Decomposed

Okay, so I may not be the most articulate, helpful, or exciting person; but I forgive you. 

Here's a WIP, currently in black and gold ink. Some gouache is sure to come.

Flat

A little Summer experiment with flat felting. It never comes out perfect, but I suppose I like that quality anyhow. It takes a whole lot of wool to make, so I may have to rethink plans for felt wallets and the like. After losing the only place I knew of with wool roving (in Williamsburg), I was so excited to find a shop in  Moab, Utah of all places and stocked up (black, red, brown).

(Leaf added between two thin layers of wool; and wool thread)

(Front of unfinished wallet and front of thick "canvas" felt for embroidering on later)

(Back view with wool thread)

Starry

This ol' thing is finally done... good riddance. 

Now I want to make a sculptural shadowbox version of it!

Collecting Dust

I was given the chance to grab some 150+ year old books from the central Brooklyn library and picked up some fantastic looking volumes of The Naturalist's Library, edited by Jardin. The pages were crumbling and dustmites were swarming for sure, but the original hand-colored plates of moths and butterflies were too good to pass up.

Reading about Victorian Natural History can really get you lost in the hype that made early sciences into merely a fashionable ghost of the past (less so a major discipline for the general public). It's one of those brief phases of obsession for me again. Additionally, The Heyday of Natural History (1984) is very thorough in depicting Victorian era life and a great read for the curious or bored.

I was hoping I could also find an old illustrated book on mineralogy too

...like these by James Sowerby ( 1817), but so far no luck...

(Exotic Mineralogy)