Thursday 15 March 2018

11/52 'with crows' .....

We live on a hill
with crows.

Steve calls me the 'mother of crows'
and I love that they call out to me for attention.

I am much happier with crows around the house than with the magpies 
who dominated the house acreage.  Crows seem happy to live with all the other birds
around them and the small birds
the magpies chased away
have come back.

Living high on a hill means we are often looking down on birds soaring high above Palmwoods,
or flying through the tall trees below us.

We have watched crows' nests being built and the young mimicking their parents.
I am pretty sure we have at least three generations of crows here on our bush block.

Of course there are countless other birds too!



This is a small book of etching, aquatint and chine colle worked into concertina format and folding back into a solid cover with a spine of black leather.  I have worked quite a bit on the back of the paper as well and like the way I get glimpses of that work when I am looking through the book.


 I had a little bit of fun with some old wooden type I have sitting on studio shelves.  









 The dry point print I have used as some of my hills looks like birdsong music ...... may be a stretch of the imagination but I can see it!


I find it hard to believe eleven weeks of this year have passed already and I am still ticking away with the 52 book project.  Already the discipline is having the desired affect - making me spend time in the studio, getting my creative juices flowing again providing inspiration for future work.  What I am longing to do after working with all these small books, is some LARGE drawings.  Large, bold, black .....  hmmmm.

16 comments:

  1. Aaarrkk! AAaarrrkkkk! AAAaaarrrrkkkk-k-k!

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  2. I have been following you since getting wind of your book project from Mo ... it is such an amazing series and I am particularly taken with this crow book. Thank you for the ongoing inspiration ...

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    1. Hello Liz -loved that you stopped by and took time to look around. Thank you.

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  3. It has been such a pleasure watching this process. Each year, I make the resolution to begin exploring bookmaking, and each year flies by without that happening. Maybe this year. In the meantime, I live vicariously through your beautiful work

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    1. I have been doing this myself for a couple of years which is why it is so lovely to know that people are still looking at what I do and taking the time to let me know that it appeals or inspires or even that someone is choosing to live vicariously through my work! Thank you for telling me so.

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  4. This is beautiful and I’m fascinated by its construction - the delicate detail, the working into the back to give hints of fresh delights as you look from the other side and the cover with its leather spine giving somewhere for those pages to nestle. Oooh how I’d like to see it ‘in the flesh’!

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    1. Tis a cute little book but really, once again, a rushed little ‘make’ as there is little time each week to get a book thought about and made .... usually there is the making and not much time for thinking!

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  5. You're making me want to make books!

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    1. I jsut had a quick look at the exciting work you do and imagine it would lend itself beautifully, and interestingly, to book making. Don’t discount the thought ..... books are great vessels for ideas.

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  6. Love this one!! I like crows too...although I know some people don't. I like their cawing!

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  7. Hello Penny. I too love their cawing - it sounds so needy at times, and at others very like trying to connect.

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  8. Gorgeous combinations and I'm with you on the musicality of those hills!

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    1. Glad you saw the music! I have a theme here i think ....

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