printed material

 We had so much rain with those amazing storms yesterday that our grounds were waterlogged today. Getting up to my shed to finish some outstanding print work was out of the question unless I wanted to try it by canoe. So, I played around with something that had been in my head for a while.
 I've been putting a workshop together on flexible book structures like flexagons and quatragons and have become really interested in things that explore moving images like mutoscopes and zoetropes etc. In a conversation with a friend the other day we talked about using an interactive way to display work at the end of a course. She is a surface pattern designer and wanted to find a novel way to get people to look at her work. As I have been playing with similar ideas I suggested she look at kaleidocycles and how to make them on You Tube.
 Naturally, once I'd made the suggestion I had to give it a go myself. I found a downloadable template  and made a small one on an A4 sheet with a photo of some beetles that I had.
 Then I scaled it up to A3 and combined some colour and black and white beetle images, sticking the diamond shapes on to the card template individually to help understand how much one can control the composition of these things by where they are placed  and the orientation of them too.
 I really like the way they move in the hand and give you four viewing options as they are turned. Most of the online video tutorials focus on patterns , which might work for my friend,  but I think this is an idea that can be pushed further with thought. Once you understand that the template is a set layout of equilateral triangles you realise that the basic unit can be scaled up or down and can create some intriguing pieces.
With that in mind I've cut some larger triangles to try on paper up to A2 or A1 but the forecast is for dry weather tomorrow and I think I'd better plan to finish what I've started in the shed rather than continue with what I am calling 'displacement activity'. Good fun though. If you're interested in folding and playing do have a go.

 I've been joining in with a pen and ink drawing group each Tuesday morning for the last few months. Today was our last meeting so we decided to visit an exhibition in St Davids about geology and artists' response to it. That was fascinating enough but the weather we had today was distracting as during our session we had sun, snow, hail and wind. All in the space of two hours. The journey home on the coast road takes me down and along the pebble bank of Newgale Beach. As I came down the hill today the sea was incredible. Waves were high and the sky was ferocious.

As I had my camera with me to take photos of our last get-together I decided to  walk up and see what I could capture. Newgale is a steep bank with a beach on the other side of it but the sea was so high today it almost looked level. Froth and spume was everywhere and the wind was very cold and whippy. I walked up one of the boardwalks put down to help get people up and over the pebbles and as I stood at the top panning round with the camera it felt like the wind was flaying my skin! Looking in the mirror when I got back into the car showed a very, very red and raw face and I was only out there for about 5 minutes as it hurt to stand there any longer.

The storms have persisted on and off for the rest of the day. Brooding skies and hailstones have been the norm. Someone told me today that early arriving house martins had been spotted in Tenby so they think it is Spring and have migrated home to breed. After today, I'd not be surprised if they didn't fly back to Africa, and quick!!

If this is Spring, roll on Summer....