ABC etc

Completion of a small commission, the beginning of a alphabet book.

walnut stain and iron gall ink, the letters are about 2cm high.

Breton apple tree

In order to make stamps to stamp cookies for a baker friend, I took a branch of an old apple tree out of my garden, carefully dried for a few years.
She wanted a triskell & an ermine, the branches having two ends, I engraved the patterns on the same piece of wood.

and just so that you have an idea of the size of the patterns (4cm in diameter) and the depth of the engraving (1cm), a small bias photo

The bad news is that my dremmel (which would have allowed me to do this in 1 hour) is seized and so I did everything with manual gouges.
The good news is that I only cut myself twice, I'm making a lot of progress in wood engraving: -D

B as in Bird

This is probably a little letter from the book of Kells (I think), made more than 15 years ago (that's why the source is not very trustworthy), and it has been forgotten in a drawing board for more than ten years.
I didn't add the colors (in case you haven't noticed, color is not my thing) but it's probably pretty much in line with the original from a design point of view (& not color)).

...among the ghosts of dreams...

A short quote from Pascal Quignard to start the year. It is taken from his novel Les escaliers de Chambord.
Made with walnut stain on paper, the composition is 9cm wide and about 22cm high.

a detail from the beginning

a detail of the end

and the full version

And I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy 2019!

Capri, it's over!!!!!

And to think that it was the city of my first love!!!!!!!!

Yes, well, sorry, I'm getting ahead of New Year's Eve or I'm late for Christmas, it looks like I'm drunk and not even 11:00 in the morning, it's not serious.

So I get it together, I try to stay decent for a few minutes but you will admit that putting the finishing touches to a composition started more than a year ago is enough to make you happy, even if it is expressed in the form of a song by Hervé Vilard... (hopefully, if you read my blog in english you may not know about this song, it seems that an english version with quite different lyrics exists)

Here, the rust has embedded itself, the varnish is applied, I love it (unlike my wife who finds it very ugly, we can't agree all the time).

As a reminder, the slate piece is about 30cm high

More robins

As said before, I will not show you the text but I will deliver the robins that illustrate the pages of the little children's book.

Robin

 At my wife's request, I started writing a little children's book. As it is dedicated to a particular child, I will only post a few pages on this blog.
Nevertheless, I share with you the first one.