friday

Well, the shortest day is over, and what a beautiful one. Sunshine, blue skies, unusual clouds... 

Today it's raining, but the mood lifting effects of the sunshine linger on. That combined with time off work, spending time with lovely friends and family and feeling my little baby swizzle around in my belly (trying and nearly succeeding to spill my cup of tea). More and more daylight now until I meet him...

5 trees

A new book...

sunshine please

The day light goes so quickly at the moment. I've had some books I've wanted to list in my shop for ages now and even my usual south-facing-white-walled-fairly-large-windowed hall way only does the trick lighting wise for a short time each day, usually whilst I'm at work... The last few books I tried to photograph today came out very poorly, all washed out. My camera tries it's best, but without the sunshine its so hard to get that detail. Anyway. I think these ones came out ok, good enough for now anyway...


This one is called 'lost property'. Screen prints from drawings from feathers I collected on a new years day walk. Picking them up and putting them in my pocket I wondered who they belonged to... you can see more here


And another tree one. This ones been around a while. But I still really like it, and I feel its a shame for it to be wrapped in tissue in a storage box. So out it comes... have a look

I've not listed artists books in my shop before, I'm not sure how well they will do, I think its quite a small market... but you've got to be in it to win it I suppose, and they're something I like to make so I thought I'd give it a try. And if the sun shows its face tomorrow then there will be more to come :)

neighbours

House buying is moving along. Slowly still. The whole process is still stressing me out, still more stressful than I imagined it would be. I hadn't expected to feel this out of control of the whole situation, to be relying so much on other people to sort it out, very frustrating! But hopefully (land registry administration willing) we should have the keys by the end of the month, and then the real fun begins...


We need to replace the electrics, the boiler and the bathroom for starters, then carpet the living room, remove the lino in the bedrooms (lino in bedrooms?!) and sand the floors, sort out the kitchen, decorate throughout and landscape the garden... And now I just want to get in there and make a start.


Anyway. These books were made from lino plates I cut a while back. I made three books with the prints, with three different bindings, but didn't really like any of them; all too fussy or not strong enough, so the idea got side tracked (and the books got put in box). A few months ago I found the plates again, and realised that the altered pamphlet stitch binding I worked out for some notebooks would work here too...


The trees are printed in black ink on BFK Rives grey paper, and also on various layers of tissue. I like the way the tissue changes the black to shades of grey. Perhaps it looks a bit like there's distance between the trees? Or mist. I like the idea of travelling through the trees as I turn the page...


I was also thinking of making some single prints of these trees for my shop, for framing, although I haven't quite worked out how to get the layers of paper and tissue to stay together. Or maybe it should be interactive? Choose your own arrangement type thing... hmmm.

Fingers crossed the solicitor rings tomorrow :)

more trees anyone?

My favorite thing to do with a bit of paper is fold it into a concertina. There's something so very satisfying about matching up edges and creasing, folding and creasing and ending up with a little paper caterpillar that can squash and open and flex. And a concertina is so versatile as a book structure. I love how long concertina strips bend and pages sewn in the gutters move with them, flopping about all over the place.


In this book the pages are sewn on top of the crease and the difference is subtle but there none the less; the spine stays stiffer while the pages seem to move more freely. I'm pleased with how this book closes flat but opens further than you would expect; how the spine extends ever so slightly, the pages move over each other and the pictures change. It's nice to turn the pages...


And I cut an extra tree hole in the front (it looked a bit plain...) now when it's stood up the concertina makes a tunnel book...


Sometimes it takes me ages to get a book to work, a real struggle. This one seems to have come together ok, nice and simple is the way I think...

sunday

Today I have been occupying myself... doing a bit of tidying up, eating mushrooms on toast and making some little tree cards...


All in all a good day!

oops

I think this tidying thing has gone a bit far... I am now the proud owner of a fully organised and categorised iphoto library...


You see I discovered a new way of organising pictures. Up until now they were all just shoved in the library together, book pictures next to chicken pictures next to trees, until someone introduced me to film rolls. Just like little boxes to put all the pictures in...


So now I know exactly where to find each photo, should I need it. Phew.


