A Guided Tour through my latest artist's book, 'Hurly-Burly'

After several online tutorials and many retakes, here it is.

 

Assemblage: 2022, 12 small works

 

2022:  12 Assemblages  Mixed media including canvas, photographs,  

acrylic media, encaustic, oil paint (with cold wax medium), sand, and metal patinas 

on watercolour paper mounted on small canvases. Each work is 150x150mm (6"x6")

As things began to improve in 2022 I felt the need for more colour in my work. I still had plenty of bits and pieces from earlier projects tucked away in my studio, so I decided to use them to make a series of small assemblages. Thematically they would relate to my books.

Planning layouts on top of the underpaintings on the sheet of watercolour paper

                           

Much further on: I decided to make them round on square canvases

I developed each work with wiped back layers of oil paint mixed with CWM and impasto medium, and finally with oil glazes.

Artist's Books

The years 2020-2022 were filled with challenges

In late March 2020, NZ went into COVID lockdown. In early April my husband became very ill with Parkinson's disease complications and was taken to hospital, his condition deteriorated and he passed away two weeks later.  As we were still in lockdown visiting was very limited, it was a very difficult time for our family.  We'd been married for 49 years.

Work in progress: early stages

I was unable to paint but instead, I worked on two artist's books with sea themes using darkroom photogenic images left over from previous projects: grids of small pieces of encaustic and other media, digital prints worked into with oil paint, and for the pages, I used watercolour paper with ink and acrylic washes.  For the covers I used oil paint on calico, and the Coptic technique for binding the book.

'All Bound Together' was inspired by The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck.

"it is advisable to look from the tide pool to the stars and then back to the tide pool again"

    

'A New Dance' was inspired by Richard Feynman's poem   'I Stand at the Sea'.

In early December 2020, I was mowing the lawn and without any warning signs I had a severe heart attack, but thanks to the prompt action of the ambulance and rescue helicopter teams I was soon recovering in Wellington Hospital.

Through 2021 the heart medications I was on played havoc with my system but when I had the energy I made collagraphs, and during the winter months I worked on a series of small paintings with organic forms based on cellular structures, on oil paper using oil paint and cold wax medium. 

Working small was ideal for the continuing Covid lockdowns and the need for self-isolation. 

Planning the pages for 'Hurly-Burly': paintings, collagraph prints, digital prints  

                               

By early 2022 I was feeling very much better and ready to get stuck into a new project.  

The prints and paintings from 2020-21 are earlier would be the subject matter for a new book, and the theme would be the battles that dominated those years, my own struggles during 2020, and 2021, the difficulties imposed by the pandemic, and the lack of international action regarding climate change.  I would call the book Hurly-Burly, referencing Lucretius's definition of Chaos as a hurly-burly mass, and the three witches opening verse in Macbeth.

The last stitches

Artist's book No.2 Hedge

Climate change and our slowness to act provided inspiration for this book.

COVID 19, however, is taking all our attention now and the resulting clean air and water are already apparent in many parts of the world.

Handmade Book with Coptic Binding

Last October we moved from Feilding to Palmerston North.  In the process of sorting and packing, I was looking through the photographic images that I had made over a decade ago when we were living out near Colyton, using photo paper, chemicals, sunlight and plants from our garden, and a series of solar plate prints that had I made for a book at about the same time but never completed. There were also some small paintings on paper using oil and cold wax medium, leftovers from a project more recent project.  I decided that I would use this material for my next project and pick up with the book idea again.  By December 1 had my new workspace ready, I had lots of ideas noted down in my workbook, and I had time to commit to the project.  More than two months later my first book (above) is completed.

More scumbles and glazes

 

Building up history using textures and layers

     


These photos are of details in my new work.
They show  'history' developing after about two weeks of building up the layers.
I began with acrylic media, sand, charcoal, pencil, pigments, and am now working on them with oil paint and cold wax medium, rolled, scraped, brushed, dribbled and blotted.  Today I rolled a thin white layer, a scumble, over them then scraped it back and tomorrow, if it's dry, I'll tone it with glazes....