Under Construction progresses

Towards the end of the week and over the weekend, I made myself sit down and DO something with the layout and body of work that is to become "Under Construction".  I have been staring at the possibility of the wall pieces; but was still feeling too scared to really have a go; so decided I would take the easier route for  me - I would start with the book.

I had chosen to work with BFK printmaking paper - a half sheet - and thought that will look good on the wall and will make an interesting book size as well.  I folded the pages and discovered that the layout needs to be different when you are working with individual pages; rather than simply the flat surface.

I bit the bullet, inked up the plates, registered them, put some paper down and printed.

To my great surprise they worked out pretty well - using about 4-5 plates on a single sheet is always a challenge re alignment and pressure etc - and then I had the fun part of adding other elements.

And the joy that process brought as I went from one element to a completely different, unheralded element to add in and so on - building and constructing this work in response to each layer placed previously.

I have written five short haiku-ish poems about nests as I hope to make five books and five wall-pieces (ambitious I know...). I enjoyed the gentle, whimsical and light script as I wrote with walnut ink.

What had started out as a promise of a test run had actually turned into an almost finished product.

The satisfaction was immense - these snippets show you some of its loveliness...