starry starry night complete .....

Ah - collaboration is so sweet.  Many of you who comment upon this collaboration between Fiona and me say how lucky we are to be able to work with someone else in this way.  I am constantly reminded of this as we tackle each new collaborative idea. Each time we have worked on a joint project, new challenges have been brought to light, and even though we are far more relaxed about working together these challenges keep appearing, and ultimately resolve.  These are never concerns about working with each other - that is a continual delight and seamless experience, the concern is always about working into the others' book.  Bending it, nudging it ..... sometimes even dragging it in a new direction.

For me, Fiona's part in this book was far more gentle but in her unique way she was able to tighten my work, add depth and specificity to my imagery and generally add that little bit of magic that her work always brings.

My book is large - about 380mm square on the covers.  Inside however, the pages are not all the same in height or width.  I have left my book very soft - no hard covers and in fact these photographs have been taken before the book has been sewn together.  I know once our books meet next week there will be no time for me to post, so I am sneaking in the draft now.

I began with paper I had manipulated with rust and as such there was imagery of a sort all over my pages - both fronts and back.  I have actually extended my images right across both open pages in an attempt to show the immensity of our skies.  Being such a dark book, it is rather difficult to photograph and I found that by 'reading' it under lamplight, the images reflect the starlight as I intended.  Hence this is a book to read under light or it is rather dull ....

the cover

first page - immense skies above mountains
constellation Cetus (courtesy Fiona)

detail - mountain range drawn in graphite across all pages

back of page one - leads into this second page below

second page - Perseus

detail of page one and two

back of page two and the transparent page three

page four has transparent pages either side of it

detail of page three and four

constellation Pavo - courtesy Fiona

here you can see many of Fiona's details on my pages
this is page five - Eridanus - written and drawn by Fiona on my transparent page
the marks on the right Are Fiona's and they are reiterated on other pages
I love that you can see page six below.

page six - Crux
our Southern Cross - little metal parts added by Fiona on my image

This image of mine spreads across two full pages -
 the lefthand side much larger than the right.
Fiona wasn't going to touch this image but has added Pices.

this image with pages spread is to show the warmth the lamp brings to the pages (on the right) when read under light.

I must add here that Fiona did her research and printed out copies of the night sky from the Sydney Observatory Sky Map in January 2013 - thus the positioning of the constellations on each image is specific to when this book commenced.

This 'art blog' of mine will change direction a little over the next few weeks into a 'travel blog'.  I will keep in touch with all you are working on while I travel about soaking up new visual information and experience and will come home inspired.  Again.  This time though I will make certain I make time to explore some of the ideas I bring home in my visual bag. 

Take care till then .....


And because I have now completed the book here are a few images of it complete.

I have tried to remove a few of these images but everything then disappears - don't have time to sit and work out why!