The stash is growing

 

I have finished two more small (postcard size) Scotland inspired watercolour and pen pieces; and have started another couple. So the stash of completed works is certainly growing.

The two I finished are in the opening photo. The one on the left is a ruin Fiona and I encountered on the road to Ullapool; and the old corn mill was on the wee island of Papa Westray. A couple of process photos follow.

A couple more photos of the completed works.

The new works can be seen below on the work bench at Megan's studio.

Betrayal and Loss - published

 

I have published Betrayal and Loss, my small book (17cm square and 50 pages) on the history and making of my solo exhibition in Strathnaver Museum Annex in September 2023. I took delivery of a small stash of the books - some of which you can see in the photo above. The book can be purchased here online through Blurb.

I wanted to publish the book to add to the telling of the story about the Strathnaver Clearances; and honour the Museum for hosting the exhibition and for purchasing Loss as part of its permanent collection.

 As you can see in the first photo below, the book covers: the background history, a description of each of the works, the process of making each of the works and working with Farr High School in the making of the public art piece the Fishers Post.

The following photos give a bit of an introduction to the book. I thought that the photos taken by Fiona and myself was the best way to share the story of the exhibition.

As I said at the beginning of this blog post - Betrayal and Loss the book can be bought online from the Blurb store. If you didn't want to buy the book you can purchase a PDF version of the book.

Magpie and the moon; and other fragments

 

I'm just sharing a few fragments from my iPhone from the week. I loved capturing the morning moon behind an early magpie (above) as I was walking a couple of days ago - and the moon through the foliage (below).

Fiona and I caught up with my brothers and their wives for lunch last Saturday. Sitting outside a cafe on a cold but clear day offered the view of a couple of sculpture like pieces on the sand bar.

On our Sunday walk the weir offered some beautiful reflections.

Though G says he does not have many orchids out in his orchid house there are still a beauties to enjoy.

Different fragments of beauty to brighten different days.

A printing favour

 

A friend of a friend asked if Fiona or could check out some old copper printing plates, see below, to see if it was possible to make prints from them. Given Fiona is up to her eyes in exhibition preparation I agreed to clean the plates and run a proof or two off them. The outcome of my endeavours is shown in the opening photo above.

After gently cleaning the plates I cut some quality etching print paper offcuts, dampened them, inked up the plates with water based etching ink and ran them through a small hand press we have.  One of the plates is shown below on paper and baseplate of the wee press.

I initially tried using Paynes grey ink but did not get a good proof so I switched to sepia - better outcome.

Whoever created the plates had done a very good drypoint job - some very fine detail as you can see in the photos above. The plate with the cross was not as good as the artist had used an etching process that did not work as well.

The current owner of the plates is now think about next steps - really depends on family connections etc. The task took me a couple of hours - good that Fiona and I have the skills to do small proofing tasks like this.

Mostly antler

 

I grabbed some time over the last couple of days to cut up a piece of antler to make a few pair of antler earrings; and one pair of bone earrings.

As you can see from the opening photo and the following one they have turned out well.

Some process photos follow. As you can see from the first photo the antler looks pretty rough before it is ground and polished.

Fiona and I had a discussion about which side of the antler material should face the front. In the main I have gone with the external section of the antler facing forward. But check out the photos below to see what you think - the first is with the external section forward and the second is the internal section of the antler.

These earrings will be heading to Scotland.

Hardy blossoms in the cold and dark light

 

The mornings have been dark and cold - but there is still beauty about - with the morning stars as you can see in the photos below; and in hardy blossoms as you can see in the opening photo and other blossoms in this blog. I love the paperiness of the petals on the blossom above.

A few more images of those hardy blossoms follow.

See if you can find the wee caterpillar and the wee insect in the blossom below.

As Fiona indicated in her blog post here we have been blogging for 15 years now. Rustnstuff has been, and still is, such a good way to journal my work and create a record of my art journey.

Trio of vases

 

Yesterday I set myself the goal of carving three vases from salvaged timber. One of the possible downsides of using the salvaged timber is you need to be willing to accept the cracks and old inactive wood borer holes. Still as you can see from the photo above the end result can be beautiful.

Following are some process photos including cutting a log into pieces and enjoying the bark that was removed.

Ending with another photo of there trio of carved timber vases.