owl | Alexi Francis

Posted on August 29, 2019October 20, 2019 by Alexi — Leave a comment

Concertina Greetings Cards

I am still working on the film poem I mentioned in my last post. I think it’ll take me a while.

Still, one thing that has come out of my Sea Trout project is the creation of new concertina cards. I call them concertina cards because they’re long cards folded twice. The idea arose from my long sea trout picture (click on the images for bigger versions):

I wanted to create a card out of the design and thought it would be good to feature a picture on the reverse side. So I drew a shoal of trout:

Here is the finished Sea Trout card:

I decided to create a further two cards, both with a “trees” or “forest” theme. The first of these is In The Forest. One side of the card features a daytime forest scene with deer and a fox beneath the trees:

Daytime forest scene – one side of a In The Forest concertina card.

On the reverse is a night scene featuring badgers, deer, foxes, owls and hedgehogs:

It reminds me a bit of a tapestry :)

Here is the finished card:

In the Forest concertina greetings card — In The Forest concertina greetings card.

My third card features a badger sett. One side you see a badger family out foraging at night:

The other side shows a cross-section of the badger sett with some slumbering badgers along with a rabbit burrow, tree roots and a burrowing mole:

Here is The Badger Sett card:

All cards are available from my Etsy shop and come with a little tag for a message and a square kraft envelope. :)

Sea Trout greetings card

Posted on February 4, 2018August 21, 2018 by Alexi — Leave a comment

Tawny Owl Art

There’s an owl theme going on at the moment. First I’ve been out looking for urban owls recently to write about for my book. So far, no luck, but I’ll keep trying.

Then I discovered a lovely post about my altered books on the website My Owl Barn and was very pleased to sell my Owl Altered book on Etsy:

Yesterday I completed a commissioned Owl at Dusk Box Frame, similar to the one featured below:

With the box frame I decided to hide a poem, Nature by Mary Oliver, written on parchment paper at the back of the box frame behind the final picture. I like the idea of hiding messages and hidden art for anyone who can’t resist opening up the back of the picture.

Below are some images of the box frame process including the back page of the box frame. From the front all you can see of this layer is a bit of sky and moon, but it’s a complete picture that features more trees and a badger.

Here is another tawny owl picture that I might make into a card:

Posted on October 18, 2017August 21, 2018 by Alexi — Leave a comment

Trees, Owls, Ruins and Altered Books

Recently I was commissioned to create an altered book with the simple suggestion of making it somewhat ‘foreboding’. I usually draw forest/woodland scenes – leafy undergrowth, gnarled trees, roots – but this time I thought I’d add a human element, a ruined house. One can’t get more foreboding than a ruined house at night. (I love ruins, especially when you stumble on them accidently…)

I started thinking more about ruins then and I suppose I have a favourite ruin, Baconsthorpe Castle in Norfolk, a fifthteenth century fortified manor house. It is supposed to be haunted – a watchman walks the ruined walls and throws pebbles into the moat. The setting of Baconsthorpe adds to its ominous ambience – isolated in fields, bleak in winter, a few leafless trees silhouetted against the sunset, the presence of crows, the mist of dead teasel and willowherb. When I visited a few years ago, a barn owl appeared in the evening light and beat the ruin bounds. (I’ve written about my barn owl experience in the book that I’m writing. See my illustration for it below.)

So I was thinking of Baconsthorpe when I added the ruined building to one of my recent altered books.

Ruin Through the Trees Altered Book (click on the image to enlarge.)

I have now listed a few new altered books in my website shop. They’re also available in my Etsy shop. If you would like a book altered with a theme of your choosing, it would be great to discuss it with you. Contact me here.