Flowers – Page 4 – Thousand Sketches

November 28, 2006July 24, 2026

Dead Flax stalks – last year’s flowers

I began with plain graphite, but clicked colour in error & let it be.

The stalks have been in wind, sun, rain, snow & sleet for about a year, they are dried & bleached and weathered greay in places. They will soon compost themselves.

November 28, 2006July 24, 2026

Manuka comining into Flower

I have been going about three months and have earlier Manuka sketches of the old seed heads, but now the new buds are out and some are in flower.

This is in faux pencil on faux moleskine and it looks best shrunk down in size… the power of digital manipulation!

November 25, 2006July 24, 2026

Grass

I drew it & I photoshopped it. It captures that moment lying in the grass & seeing the back lit stalks.

October 27, 2006July 24, 2026

I am doing a variety of styles, but there is also a recurring style and within the 1000 this is one I’d like to grasp more fully. A sort of old fashioned naturalist style, but there is room to go beyond that too, to bring in my handwriting as it were.

There is also something about looking at native plants that is of interest to me. I initially thought – this is in cyberspace! But undeniably I am in New Zealand, and more than that I have a feeling for the place. So, a few more flax items coming up!

Orchid

#81 Orchid

Blue_Red_Glow – and some Notes

After doing the two sketches earlier #0058 and #0059 it struck me that there was more to them than I intended. I was in a black mood, but those images – even the darker one had a light in there. This led to a lot of reflection. I’ll give some headings here – but there may be more of these thoughts coming.

Lois Kahn’s idea that a building wants something – this project wants its light to come through.
Another Kahn idea: That once you have a “realisation” after that it is just implementation. I think I could sketch one of these light-coming-through-barrier images at will – am testing that idea so a few follow. They are not mechanical repeats.
The light in the project is in a relationship with the light in me – that is an old alchemical idea. “As above, so below.” The essence in the matter under investigation – when distilled is akin to the life essence in me. This is more than I bargained on.
Earlier sketches #6 #7 & #8 were embryonic expressions of these images. As was the post in the blog about it being OK – no matter what. And they were there in the “Bursting”. (I’ll find links later)
With the notion of alchemy the monetary – gold – aspect of this project makes more sense. The gold plays a part.
Has got me thinking this project is linked closely with the writing I did on the Archetypes of Cyberspace (go straight to the section on Hermes, God of the Net – and of trade!)

September 18, 2006

Redflower4

#42 Redflower4

I like the playfulness of the experiment. It is one on a journey. Notice the slightly cream border. These squares don’t float on the white sheet like in the previous one “Blu_4”. Either way is ok, but these things start to count when I print them out.

I am thinking about flowers in new way, just now a few hours after doing this sketch I found this page: Karl Blossfeldt’s masterwork, Urformen der Kunst (Art Forms in Nature)