An (Almost) Matching Pair...

...of landscapes, made from a monoprint and a ghost print.  I talked about the ghost here.  This is the main print...

I'm popping the ghost print down here, for easy comparison. 

There's lots more texture in the main monoprint, much easier to see what's happening in the main body of the 'land',  It's clear that there are a lot of curving lines, so the stitch reflects that.  I like using blanket stitch, it encloses and defines areas of space in a much better way than a running or back stitch is able to.  I did use the same thread in these areas on both quilts, but the sky in this main piece reads as much darker than the ghost print, unsurprisingly, so I used a darker thread in the sky.  The treatment, though, is the same, seed stitches scattered around the blue areas.  I did consider adding linear stitch, but decided that it would distract from what was going on below it, and I didn't want to do that.

So, there you are...two nearly identical landscapes.  It's interesting how different the stitch makes them appear, though it's clear that they are related.  I've got a couple more monoprints in this palette to work on, and it will be interesting to see how they turn out in comparison with these.

Yes, I Know...

...I did wax lyrical about building time into the process...but...   I looked carefully at the book, and realised that, actually, there's a theme already there... it's about curves.  The brain is a wonderful thing; it insists on finding meaning in seemingly random marks.  It's a tendency I'm profoundly grateful for.  To my intense surprise (I'd love to say it was planned, but it so wasn't...), each of the spreads created by combining the three monoprints in book form, seems to create a new coherent whole, with a flow from one side of the page to the other.  Have a look, see what I mean.  Each of the spreads comprises one side that is the reverse of a print, and one right side of the next print (if you see what I mean), with the exception of the centre spread, where both sides are the reverse of the print.  Come to think of it, I could have turned one of the prints round, so that I got the print side showing as the spread, but actually, I think this way is best.

Spread One:

The first spread is quite intriguing (okay, I find them all intriguing, what can I say, I'm an artist, it's what we do...).  This one has two curves, which seem to echo each other, but they do meet in the middle...can you see it?  Interestingly, if you placed the original prints together, they look quite different, but combined in this way, they seem similar to some degree. 

Spread two:

To me, this reads almost like a semi-abstract snail, or a strange beast of burden...but you can see the curve running from the top of the 'head' to the base of the 'shell'. 

Spread three:

Here, you can see how different the reverse of a print really is.  This, to me, looks similar to a ghost print, the second print that you take from a monoprint.  The stitches on the left hand side have a really random feel; I like the sense of space that I get from it...this time, the strong curve shown by the dark stitches then continues on and upwards, over the egg-like shape on the second page. 

Spread four :

Here, the dark curve above what appears, on this side, to be more circular than ovular, continues on into the lighter area, sitting inside a second curved shape suggested by the print.  The straight lines of that dark curve on the left are echoed by the lighter, longer lines in that curved shape on the second page. 

Spread five :

This is the most visually incoherent of the spreads, but there is still a suggestion of a curve, in two places, though one is not as obvious in the image as it is in real life.  The first of those curves sits where the pages meet, the lines stitched into the beige coloured area on the left, meet the curves stitched into the lower brown area on the right.  More abstractly, though, the upward  movement of  that beige area continues until it meets the brown semicircular area at the centre top of the opposite page.   Interestingly, this is the only other spread in the book where the stitch appears more abstract in places.  I think that idea of stitch on one side not matching the stitch of the other side, is something I'd like to explore. 

So, there you are.  One finished book, other than the stitch to bind it.  I think its name is Curvilinear.  Interestingly, I've already made a quilt with that name, a long time ago, admittedly...the two are not particularly similar; you'll find it here, in a post entitled 'Creative Surprises'.  Not unlike this book, really.