All About Words, A Star and A Bestiary


Summer is upon us. Sunshine, rain and birds singing.  Green grass, cumulus clouds, art fairs, and so much more.  

In this post I have created a new book all about one word, a word I loathe. I created a star for a poem I wrote while visiting my favourite coffee shop, made new book covers with cold wax and oil paints and had fun making a new bestiary book.  

ONE LITTLE WORD 

I created this book, not to be obscene, but because it is obscene, vulgar, crude, common, and much more.  I created it because the thought has been running around my brain for at least a year and the idea of the book grew each time I heard this ugly little word spoken. For those who find this book offensive, I offer no apology, and ask that you make an effort to ban this word from the English language.  It is so pervasive and affects almost every aspect of life.  




This is the envelop for the book.  I illuminated the letters using water colours and ink.  


This is the cover of the book and the first letter F.  It is a representation of a medieval letter F, which I researched online. 


I used a light velum for the pages of the book, writing words and the definitions that define the crudeness of the word. Some of the pages are different sizes. 


Since I used a medieval illumination technique for the letters, I wanted to book to have a medieval appearance.  


By using the light weight velum, the pages have the appearance of palimpsests. 


This is the first page of my argument for banning this crude little word from the English language, in hopes that it falls out of favour and use. 


The second letter of this vulgar little word.  I used water colours and a bronze acrylic ink to decorate this page.  


In creating the last two letters, I decided to reverse them, taking some of the power out of this obscene little word.  



The last page of the book. 

ONE THOUSAND WORDS 

It is said a picture is worth a thousand words.  I had a lot of my photographs digitally saved and was left with a bag full of negatives, which I turned into this piece: 



A STAR 

A number of years ago, while enjoying a light summer drink at my favourite coffee shop, I watched as customers came and went.  Through these observations, a poem came to me and I called it Buck's Star.  


On water colour paper I drew a star and painted it with water colours and acrylic inks.  The poem is handwritten with glass pen and ink.  

THE BESTIARY 

I created a new book of bestiary for my personal collection.  They are hand drawn graphite images. I added stickers with complementary images to add a bit of colour.   


The cover is a stamped cowhide and book cloth. 


The entrance to the bestiary. 












THE OLD WILLOW 

There is a beautiful, old weeping willow tree in the back yard.  On a particularly windy day, it dropped some of its branches.  I picked up a few, twisted them together and added some washi paper scrolls.  



Playing With Paper

I had some interesting paper which I started to play with, added some horse hair, recycled pearls and crystal.  I used synthetic sinew to bring all the pieces together. 







New Blank Books

While looking for something to add to a project I am working on, I came across a piece of fabric I had forgotten about.  Not finding what I was looking for, I took the fabric and added it to a couple of new blank books. 



I used a stamped cowhide and the fabric, which has a three-dimensional aspect to it.  


I used a decorative paper for fly leaves, of different sizes, to create the imagery in the spine.  


I found some beautiful paper that looked like  jacquard silk and used it for the fly leaves. 


One book is slightly smaller than the other.  There are 100 pages of Italian made sketch paper in each book. 


This blank book is for the techie.  I recycled computer parts for the paste paper cover.


Each signature has a mirror vinyl fly leaf. There are 100 pages of Italian made sketch paper.

New Book Covers 

Today I made five new book covers, using cold wax and oil paint.  They are all abstract and will need time to dry before turning them into covers.  












That's all the news for now.  You can also find my work on facebook and instagram.   Until next time, enjoy the beautiful summer days.  

Mary 
(copyright 2012 - 2022) 
















 



















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