Downsizing and Manipulation.

This all started with one very large sheet of paper that we were given in our art class. The idea was to use a large brush, and some paint or ink, and to cover our paper with brush strokes, dribbles, splashes, swirls, lines, in fact any marks we felt moved to make. Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of my piece until after I had cut it up, working further into each smaller sheet.

I cut my pieces into approximately 10" x 20", folding each piece in half, ready to make into a book. 

I have clamped my 'signatures' together, ready for stitching.

I had enough paper left over to make a smaller book, with pages of about 5" square. Above is the cover for the smaller book, one of my previous paintings from a while back, and printed onto some cotton cloth.

This book has inspired me to add some paintings from photos I have taken along the seafront. The textures and shapes on some of the pages seemed to lend themselves as backgrounds for sea birds, groynes, or pebbles. 

My attempt at a Haiku!

After taking photos of these pages, I was able to manipulate the colours and textures in Photoshop, giving me alternative ideas for further experimentation.

Above and below are some results which I used to make covers for another small book.

I also played around with the colours.

I have left the reverse of these pages blank, giving me the opportunity to add some written words, and some other art work that I have made inspired by my photos of ripples on a pond.

Still a few scraps from my prints left over, so I have used gold acrylic paint on the reverse side, and made a couple of concertina books. I wasn't quite sure what to do on the gold side, until I bought a copy of this wonderful book. In fact, I bought two copies, one for my six year old grandson, and one for myself. It is, 'the lost words' by Robert Macfarlane, and illustrated by Jackie Morris. Such a beautiful book, and I noticed that many of the wonderful illustrations are on a gold background. I experimented by drawing on my gold backgrounds with black waterproof pens, so collected some autumnal plants to sketch on the reverse of the narrow pages.

Quite a long post this time, so well done if you managed to get to this point, and thanks for reading.