Friday 6 April 2018

14/52 'elanda point' .....

'the peephole'

'most of the pages - always so hard to photograph the whole'

This book was made in response to the few days we were camping at Elanda Point recently - the fringe of swamp gum and root twist on the water's edge.

I actually started with more realistic drawings around the insets but it didn't work and so I resorted to my 'mark making' which gives more a sense of things than the reality of what was in view.  I do love to draw but my years of using mark making in my printmaking work has definitely had an impact on the way I like to work.


This book is made with Fabriano Tiepolo - a firm favourite of mine.  The cover is greyboard with a cutout to reveal part of the front page.  Five pages in all.  The book was sewn before I stuck down the folios so the stitching is hidden inside the folds.   A simple coptic binding completed the book.





Although I am pleased with the pages as a whole, I really love some of the printed details contrasted with the hand drawn marks.  And the over printing in white ink is something I have not explored very much though will certainly try some more.  It brings a wonderful subtlety to the work.




I do realise that my preferred palette must seem repetitive and boring but I can't seem to move away from this 'love' zone whether I work with dark shades or the lights.




Where I am trying to head with my work is starting to take shape with this return to the studio which the book a week project has precipitated.  There is rarely time to give each book much thought or time but now and then I have glimpses of return points ..... points for further investigation.  These details show me that I would would love to take such a snippet and make it much larger without getting too detailed and overworking.  

As I am needing to reinvent myself in the studio and work with less toxic medium,  I am thinking more and more of drawings and maybe combinations of the realistic with the mark making.  All quite exciting I think but I have not arrived there yet ..... and I do keep wondering if I will ever be able to let go of printmaking.  Certainly it is something I would only be able to do here outside and not inside the studio.  Still it is possible when the weather is gracious.  Glad I didn't dispose of all my printmaking material.


8 comments:

  1. there's a very architectural quality to these pages especially the third photograph with the light coming through the window in the cover

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    1. I love hearing what other people see in my work - or in the photographs of the work. Thanks Mo.

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  2. I love the mark making and the palette

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    1. Thanks Jac - seems to be my comfort zone these days :-)

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  3. SB - another gem of a book. B

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  4. I started to read your post and scrolled down to the third photo when I was interrupted. Came back several hours later and found that photo occupying my screen -- I thought it was an installation view of an abstract painting -- by Cy Twombly, maybe? -- in a darkened triangular-shaped room in a museum, with a hole in the wall so people could look at the painting from out in the big light-filled room.

    Even after I realized that I was looking at a little book I kept coming back to that photo and seeing the museum. What an enticing optical (or psychological?) illusion!

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    1. I am completely flattered Kathy. Who would love to be thought of in the same breath as Cy Twombly ..... but yes, jsut a little book with interesting marks made more interesting it seems by the light through the cover. I am delighted to think you keep coming back to this photograph. Thank you for letting me know!

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