If you've been to the site recently rather than reading posts in either wordpress reader or via email, then you'll have seen a bit of a change to how the blog now looks. The new banner with the leaves is my first visual collaboration with Keith Errington, which has been a really good process for me. Keith has a lot of graphic and design skills but of the two of us, I'm more confident about the drawing.
I'm doing a lot more drawing at the moment than I have in years. I'm trying to make a point of doing that regularly. I like working with pens, pencils and oil pastels, and I used to like painting although I've not had a suitable space for that for a long time. There have also been time issues and questions of what energy resources I have, but that's all improving for me at the moment.
Working with someone always involves finding out how you are going to work together. That can involve a power imbalance, but I prefer it when that's not the case. Working out who has what skills and what happens when you combine those is always interesting. I have done a fair amount of art collaboration in the past but I was very much not leading on that, and did not feel much ownership of the process or the results. Working with Keith is really cooperative and feels equitable.
Collaborations are most exciting when the result isn't anything like what either person would have come up with on their own. I think we've hit that with this piece. I like the brighter, fresher colours. The leaf based logo also makes more sense now that I'm sharing this blog space with David, and the design came from that.
Oak trees have strong Druidic associations, as does mistletoe and hazel. To the left of the oak leaves are three beech leaves because that's the tree I love most. I drew bramley apple leaves for David because that's a tree that is important to him. So this piece, for me, is more representative of who we are and what we're doing.
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