Natural Collage: The Making of Pictures with Seeds, Leaves and Grasses by Sally Miles lands on the |> SALE <| shelves in my shop.
Lutterworth Press, 1973, Hardback in dust wrapper.
Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs [19]; Colour Plates [12]; Black & White Drawings [30];
From the cover: Sally Miles created her first picture quite by chance. She had glycerined some willow leaves and spread them out to dry; glancing at them, she was struck by their lively flourishing look like a birds tail-feathers. And that was what they became, for with those leaves and some silvery honesty discs she created a small gay bird, later mounted on black velvet and set in a junk-yard frame. She has had offer after offer for that picture, but could not bring herself to sell it; it marked the beginning of her craft.
There have been many pictures since then sold, given away, specially commissioned. Some are heraldic, with formal emblematic designs; some realistic portraiture; some abstract open-work patterns; some created in minute detail, each tiny seed used like a stitch in a superb medieval cope; some small, like the miniatures set in locket frames; some vast, like the display panels for a London store.
From two-dimensional work, she moved into three-, being invited by the Dean and Chapter of St Pauls Cathedral, London, to create a Christmas Crib, its figures larger than life-size, a heavenly host of angels hovering above, all in natural materials leaves, grasses, reeds, seeds, seed-pods.
This book describes how to collect and preserve and store your materials, how to sketch your initial designs, how to create and mount and frame your pictures. It is full of delight in the natural world: the intricate designs and subtle colours of seed-heads dried by sun and wind, of tiny stripy seeds, of brittle elegant stalks, of autumn leaves and marshland grasses. The only limit is that set by ones own imagination: the materials, renewed every year, always unique, cost nothing; it isnt even necessary to be able to draw; all you need is the desire to try.
Very Good in Good Dust Wrapper. Small puncture, untidy, to the slightly faded spine of the dust wrapper. Text complete, clean and tight.
Brown boards with Gilt titling to the Spine. 127 pages. Index. 10¼” x 8¼”.
Of course, if you don’t like this one there are plenty more available here!
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