Photobook Thailand

This is my latest photobook and it is one of the largest.  I was surprised when looking at the slides which I had to scan as well as the more recent digital images that I had so many photos.  The book covers 6 trips over 45 years.  As the pandemic continues today travel is barely opening and I am unlikely to participate any more as my mobility at 80 is not particularly good. What's more I have been to over 130 countries and there are few I regret not visiting.  I enjoy making these books on my computer and reliving my experiences. 

SORRY -  I am having a problem with this post and I don't seem able to fix it.  SO ...  to open the book and read it  click on the link below and then on the other lighter one that appears with two symbols. A redirect notice appears.  Click on the link there and it should work and go to Blurb.  Don't click on the return to previous page.

  https://au.blurb.com/b/11017956-thailand

I just tried to open my blog again and clicking on the link actually worked without the redirect stuff!  Good luck one way or another should be able to reach my book!

 

Photobook Laos and Cambodia

I originally published this book in 2016 but recently discovered that I had a lot of photos of Cambodia in an album I had forgotten.  These had been taken with a small rangefinder camera so I scanned them and added them to my book which I have now republished through Blurb. 

 

Click on the link to go to my Blurb page for this book where you can turn every page. Use full screen mode so you can read the text in the book

Laos and Cambodia

https://www.blurb.com/b/10873997-laos-and-cambodia 

Photobook - China, Hong Kong and Macau 1988

This is my latest photobook which I have been working on during the COVID lockdown.  It has brought back many memories of my travels in 1988.  I had some Long Service Leave as well as school holidays and pursuaded a colleague Jean who had never travelled to come with me. We met up with Barbara in India, and the three of us went to Kashmir, Nepal and Thailand. We were away 4 months!

Enjoy looking at my book.  Put it on full screen so you can read it and enjoy over 600 photos.

 

 

China, Hong Kong and Macau 1988

By Ruth Lathlean

Photobook titled "USA : Road trip with camping 1973"

I have just finished  this book based on all the many slides I took.  I did the scanning a year ago when inside because of bushfire smoke but have just put the book together.  Janice, Val and I had finished our three years teaching in Canada and were doing a last big trip before leaving Canada for South America.  This book has a map at the beginning showing our route.  

Later in the book I have a second trip I did with Helen in 1981-2 during summer school holidays.  It was winter so there is lots of snow in many places.   Of course we were not camping then.  We rented cars and flew between various places.

USA : Road trip with camping 1973

By Ruth Lathlean

Photobook on my three years living in Toronto, Canada 1970-73

This is the largest photobook I have made and in many ways is social history. I have enjoyed scanning slides and making the book by looking through all the letters I wrote home 50 years ago. Toronto is my second home.

Click on the cover here to get the link which  will take you to the Blurb page where you can see the whole book.  I don't expect anyone to buy it but it is free to look and enjoy.

The book is especially large as it includes most of the weekend trips we did as well as longer ones at easter and school holidays.  This included some in America as well as Canada.  

Two big American trips will be in my next book.

Toronto: living, working, travelling 1970-73 - a memoir

By Ruth Lathlean

 

 

 

Photobook on Autumn in Canada in 2002

Autumn in Canada 2002

By Ruth Lathlean

The main reason for this trip in autumn 2002 was to participate in Freeman Patterson's residential photography course in New Brunswick.  The latter part of this book has some of the photos I made there.  It was a magic experience with fall colours and lakes. The cover photo is a montage.

My friend Joan came with me as she had not seen Canada.  We briefly went to Hawaii to see the volcanic features and then began our travels in Vancouver by renting a car - a Ford Mustang! We walked in the national parks in the Rockies and visited several of my friends.  There was also a mini school reunion in Toronto where I taught high school for 3 years in the early seventies.

Photobook on Chile

It was only in early March this year that I began my Bunnik tour to Chile and Argentina.  But half way through the COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and we all had to come home.  So disappointing not to cross the Andes into Argentina and travel south through Patagonia to see all the amazing mountains and glaciers.  But it was not to be!

Click on the book cover here and then on the link.  You will then be able to look at all the pages at Blurb.  Hope you enjoy it.

Ultimate Chile and Argentina

By Ruth Lathlean

Photobook Canada and USA - Rocky Mountains

Once more I have been scanning hundreds of slides from my time living in Canada from  1970 - 1973.  This book is about the two trips I made by car to the Rocky Mountains in Canada and the USA in the summers of 1972 and 1973.  Australian friends, two of whom I met in Toronto came with Janice and I in 1971and we camped nearly all the time in National Parks and Monuments.  We loved the hikes we did with the amazing scenery.  In 1972 Janice and I went to Mexico (in a separate book) I and spent time in the western USA on the way back to Canada.

Val, Janice and I did another big trip to Canada's maritime provinces and more of the USA in 1973 before we left for South America.  This will be another book.

LINK:     https://au.blurb.com/b/9785969-canada-and-usa-rocky-mountains-1971-1972

CANADA and USA Rocky Mountains 1971, 1972

By Ruth Lathlean

Hope some of you will enjoy looking at my book. All the pages are available for viewing - I don't expect anyone to buy it as the book contains my memories.

Photobook of my solo trip by car in Europe

I have just finished this photobook with some written part from my diary in 2007 when I did a solo drive to four countries in Europe.

I hope you will enjoy looking at it as I have set it up so that you can see all the book without buying. And it doesn't affect your download.

SOLO TRAVEL BY CAR 6,000 km, 6 weeks, 66 years old

By Ruth Lathlean

Paintings on Interiors done this year

I attended classes this semester with Michael Winters where we looked at the Australian women artists of Grace Cossington Smith, Margaret Olley and Elizabeth Cummings. The course was about how they treated Interiors as a subject in quite different ways.  The outcome were some acrylic paintings on 100 x 60 canvases using the rooms in my own house.

