An exciting new direction my work has taken in the last few months has been relief prints taken from bone – that’s right, bones. In this case a small animals’ jaw bone that I found in the bush has been sanded flat on one side to print from. I didn’t do any additional carving into the bone, other than create a flat surface, so all the intricate shapes and forms you see above are a direct result of the structure of the bone. A series of these prints were taken from the one bone and bound together in a little hardcover book I called “Sequence of Life”. I’m very excited by the possibilities for a lot more bone prints next year, and other natural structures that I find on walks too. I’ll keep you posted on that.
art out and about 
January 3, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Pete..I like both the book and bone print idea. Seems to also relate to your earlier mushroom prints.
January 4, 2010 at 12:54 am
Hi Albertus, yes they do relate. I really got into the idea of capturing an image of natural forms and structures in as direct a way as possible, so that the image was not a drawing of the object, but a print taken directly from it – I’m sure there will be more of this on the blog soon. Both the mushroom prints and the bone book, and similar books from sections of wood, were all shown together in my grad show.
January 4, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Hi Pete, That’s what I like about “frottage”, at least the way Max Ernst practiced it. The image is a direct result of the actual object and not a symbolic representation of it. Look forward to your future posts. Al