Mushrooms

Someone kindly gave me some very old paper and an old notebook. I liked the effect of the watercolour paints on the dry paper, so I painted some mushrooms.

Some of them were painted from life. some from photos and some from my head.

 

Camera Obscura

In April I turned the kitchen into a camera obscura. The whole room was filled with the image of the outside world, but the camera on my phone found it too difficult to capture. 

I attached a weak lens to the aperture which produced a clear image at about a metre away.

The  aperture was on a south facing window, which meant that the glare from the sun affected the clarity of the image. Next time I'll use a north facing window and hope that the spectacular sight of the room filled with the image will be light enough to capture on camera.

Bloddau Gwanwyn

Spring Flowers through the video lens.

Eirlys. Snowdrops.

Worcesterberry flowers.

Worcesterberries are like a cross between blackberries and gooseberries. They don't grow as quickly and as vigorously as blackcurrents, but our shrub has lived for more than 30 years so far. The berries are lovely raw, when ripe, and they make lovely jam. Care is needed when picking as they have large, sharp thorns.

 

A Little Book of Mung Beans

Sprouted mung beans which I pressed then stitched onto paper. The paper is lightly tea stained.

The pages were sewn together using the cover of an old broken book.

 

02.06.20

Marigolds and Hogweed

Small Hand Stitched Books

I have made quite a few small books over the years. Some are plain and some have stitched or printed pages. This one has a stitched circle of the same size and colour on each page.

 Simplicity and repetition are fascinating to me. A minimal gallery space is not always the most interesting, but there is something quite delicious about almost not there.

 The books made of rusted paper are a lot busier although I have added nothing to them. I rusted layout paper then soaked it in tea. The cover of this one is plain paper.

 The paper was wrapped around tin cans using diluted vinegar. Using plain water does work but the process is longer and it seems to me that the colours are a bit duller. The longer the paper is left wet and exposed to the rust, the more fragile it becomes.

 The paper is lovely to handle. It rustles like dry leaves and although thoroughly rinsed it sometimes retains a faint smell of rust.

Woven Patchwork Square.

I wove strips of rusted, tea stained fabric and a cyanotype of leaves to create a patchwork square which measures about 19 cm across. The colour combination reminds me of dark wood and blue and white china, so rich and warm. There's something really relaxing about hand stitching. As with so many creative pieces, the process itself is as important as the end result.
I made a conscious effort to avoid a very neat finish, no straight lines drawn onto the cloth and only a couple of corrections to a misplaced stitch. A tendency to be too pedantic about the final piece means that my work is becoming increasingly tentative, which does not really suit me or what I want to say.

 

Having woven the strips together I tacked them to a piece of old cotton sheet.  This creates some weight and stability, while adding a third layer, which might be a bit bulky when it comes to joining squares together.

 Back stitch and embroidery thread worked well with the colours and proportions of the squares. The frayed edges create a softer and flatter finish than if the fabric was folded or hemmed. I don't know how well this will wear over time.

Cyanotypes. Before and After

I exposed the fabric for a short while before laying the flowers in place. I'm not sure how much difference it made, but the intention was to have a slightly softer background, not just pure white.
The flowers were sandwiched between the fabric and glass to keep them flat and still.

The sun is bright today but I left them outside for quite a while as I wanted the blue to be quite strong.

Tiny Views

I found what I think is an eye piece from a video camera. It is square with a lens inside. I held it over my phone camera lens and was able to take these close up images. Although my phone shows very fine detail, I liked the effects achieved with this method.

Apart from a little bit of editing such as slightly lighter or sharper on a few of them, the images are in  their original state. The black frame, which has been cropped down, is the edge of the eye piece. Holding the lens in place was a bit tricky though, which is why some of them are slightly crooked. It was such fun that I have taken more than 50 of these photos.