frivol finished .....

As I said in my previous post, this little collaborative piece was really about having fun, playing .... having a frivol.  I was unable to show you our shared pieces and how they sit together so well as I had not completed the black and white design on the back of my last eight pieces before swapping them with Fiona.

Here they are - sixteen squares in all - decorated front and back.   Eight done by Fiona and eight by me.  As yet we haven't really resolved the way we present this little book - our current thinking is to leave them as unbound books in a box.  That way, we get to arrange and rearrange the story - the visual poetry - in numerous ways.  It is actually fun sitting there and swapping all the pieces around .... quite contemplative.

I am returning to health .... more slowly than I would wish but am definitely improving.  Thank you all for your well wishes. 

our first anniversary .....

Today is World Book Day and it was this time last year that Fiona and I worked together on our first collaboration.  At that point we had no idea that we were embarking on something so special .... we had just decided to spend WBD together.  The fun and success we had on that day led into a dance that has brought us both heaps of joy during the last year.  We managed to make four collaborative works .... all very different yet each one sharing the collaboration in a different way.  Our sixth book, which we will have until the end of July to work on, is a collaboration in theme only.

However, this last collaborative piece, number five in our collection, was just a frivolous little plan to do something whilst I was away for nearly two months.  We each worked on the front and back side of sixteen squares - I think the weight of the paper we used is about 600gsm.  Thick, luscious, wonderful. The work we have done on them can not be called art, but playtime which is often just as valuable.  The guidelines we set were that one side would be to do with travel and journeys and the other side would be black and white designs.  Neither of us were very enthusiastic about our results until we got together this afternoon and swapped half of our bundles.  They worked beautifully together - surprisingly, or maybe we should no longer be surprised about how our works sits so comfortably side by side.

Today I am just showing a few photos of my fronts and backs ..... I confess to only having eight backs done so that I could give them to Fiona.  Tomorrow I will work on completing my eight pieces and then I will have the full deck to show in the next posting ....... with Fiona's and my pieces.

yellow for Jennifer .....

This was the best I could do with Jennifer's call for yellow!  I have started looking over some of the blogs I usually follow, and haven't been whilst away and as always, thoroughly enjoyed my wander through Jennifer's posts.  The most recent one send me scurrying around the studio looking for yellow .....

Alas, barely any yellow in my studio apart from this biscuit tin which I bought in Paris thirteen years ago and which sits in my studio holding all sorts of 'stuff'.  I love the tin as much now as when I bought it - a little splash of sunshine in the room.

my impressionist normandy .....

I arrived home three days ago, unfortunately my good health didn't make the same flight but I hear it is safely on its way.

I am not yet in the studio but oh so looking forward to that!  Just a few more posts about our holiday which though marred by poor health and weather, was still enjoyable.

These photos were taken on our cruise along the Seine through Normandy.  A couple of them are taken through the window of a bus and the slightest blurring seems to have turned the photographs into impressionist paintings.  I am thrilled with them and have more understanding now of some of the impressionist paintings I have seen that are so evocative.  It is all very well travelling in good weather in Spring and Autumn, but the visual experience of travelling in the cold of winter with all the earth hues and misty muted colours was quite something.

I will be back again blogging more regularly.  Soon hopefully showing some creative work.  Thank all of you who have sent me comments along the way .... it meant a lot to me.  I am not going to get around to commenting to each of you personally, but thank you - those who have followed me for some time, and those who kindly came and visited while I was away, and stayed.

Very soon I will be enjoying visiting you all in your studios via your blogs ..... what a treat that will be.