Got the little book finished this morning, so here’s the ‘summer’  side and a few different views of the various pages:

Having had some time off work this week I wanted to try something new that I hadn’t done before so this has been just the job. I’ve really enjoyed seeing how the different pages can be viewed together and it’s given me lots of ideas for future work.

Hedgecrows – Winter

Finished the Winter side of the folding sketchbook this morning, now working on Summer. I think summer will be more of a challenge, somehow the spiky shapes of bare branches seems more straightforward than foliage.
Here are a few more images of the book so far – I do love how, even with this very small book, you can fold the pages back in so many different arrangements, creating new images and juxtapositions all the time. These books are difficult to display though, not figured that one out yet!

A bit more progress on the Hedgecrows themed folding sketchbook i’m working on:

This is the ‘winter’ side, hopefully finished today if I get the two ravens which will go into the blank spaces done, then start work on  the ‘summer’ side tomorrow.

I’ve been looking out for boxes and cases that will fit these little books as they’ll get pretty tatty very quickly if they’re just left loose. So far I’ve found a metal CD case that fits very well and a hessian bag that’s just the right size, although I don’t think it will last that long itself. I’d like to get something that can be decorated a bit as well, and I could try and make a box myself of course although I’d prefer to find something ready-made!

Been working away at the first of the folding sketchbooks I bought last weekend and, after a couple of days of paralysis (what if I muck up the first page, it’ll be ruined, I daren’t touch it, etc. etc) I’ve got started with a ‘Hedgecrows’ themed little book. The two blank spaces here are for the crows which i’ll put in tomorrow.

In this case, the crows are actually going to be two ravens, Hugin and Munin, to be precise, the two ravens who fly all over the world collecting news and bringing it back to the god Odin. I love the idea of Hugin and Munin sitting on Odin’s shoulders, as they are often depicted, telling him all about what they’ve seen on their travels; they are, in fact, the ‘crows’ in  ‘Hedgecrows’, so it was about time I made some work about them. Here are a few more pages from the book so far:

I’m enjoying playing with the books, they are a good size to start with, the thick paper they are made of is lovely; smooth, a very pale grey and it copes with getting wet very well – I use diluted acrylic gel medium to paste down the collage elements so the paper needs to be pretty tough. One side of the book is going to be winter, the other summer. Pretty simple stuff but i’m getting lots of ideas for more books as I work away at this one so we’ll see what comes along next – I think i’ll be going back to Modular to buy some more!

I’d never really thought about using Chinese folding sketchbooks at all until I read about the Open Books exhibition on my friend Clive Hicks-Jenkins’ Artlog a couple of years ago – you can read about the exhibition on the Artlog here (Clive published a number of wonderful posts about his folding sketchbooks for Open Books on the blog, enjoy browsing!). The strong shapes and playfully ghoulish images of his book Where the Bad Things Are were pure delight and he included pop-up and sliding mechanisms that made the little book a great deal of fun. Clive also produced an alphabet primer book for the show with wonderful, spare drawings  and hand cut lettering that zinged with energy. Another contributor to the Open Books show was artist Natalie d’Arbeloff who, thanks to the wonders of the blogosphere bringing people together, has also become a friend here in London – you can see images from Natalie’s book here. Clive and Natalie’s work were a joy to behold, the folding format allowing possibilities of juxtaposing images, narrative and composition that I hadn’t appreciated before. Natalie had employed a labour intensive technique of printing from hand drawn and cut out stencils, and the resulting richness and vividness of the images was gorgeous. Coupled with Natlie’s talent for combining images and storytelling, the finished article was a beautiful, moving treasure of a book.

I started to think about trying something out along these lines myself. I bought a folding sketchbook and my friend Maggie gave me another one as a gift. My enthusiasm started to wane though when faced with the sheer number of blank pages that needed to be filled, and with the pressure that, for the book to be a success, no single page could be a dud, every one had to work on it’s own, and with the rest of the book. I flagged under the weight that gathered around the project and soon the sketchbooks were back in the cupboard and haven’t seen the light of day since.

Fast forward to last weekend and I was wandering round one of my favourite art shops in Berlin (Modulor at Moritzplatz; why can’t London do art shops like this?). I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, I had been working at my art table during the morning and the piece I was working on had ended up a failure so I had the idea to go and walk  around Modulor to get ideas. The idea worked as I came across these little folding books of just 8 pages which instantly did away with the pressure that came with the much fatter books I had tried working with before. I bought three and my head was soon racing with all kinds of ideas for them and I became excited again. We’ll see how they turn out over the next few days…

This is my favourite exhibition title so far this year so I thought i’d do a little post about it.

My home town of Sleaford in Lincolnshire is quite unremarkable on the face of it. But, like many unremarkable-on-the-face-of-it things, once you scratch the surface, there are quite a few interesting discoveries to be made. King John stayed at Sleaford Castle in 1216 just before he died after apparently being poisoned with toad venom and St. Deny’s church has the oldest stone broach spire in the country and was painted by J. M. W. Turner no less. Ok, it’s not earth shattering stuff but it was a very nice little place to grow up in. Back in the ’70s Sleaford was a small, dusty agricultural market town, and I remember trying to concentrate during French or maths lessons while the pigs in the livestock market next to the school were squealing blue murder as they had eletric prods poked in their behinds to encourage them to get into the trucks.

All that has long gone of course, the markets have closed and the town has become engulfed in sprawling estates of charmless brick boxes (apologies if you live in one of these) while the town centre has died a protracted and dreary death. This quote from Wikipedia says it all: ‘To the north of the town, an early Saxon settlement was investigated by APS prior to the construction of new housing and facilities at the Holdingham roundabout. Some of the artefacts can be seen displayed at the McDonald’s restaurant on the site’.

Anyhoo, one positive recent change to the town was the opening of the National Centre for Craft and Design in 2003. ‘Why on earth put it in Sleaford?’ we thought, but we were very glad they did as the Centre is now a real highlight of the town, hosting some first rate exhibitions which are all free. The current exhibition in the main gallery, called Creating a Scene, explores stage design in all its forms and is superb. Unfortunately photography isn’t allowed so I can’t show any pics though you can get a bit of info. here on the website.

The National Centre for Craft and Design – in Sleaford!

Upstairs in the smaller rooftop gallery, though, I was able to take a few pictures of the wonderfully titled Black Sheep – The Darker Side of Felt  which was great fun, informative about the process of felt making, and which included some stunning work, ranging from delicate plates and bowls to huge wall peices that looked as if they were going to eat you. It was all a very long way from the Fuzzy Felt of my youth!

Things you need to make felt

A great felt headpeice – I want one!

A series exploring the seven deadly sins – no prizes for guessing which one

From the top floor the east side of town still retains some of it’s charm – that’s the oldest stone broach spire in the country don’t you know!