Theme: Woven

This is a theme post on “Woven” inspired by Jean Mackay of Drawn In posting about her recent experience of basket making on a Saturday. Her sketch of various stages in the basket making process and her photo of the finished basket left me enchanted! I felt a real passion to create something more using these as a starting point. For the text that accompanies the sketch and photo refer to Jean’s post Woven

Jean’s work that she shares on her blog is really beautiful, usually presented in the form of her nature journal. Drawn In: Art, Nature, Exploration

Sketch by Jean Mackay | Drawn In   [Click to enlarge]

Completed basket. Photo by Jean Mackay | Drawn In   [Click to enlarge]

I shared with Damien B. Donnelly about Jean’s basket making sketch and he has published a story-poem here.

NB: The above images are © Jean Mackay and may not be used without her express permission.

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Photo by Carol. I’ve copied the text below from Carol’s post…

This weathered wood was found in hot sand next to a sandy road in Botswana many summers ago. It was weathered in desert extremes, scoured by sand and bleached by the sun so as to resemble bone: the bones of a tree.

It is paired with a container woven from telephone wire, a new medium using old basket-making techniques. I like the juxtaposition of the old and unadorned wood, with the new and artfully colourful basketry.

For a short description of wire weaving in South Africa see here

From:  Weathered wood and woven wire     |     Letting Nature Back In

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The following two photos are also taken by Carol from Letting Nature Back In. Carol lives and works in a suburban space in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands in South Africa.

I recommend you take a look at the original post – these Village Weavers were building nests right in Carol’s garden and she took lots of photos. She provides such interesting information; its an outstanding post.

Carol noted that the male birds weave the nest. I’ve selected two photos of nest building but there are many more, a great overview of nest construction from start to finish.

From:  Village Weavers     |     Letting Nature Back In

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Knowing that Jodi McKinney regularly includes food recipes with beautiful photos at her blog I thought I’d try and find “woven” pastry. I wasn’t disappointed!

From:  Rhubarb Custard Pie   |    The Creative Life In Between

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This time I’m featuring an artwork by the multi-talented Jodi McKinney. Jodi published this post on World Water Day 2018 (March 22).  For more information, or to view the large size version, visit the original post and then click on the image to enlarge.

Weaving through the River – 11×16 Mixed Media Art

World Water Day – Weaving through the River   |   The Creative Life In Between

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Oh, the tangled web we weave…  I’ve been fascinated with the black and yellow garden spiders that have a thick zig-zag portion in their web.

The photo below is taken by Steve Schwartzman (Austin, Texas USA).

To learn the proper name of the white zig-zag follow the link below to the original post.

From:  Close view of a female Argiope aurantia garden spider

Blog:    Portraits of Wildflowers

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And then, there’s this weird variation photographed by Mike Powell from Virginia, USA. For enlarged version follow the link to the original post and click on the photo.

From:  Artistry of a spider   |   Mike Powell

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Back to South Africa and here is a photo of a Sociable Weaver nest taken by Dries de Wet.

Follow the link below to the original post to see a good range of photos and also for more information. Here’s the first paragraph from Dries post:

“You’d probably expect that the bird that is responsible for building the largest nests on earth must be a massive winged behemoth, but you’d be wrong. Meet the Sociable Weaver. Their enormous communal nests, constructed of thorny sticks and dry grass in large, indigenous trees or artificial structures like windpumps and utility poles, house up to 500 adults birds and their chicks and are used for generations – some nests are over a 100 years old and weigh over a tonne! The nests provide excellent insulation from the outside weather, never getting colder than 15°C in winter nor warmer than 30°C in summer. These nests are often also utilised and shared by other kinds of birds and animals.”

From:  Sociable Weaver   |   de Wets Wild

Photo and Text by Dries de Wet

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Finally I visited the blog of Harold Davis to see what he has that’s related to “woven” or “weaving” and I found this interesting photo, posted Feb 06, 2009.

Weaving. Photo by Harold Davis. [Click on photo to enlarge]

Here is the text that accompanied the photo, text by Harold Davis

I was taking care of Katie Rose one morning while Phyllis got the boys to school. Sitting up in Katie’s little nursery I gave her a bottle and looked out through the ragged screen window. It seemed to me that there were two very different planes: the mesh on the screen, and the trees behind.

Putting Katie in her basinette, I brought up my tripod and camera. At first she was excited, thinking the gear was a new toy for her to play with; soon she became subdued when she saw I wasn’t paying much attention to her.

I did two shots, each with maximum depth-of-field, one focused on the trees and one on the mesh. I combined the two versions in Photoshop with a layer mask and gradient blend. The combination didn’t quite go far enough because the trees weren’t that distinct. So I added a third layer of detail from the winter forest on the Yosemite Valley floor. All along, my vision was in monochrome, so as a last step I did the conversion to black and white.

The idea here involves creating an illusion about visual planes. The structure is a little like Magritte’s The Key of the Fields. Are the trees in front, behind, or on the woven mesh? Can they be all of these at the same time?

Weaving   |   Harold Davis

— Photo and Text by Harold Davis

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Posted and Compiled by Liz; Exploring Colour (2018)