There is something productive going on though...

trees

Today Riverlark left a lovely comment on my blog. A poem to celebrate my new banner, which I think is an absolutely lovely idea! The poem is beautiful, by W.S. Merwin; a poet I have never come across before, and the sentiment is so perfect I thought I would put the poem here for all to see...

Trees

I am looking at trees
they may be one of the things I will miss
most from the earth
though many of the ones I have seen
already I cannot remember
and though I seldom embrace the ones I see
and have never been able to speak
with one
I listen to them tenderly
their names have never touched them
they have stood round my sleep
and when it was forbidden to climb them
they have carried me in their branches

I think perhaps I will treat myself to this book, Amazon says "Merwin is not only profoundly anti-imperialist, pacifist and environmentalist, but also possessed by an intimate feeling for landscape and language and the ways in which land and language interflow" Sounds like a good read to me!

(And it's a good opportunity for a tree picture too, you can never have too many tree pictures can you. This one is growing in the park by my old house in the city center, taken last year in winter at dusk on my way home. The park had lots of blackbirds, starlings, wood pigeons and one day a sparrow hawk. Not sure which one the bird in the picture is, but it was having a good old sing.)

hello!

Yesterday Rag and Bone Blog featured some of my books, which was a lovely surprise!


They have a bindery (jealous, I want a bindery!) to make and sell lovely blank books, and also a blog with lots of interesting book related stuff, like this and this. So what a compliment to be mentioned on there!

Anyway, today I have been busy making some new tree cards...


The front opens out for a little walk through the trees, the last bit is a card to write what you will. And the whole lot folds flat, a forest in an envelope...

ginger marmalade

Rain all day.


And a little tree card to say 'thank you for the marmalade!' (Received in the post from Matt's Auntie. Perfect on toast.)

work in progress

hmm...

grrrr

The bank called me today. Some nasty person has stolen £500 pounds from my account. They went shopping online at Tesco with my card details. What a cheek!! And now I have to wait til monday to sort it out (but I think it will be ok...)






A tree to cheer me up :)

trees and thoughts

Hmmmm.... what shall I write about today? The sun is shining outside, the birds are singing (it's spring! it's spring!) and I've got the day off work, hurray! It's amazing the difference an extra day off can make to my state of mind... all I need to do is capture this feelng and extend it to everyday life, now there's the challenge!



I've been trying to make these trees pop up today. Not too sucessful yet, the paper is too flimsy, think I need to go back to basics, again... but i'm enjoying the random letters that appear on the trees, the shapes of the text, the overlapping of curves. In the past I've only really worked with plain white paper, focusing on the book structure, the way the pages overlap and how the shadows fall. I didn't want to complicte that. But (another but!) it's actually quite nice to see the text on the page, it almost turns into a pattern until single words jump out. Like spider.



I like the shadows they cast too... I was putting my face down low and pretending to be in a curly tree forrest. Next plan is to make a bigger one, and add in some birds... I've been thinking about birds a lot.



I've also been thinking about this bloging business. There's so much good stuff out there, so many people writing about interesting, thought provoking things and showing the beautiful things they've made. So much inspiration I sometimes feel my head will explode! So much to see I sometimes feel I will get lost and never find my way back, or worse, miss something... Although I don't like to admit it i'm a bit (a bit!) of a control freak. When I make my work I write down every possible option and get frustrated when I can't make them all. I find making choices between things hard. So imagine my trouble when evey blog has a list of links to other amazing blogs, and each one of them with a list... and every day more! How do you keep up?!



But really, I do love this thing that's going on all around me. I find it intriguing, being invited to peek through the windows of other peoples lives, into other worlds (or infact the same world, which is what makes it so nice). Perhaps it's because I'm nosey, but I think it's more than that. It's an exchange of information, a community I never knew existed. I'm really glad I've discovered it all. Very inspiring...

just more ramblings

Watched the helicopter landing on the roof of the hospital opposite my office today. I work on the 8th floor so it was a pretty good view. It looked just like a giant bumble bee wobbling through the sky. I think they were practising manoeuvres because they kept landing then backing up then spinning round and flying off again. Don't fancy a ride in one of those things! Although it would be a good view...




Looking forward to an extra long weekend this weekend, thanks to the bank holiday. Five whole days of freedom to use as I please. Only problem is I think I'm winding down a little early, it's only tuesday! Note to self: must try and stay awake tomorrow...