21/52 'small landscape' .....

This little book consists of four folios sewn into the cover with pamphlet stitch.  The spine was then covered with a hinge of black leather.  As is often the case my inspiration is drawn from extensive journeys into the Australian outback.  I used some of the rusted paper I had in the studio as it reflects so much of the true interior colour and then painted small landscape scenes with black ink.  A few small details were added either with fine black pen or white conte.  The book was surprisingly difficult to photograph and so only a few snippets are shown here.

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.

6/52 'snow on the mountains' .....

This is the smallest of the books I have made thus far , only about 8 x 10cms.  I have had a fairly busy week but as I have committed to making a book a week I am allowing myself latitude with complexity, or lack thereof, when I only have time to do something simple.  So this little concertina book was born, made from a pen and ink drawing of mine from a few years back which has just been sitting around in one of my many 'desk piles'.  You can see a few 'snow' marks here on the page above.  I think I stopped at that page envisioning that I would do an overlay of snow fall though never did.  One day I may include that in the book but I am already having to think about a book for next week!

Nothing precious about this little book other than I think it works quite neatly folded and only revealing snippets of the drawing at a time.  That quintessential element we love about the book format where only a little is revealed with any one glimpse.