Honesty… This began as a study of the honesty my partner, Malcolm, brought for me one evening as he was waiting to chum me home from my printing at the local arts centre.
I’ve always loved honesty seeds. I remember a story about them being the fairies’ money purses when I was wee. So, Malcolm brought me a ‘bouquet’ of honesty stalks wrapped up in a doggy poo bag that he had rescued from a compost heap! That’s my kind of man!
I put them in a vase on my kitchen window ledge, and one evening, the light shone through them and cast some beautiful shadows. I had been considering shadows, and thinking they could make an interesting line of work, so I took some photos before the light faded.
The image morphed as I drew it, and then again in drawing onto the copper plate, but the seedheads are still visible.
There were lots of thoughts floating through my head about ‘honesty’ and what it means. And trails of thoughts from those. So there are some little elements of other things in there too, the image becoming more abstract.
I lightly aquatinted some of the plate, stopping out the seedheads. This provides a contrast between the different elements. I was also keen to accentuate a different quality of line.
