Stolen Shadows revealed at last

Stolen Shadows ©2018 Judith Hoffman - cover

If my search abilities and labeling are working correctly, I have not blogged about several finished books. I finished Stolen Shadows in 2018. Why is it not on my blog? Maybe I didn't have my photo set-up and was waiting for good pictures? I should blog about that some day. For a person who professes to love photography my photo knowledge is very slim.

Stolen Shadows ©2018 Judith Hoffman pp 16-17
"here we have the woman who is a  tree"

Anyway, here it is. Stolen Shadows, 2018, 4.125 x 2.875 inches. The drawings were done with a Micron pen. Coptic binding. Eco dyed watercolor paper, one-ply museum board and linen binding thread. I used some local leaves and rusty bits. There are photos of a similar eco dye process in my Flickr album, although the Flickr photos were taken in San Mateo. I am using Portland plants now. There are many instructions for eco dyeing on the internet. The ones I have seen aim to make clear leaf prints. This is not what I want. My goal is to have a shadowy, spotted, aged look. The paper reminds me a bit of old bones you would find in the forest. All the pages are cockled because of the eco dye process, so the book springs open. I really like this.

Stolen Shadows ©2018 Judith Hoffman pp 14-15
"they live in an all-white house I visit in my dreams"

The drawings are done from photos of people in my family who have died. And I included a cat because several cats have been major people in my life. I wanted them all to look "alive" in the silhouette, as if they might turn around and speak to me. Many of the captions come from my dreams, a few are found text.

Stolen Shadows ©2018 Judith Hoffman pp 2-3
"we thought we knew him but didn't know him well"

This book started when I drew a skeleton to test drawing on a piece of eco dyed paper. I had been drawing a lot of skeletons at that point so it was a no-brainer. The watercolor paper looses some of its sizing in the eco dye process so it can be a little strange to draw on. In places it's absorbent, in other places not. The linen thread also looses its waxy coating but that's easy to fix with bee's wax.

Stolen Shadows ©2018 Judith Hoffman pp 10-11
"now he is covered in little lights"