paper love ... paper camera

How delicious are these images.  I could post them on a 'Wordless Wednesday' and not have to say anything about them but I want to speak a little about computer imaging and its relationship to my art.

I remember back in 2001 doing an Adobe Photoshop course through the Brisbane Institute of Art - Adobe for the artist, not the techno person. Perfect.  I had enormous fun ..... as we all do and every time I played with an image using one of their 'effects' which rendered my initial image in some magnificent way I remember thinking that I was cheating.  That these images were not mine but some form of magic that took my marks, or my drawings and made something hugely exciting from them.  Felt like cheating to me and I confess, when I see images like those I have just posted I experience that sense again.  I can look at these images and say 'aren't they delicious' because it is not like I did them at all.

Of course there is the profound reality that it is from the marks we make, and the design we put into play that these images are formed.  Those below were taken whilst waiting in the car, I had these writing drawings of mine beside me, incomplete as they were, and I remembered Fiona had mentioned the application for iPhones 'Paper Camera' in one of her blogs (or was it an email?).  I played for a few minutes with some of the different settings and this is the result.

These images could certainly be worked over again by hand to make them seem more like mine ..... but in the meantime, I enjoy having a toy with which I can have the occasional frivol.

On a much more serious note, Fiona and I have both been very busy on 'our' books and the experience has been extraordinary.  Both of us having a wonderful time working our artwork into the images that were handed to us after our day working together on Monday.  A few people have left comments for us saying how difficult working in this way can be but I must say that after that initial fear the night before, the process has been challenging, absorbing, thrilling and deeply satisfying.  We met together briefly this morning as we needed to emboss our marks on the back pages of the books before we sew them.  It is quite easy to forget this along the way....

Both of us are very close to resolving and binding our books and I could not resist the chance to photograph the gathering of  'stuff'  as I was packing up my pages to bring home.  Now I will sit down and finish the book because from now until Monday when we have committed to having our books completed, I have friends and family coming, surrounding and distracting.  Wouldn't change that though.  So, till Monday ... this is a quick peek.