After a long slog seeing my book to completion, I am finally picking up where I left off and am very happy to be back to image-making – Digital Decalcomania to be specific using Corel Painter and Photoshop via a Wacom tablet and stylus.

The Ghosts Dancing in My Twig Collection (300ppi, detail )

When NFMOA proper was closed for remodeling, all of the collections had to be disposed of or stored in one way or another. I gave away boxes full of assemblage materials, but when it came to my Twig Collection I was unable to part with any items at all.

In the 1990s, I  lovingly and obsessively stripped each twig of its bark after a pruning session in our yard or after actually cutting a tree down. They are varying shades of white and faint ochers. Gorgeous to look at.

The larger ones have found homes in our garden and all of the smaller ones, probably close to 1,000 individual birch and holly twigs of very diverse length and shape have been assimilated into my upstairs studio. It is VERY crowded in here now.

I have started photographing some of the twigs and am now using the results as the basis and stimulation for digital decalcomania. The above photo is a detail of the first painting begun after the book.

I will be posting photos of my progress with it in coming days. Because the twigs are SO amazing to look at and have filled a lot of the physical space in my studio, I spend a lot of time looking at them, ergo I have a lot more digital decalcomania to do.