the most beautiful processes, inevitably leading to disappointment when the plate is printed and the lines no longer sparkle and shimmer. Some drawing towards the book I’m currently working on.
Today I applied a hard ground to two copper plates at home, a first. Spoilt by a beautifully set up work shop at uni it is a joy to discover how to set up an impromptu workshop, spread across kitchen and yard, including the clothes line. These two plates are for a book I’m working on currently.
Filed under: painting, surrounds | Tags: murchison east, oil paint, painting
Some may be happy to see that I’m attempting to paint again. The speed with which tones emerge astounds me but for me everything is always slow work. The photos were taken with my new camera though they are not particularly exiting demonstrations of its capabilities.
Filed under: drawing, surrounds, travel | Tags: amsterdam, drawing, graphite, snow
The last few days have been spent in the kitchen. There have been braised greens with pasta, cauliflower soup, tomato eggplant pasta sauce, caremalised onion and pumpkin tarts and stewed apples to eat on pancakes and stirred into porridge for breakfast, all homemade. I am surrounded by pubs, cafes and restaurants but I feel no need to eat out when I can cook whatever I desire.
As well as in the kitchen I have been working at my desk filling another tiny piece of paper with thousands of greylead marks to make a picture. Grappling with flat skies, rippling water and complex rigging I think I’m managing alright.
I’ve settled into my new studio space and begun drawing rather timidly, still grappling with how different the light is. Working on a lovely wooden desk with a view onto a canal filled with birds and moldering boats. I visited Boekie Woekie an artist run bookstore specialising in artist books today. I left with Military Hospital by Claudia Heinermann, a photo essay on an abandoned military hospital in Belgium that had served during the two world wars. Filled with close ups of the accumulated detritus, flaking paint and empty doorways.
Filed under: book binding, craft, surrounds | Tags: artist book, book binding, embroidery
I’ve been pottering along working on embroideries. A slow process with limited moments of revelation and excitement but sustained pleasure and growth. Today I finished this new book cover which will soon (don’t ask me to define soon) be bursting with drawings that will spill out of the covers.
I’ve begun work on a new very special book cover. To simplify the process and avoid mistakes I’ve broken the design into eighths. Over 8,000 stitches will be sewn before it is complete but I already see it all before me.
Expect some posts over the next week that look at some older books I’ve made both complete and incomplete.
And apparently I’m not the only person who thinks textiles and book covers make a perfect pair.
Filed under: surrounds
I’ve returned from the rolling hills and fertile lake shore of Canberra with a pocketful of treasures. Now it’s back to work and hopefully back to regular art updating here. I’m finishing embroideries both maps and a book cover, starting a second zine, planning drawings for a new book, getting my watercolour skills back up to scratch and I have a photo/drawing project in my head that I must make asap. Time is indeed a blessing.
