a map of me and my place ......

Mapping 'my place' - the image is not as yellow as this, just really aged.

I have been working really hard in the studio for the last ten or so days and am only now just starting to work out where I am heading with this very large book.  As I have been working through the planning I have come to realise that I can't divorce my emotions and myself from the land I live on - all are inextricably entwined.  From the onset this book, which will be about six metres of work, was going to be just about this beautiful block of land we live on.  As 'the story' has been evolving for me visually I realise that though the books will contain many fragments of things that have meaning to me around the land, it is starting to contain much more.

I am feeling the need to include some of the pieces missing from my life now, by including marks and images which will represent some of the major happenings in my life since moving here towards the end of April 2010. By pieces I mean incorporating work that reminds me of those recently absent from my life and also the newcomer who has fulfilled my life.  So my story about the land will now be one overlaid with a more personal story - all pretty obscure but it will all mean something to me.

Well, that is the plan .... As we know, work can have a way is leading us off in tangents.  This body of work has already taken a fairly major shift of direction.  

Below are some of the photos of false starts, which may yet lead into other images,  beginnings of ideas, the trying out of technique to make the lines I want to use and so forth.  I have found that I am needing to experiment every single step of the way as I am using layers of different papers left over from my father's architectural practice, various other transparent and fine papers and I have to work out how they all react to various techniques.

Heading for the bin - though some of the ideas I will re use.

A bundle of old, very old, tetra set from my father which will find its way into some of the work .

Blending and bleeding with conte - one of my favourite tools.

I decided my book needed some king of cohesive thread running through the pages to help tie the story together.  Hence an afternoon of printing on numerous papers.

Ideas forming.

Working out how to suggest rather than draw lines.

More possibilities I think.  For me it is like working into already messed up paper which is far less daunting that facing the big blank white.  Only I need to muss up lots of paper and create layers into which I can work and then paste them down onto the papers I am using.  Pasting has proved almost hazardous with may of the film papers and tissues.