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.

hunting and gathering .....

I have been busy in the studio trying to get everything ready for the exhibition .... time seems to be racing. Though much of the work I am presenting is not printmaking, I could not let this opportunity pass without some representation of my favourite medium.

As well as my 'tidings of magpies' which I am now editioning, there will be an edition of this book titled 'hunting and gathering'.  This book consists of four etchings (and embossings of course) bound together with perspex hinges in concertina form.  This is the first time I have used this method and was quite excited by the results.  Being one of those very difficult to photograph books, the photos below give an impression rather than the experience of reading the book.

These plates were rather complex - been bitten in acid four or five times to give different degrees of aquatint texture and also different layers of fine line etching.  Had I been more focussed I  could probably have reduced this 'biting' but I just didn't seem to be able to work everything out simultaneously!

The etchings are printed on Fabriano Tiepolo 290 gsm which is a favourite of mine.  The plates were inked using three colours and by warming the plates the colours were blended and a small amount of plate tone was left.  I had thought to add chine cole but felt it would detract from the line work and obscure some of the detail. My first proofs were made on rusted and inked papers and though the bolder lines were visible, the fine details were completely lost.

In this photograph you can see the reflection of the first etching through the cover.  Both front and back covers are perspex which I have sanded, leaving a couple of windows or peep holes through which to view the from image more clearly.  I used this technique in one of the collaborative books I made with Fiona, 'epitaph'.  I will use it more in the future I am sure.

my bird book .....

It is such a joy to share some photographs of my completed book ... well not quite as I have yet to name it and make its slip case.

Struggle though it has been, this book and I are now firm friends.  I wasn't sure that was going to be the case but once I let go of the fact that although I had done a number of etchings towards this book, I need not use them in an illustrative manner but find another way of relating this story.  After all, that is what these books are all about - narrative.  It doesn't mean one has to tell all, but certainly the imagery should prompt the viewer to discover their own story.  

There are thirteen pages to my book and the etchings have been done either on Japanese Tengujo paper or the lovely warm Fabriano Tiepolo.  After cutting down images, they were then mounted in an embossed frame onto a gorgeous Magnani paper almost 600 gsm thick. I decided on using a natural linen thread and left some of the stitching with length to emulate the twigs of a birds nest.  A number though not all of the eggs have been placed underneath the soft Japanese paper as I wanted the them suggested rather than dominant. Overall dimension of the page is 45cms x 7cms.  I will make an edition of 7 only as there is so much effort in making each book even with the etching plates completed.  The book is made up from seven separate etchings which need to be printed before I can even begin the process of designing and making the book. The etchings will be an open edition.

The completed book may be folded and read in any number of ways.

I like the way the thread hangs out from the book twig like.

The embossing I made for Fiona's book can be seen here in mine too.

I think the colour here in the nest and in other parts of the book suggests early morning sunshine.

Some of the details before the book was sewn.

Fiona's beautiful wording can be seen here very subtly.

Thoughts

rest your wings.

Here is a hollow

of silence,

a nest of stillness,

in which to hatch

your dreams.

These words by Joan Walsh Anglund were found by Fiona and very kindly shared with me in this book giving our works another point of collaboration.

our sixth dance .....

Once again Fiona and I have begun a collaborative book.  Life has often intervened this year and we have been less diligent than we were last year.  However, we have already laid our plans for 2014 and set working days aside for our joint projects.

This collaboration is different once again.  It is born out of the prints we each made and swapped for the Maleny Printmakers exhibition last weekend.  We each used nine of our own prints and nine from the other ..... these then form the materials from which we will work to make our books.

Here in the trays at the exhibition you can see our rows of little prints waiting for sale...

When making the prints, neither of us had in mind any commonality or sense of bringing them together cohesively so our beginnings here are really quite a challenge.  I have decided to work in the sphere of dreams and so will cut and combine parts of our work, using some solid images and then having bits of images floating, dreamlike around the page.  The struggle will be to maker this all hold together with out looking too piecemeal.  Fun but imbued with a sense of difficulty.

We spent yesterday together in Fiona's studio (after having delicious coffee and chocolate cake to celebrate my birthday), and made some headway into our planning.  These few photographs show the way  my thoughts are heading.

Not quite sure how I will pull it all together but I think this is a good start.

photographic flattery .....

This was the very first artist's book I made as long ago as 1998.  It is not well made, but whilst sorting the studio today I came across it and decided to take some photographs.  Truth is, the photographs flatter the book which is poorly made and was never really completed. I called it 'Forest Floor' and it is made from a number of different papers including transparent paper - all rusted.  Yes, even back then I was rusting papers.

I am way more delighted with the photographs than the book itself and in light of my last post, think I must have been interested in the same forms and textures as Richard Serra way back!  I have sourced some very large sheets of rusted metal and hope one day to make a book which can sit outside amongst the trees .....