Scratching for inspiration .......

I imagined a blog would be somewhere I would be able to share points of inspiration and every now and then showcase my work - complete, resolved ....... 

For a couple of days I have been bouncing around ideas for a new artist's book and though I have been experimenting with a range of techniques,  I am not sure that I will be able to pull them together.  Rather than not disclose this, I realised that I am not alone with my scratching.  Very often we have ideas in place and start to bring them into play - only to find that all is not working out as planned, ideas sometimes have a way treading their own paths - mastering you rather than the other way around.  This is not the perfect way, but it is often the way images resolve ..... starting as one thing, metamorphosing, repeatedly, until the result is far from the initial intent.  Sometimes the talent is in recognising when this magic is happening, and letting the artwork speak for itself.

These scratchings are not yet there - but I have hopes that they may form a conversation of pages in one of my books.

No magic here yet. Maybe thread, more paint ........ it may be the rubbish bin after all.  

The book box has worked out well ...... transformed with lots of graphite powder and PVA.  Eventually there will be pages in the story.

woodbooks .........

I have been having fun down in the studio.

Years of experience in making both artists books and journals and this is the first time I have made a woodbook.   While frivoling in a local wood shop I came across two delicious pieces of Conkerberry wood   - gorgeous for book covers. Moreover, the pieces were shape perfect, narrow and elongated - 7cm x 58cm.  The narrow rectangle and the square are my favourites.

I am not at all sure about the archival integrity of the wood but I have combined it with creamy Hannamuhle torn paper and grey linen thread which suit the wood colours.  Some of the pages have been embossed with a knotty design and now that it is complete, I think it looks interesting.

I love the rich orange in the Conkerberry (Carissa lancelot) wood - apparently quite unusual in Australian timbers.  It grows in small patches in North West Queensland and in the Northern Territory where it is protected. The holes in the wood make it quite difficult to work but I think they add something  beautiful to the timber pieces.

We are a strange bunch

Recently I visited my good friend Ally and had the chance to witness once again, the strange way people view us.  By us, I mean those creative beings who see images everywhere and in everything.  I was underneath a table which had been left outside - a gorgeous warped table which I would love to have in my back yard.  To Ally it seemed particularly odd until I showed her the small images that had weathered in her wood.  She was amazed.

I am continually amazed, and delighted, by the small fragments of beauty that are before us every day - we find them when we walk, when we garden, when we travel, when we blog - really, just about every time we have our eyes open there is something to capture our visual attention.  Sometimes we are overloaded with it ........