OMG! Only two weeks to before my work needs to be ready for the Artist’s Books Exhibition at the Riddoch Art Gallery. This is part of a group exhibition with the Thumbprint Printers Group, and I am pretty excited about it because the Riddoch Gallery is a wonderful regional gallery.
At this stage things are coming together quite nicely, but I still have a lot of finishing off to do and that always takes more time than you think it will.
I have a collection of books called Specimens.
It includes this Crabs book…
I still need to print the pages for this book and make up a latch system. The crabs are made out of recycled parts from my old electric organ that I played as a child (when they were all the fashion).
Also, this birds book…
…which may challenge some people’s ideas of what constitutes a book, but I like it. I have filled the flask with name labels for different birds – those which the collector has been unable to find specimens of because they have been collected into extinction.
There is also a book of Jellyfish specimens. This book just needs to have some text added and be bound now.
Oh, and I need to find some more old rubber stoppers to go in the tops of the test tubes.
I wanted to get some waterry looking jellyfish pictures to go inside this book, so I have made monoprints using water soluble oil pastels.
I was quite happy with the results although I am still experimenting with the idea if adding a little ink painting to them.
There is also a book of Fish specimens on microscope slides, but this one is the least developed at this stage.
I am using an encaustic technique on the microscope slides and am incorporating bits of rubbish that I find when I am walking my dog.
All if the Specimens books use mostly recycled or found objects.
I have two other books as well. This one is called Fly and is a necklace book.
I still need to string it up on some rings and a chain.
Finally, I have this one that I call Mehetibal in the Garden. I have used a cyanotype printing technique and also some lino prints on to clear plastic.
It is also still waiting to be bound. I am intending to make a simple concertina binding incorporating sticks, and I am also planning to add some broken egg shell to some of the pages.
Looks like a busy couple of weeks coming up for me. Stay tuned for a sneak peak at the finished products soon.
All the best,
Sharee
of life and art 