TOUCH

TOUCH

digital print
IPhone 3GS shot of erotic film-clip, cropped and processed iPhone 3GS
Textures by Les Brumes

Last week, we received notification that our planning application had been passed and so now, it's full-steam ahead! In front of our house, there are four tons of gravel that will be the new base and surround for our tool shed when we move it 2 metres further down the garden, to the very back of the plot where my studio is to stand. Sadly, the Honeysuckle has had to go because when the space was clear enough to allow us to measure up and draw an accurate plan, we realised that there was not enough room for my studio and the shed unless the studio was: 1. orientated across the plot rather than lengthways and 2. situated a lot closer to the pool/bog than we had originally intended. John, the unflappable gentleman whose company is building and installing my studio, coped very well with my panic attack and drew up a revised set of drawings in the hour he had before leaving work for a week's holiday. The new arrangement will be better because the the building will be wide and shallow, rather than narrow and deep, so more natural light should get into the space.

Those of you who have been asking how I make my iPhone collages may wish to purchase the Autumn edition of Somerset Digital Studio where I reveal some of the Apps and techniques that I use. In the side bar on the right, you'll find a link to where you can order a copy. Writing the tutorial was a challenge as I'd been asked to recreate a specific collage: one of my first. By some good fortune, the images that made up each stage of the collage's development had somehow escaped several hard-drive clear-outs, but I still had to recall and retread every step of what was quite a fiddly and complex process. I hope to write more tutorials: if you get sight of a copy, do please send me some feedback!

Shadow Gardens

Shadow Gardens 01 & 01

digital prints shot and processed on iPhone 3GS: Photo FX, Iris & LoMob apps

Just when it had begun to feel like Autumn must be around the corner, we have been blessed with a few warm days and bright sunlight. This has given me some lovely shadows to play with and I've created the two images posted above.
We're taking advantage of the good weather while we can, as our garden is the scene of a major project. Much as I love our home, I'd gladly leave this town: too many sad things have happened to us here, but for the moment, we must stay put. The compromise is to build a little studio space for me, at the bottom of our garden. Today's task has been grappling with an old honeysuckle that scrambled, in a free and easy fashion, through the trellis pergola and fence that bound the area where my studio will be situated. I've been brutal with the loppers and secateurs but it takes a lot to kill Honeysuckle and I'm confident that this time next year, it will have sprung back with renewed vigor. Of more concern to me are the Grape Vines that trailed through the other side of the now-dismantled pergola. This year, for the first time, the vines have borne grapes that are actually sweet and edible and I am leaving it in the ground until the very last minute. With any luck, I shan't have to move it at all and I'll train the vines over the replacement pergola I'm going to build in front of the wooden chalet. We're having to find somewhere to put all the junk, I mean: "vintage treasures and things that might come in useful" amassed over the past 20 years, so the rest of our garden resembles a reclamation yard. This makes me very anxious and so, in an attempt to keep calm, I'm doing lots of visualisation exercises: in my favourite, I'm sitting under a vine-clad pergola, outside my cosy studio, sipping a glass of home made elderflower wine, whilst admiring my beautiful, newly-planted borders as rain pitter-patters gently on the garden pond. Ah yes...the pond...in reality, it's an overgrown bog and will remain so for yet another year, should the weather turn foul in October...