If interested they have a lot of work on the internet.

After Grace Cossington Smith, a Sydney artist who used lots of broken colour in her interiors.

This shows a Chinese still life on a piece of Paraguayan lace on my dining table.  It is an interior but not in a particular style.  It was supposed to represent Margaret Olley's detail but is nothing like her  work.

Elizabeth Cummings is still alive in her 80s and shows an amazing use of colour, semi-abstract work but very difficult to get a handle on her style.  There are no straight lines but lots of line variation.

This painting is on A3 paper and is emphasising space as well as plain flat colour with some collage. I really enjoyed doing this.

This painting is similar in style but painting in acrylic on canvas.  Fun to do at the end of the course.

France and Netherlands photobook

I have just finished scanning nearly 700 slides and making this book.  I hope you will enjoy looking at it.  I have included some anecdotes from my diaries as well as photos. 

Just click on the cover and then on the blurb link which will take you to the complete book.

France and Netherlands

By Ruth Lathlean

More paintings and linocut prints

 
These are some recent linocut prints that I have made.  They are my take on landscapes.

This is a small print (10 cm square) called 'Trees' .  It is an artist's proof for an edition of 10 that I sent to the International Print Exchange in the UK in 2018.  It is printed on Kozo Japanese paper.

Soft Pastel Paintings

This shows sand dunes in the Gobi Desert from one of my photos from my visit there several years ago.

This is from a photograph I made in 1970 of the souk of the Wooldyers of Marrakesh in Morocco.  The dyed skeins are strung above the pathway to dry.

This pastel painting is inspired by a friend's photo in Karijini National Park in Western Australia. The huge escarpments dropping down to the trees were amazing.

Watercolour paintings
These were done at a workshop last month.  I hadn't worked in watercolour for many years and it was fun to get back into it.

Australian wildflowers - banksias

Large rocks in Namibia from a photo I took there years ago

Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar

This is a YouTube video I made from 500 photos I took on my camera and my iPhone last November.  I went on my first ever cruise on the Fred Olsen Line as I was so interested in these island countries that I had not seen.  We were supposed to visit Reunion as well but unfortunately the port was closed due to the French fuel tax issue which caused riots.

Many photos give ideas of the landscape, houses etc but are not great photos since photographing from a moving bus is far from ideal.  I hoped to be able to idently more ot the plants but again that became too hard.

Photos of the ship and resorts were fun.

Mediterranean Europe

I have just finished making this book and hope you will be interested to look at it - 228 pages! It covers some of my travels in 1968, 1969 and 1974 - especially good for history buffs! I really have been making these photobooks for myself so I can relive my memories.

I have scanned the many slides I took while travelling in Europe and delved into my diaries to make the book.  The countries included are Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy.  France will be my next book.  Yugoslavia, Albania and Turkey are in previous books.  Malta and Sicily have been visited more recently and have digital images.

Mediterranean Europe

By Ruth Lathlean

Linocut

I made an edition of 10 of this linoprint to send to the International Print Exchange in the UK. There were three linocuts printed in different colours to make the print. It is only 10cm square. I have just noticed that the one I photographed is not the best....  but the colours are true using Akua inks.

Germany and the Baltic countries - photobook

When  you click on the cover of this book there is a link which will take you to the whole book. I have set it up so you can see the whole book in fullscreen mode as I don't expect you to buy a book of my travels.

I decided to make books when someone said that the first thing thrown out when you die are the photos and slides.  I hated the idea of this as it was throwing out 7 years of my life experiences.  I already had kept captions of slides in a database and had bought an excellent scanner when I retired so decided to get to work - a big project!  I know I will not manage to do all countries but as a geographer would do a fair few, starting with the big overland trips I did.  I have done 20 books so far.  I doubt I will ever get to the Australian ones but they are more familiar to most people I know.

I am really enjoying the scanning all my old slides (the scanner & TV are close by so boredom is minimised) as it is my way of reliving my experiences.  After all TRAVEL has been my life! 

Germany and the Baltic countries

By Ruth Lathlean

Japan trip 2018

I made this You Tube video of the photos I took of my recent trip to Japan with Bunnik Tours.  It seems that full screen mode is not available here so it may be better to watch it on the You Tube site.  Some photos are not as good as I would like but there was often little time to stop and compose photos. When with a group one has to make sure not to get lost!

I was very impressed with Japan - so different in every way to other Asian countries.

Switzerland and Austria photobook

This is my latest photobook.  The software seems to have changed and one can no longer just click on the book cover too go straight to the whole book at Blurb.  But I have discovered that you can do so by clicking on the cover and clicking the link in the small print.  Look at the book in full screen mode.

The link with the "Check out my books" shows all 19 books I have made.  Enjoy looking at those you are interested in .

Four more paintings to end the year

Here are two acrylic paintings and two pastels that I have done this year - all different.

This first one in acrylic was in response to Michael's request to do a painting using two quite different themes or places.  I started with a painting of red sand dunes in Namibia with a dead tree.  On top of this I painted one of the waterfalls of Iguassu Falls in South America.  I added the little boat as I travelled in one just like this in 1973 at the mercy of the rower.




This acrylic painting was my interpretation of rice terraces and mountains in Bhutan.   I decided to use a colour palette which was very unusual for me but I'm quite pleased with the lightness it conveys.  I always like to add some design elements.



I returned to pastels late in the year and these are the results.  Somewhat more realistic than others I have done recently.

This one is looking over the river from southern Tajikistan into Northern Afghanistan.  Very little water and lots of pebbles making it a braided river.  One of the main routes for drugs crossing so some people in Dushanbe can live like kings.  It was very wild country here and no one on the rough roads.




This was the last pastel painting I did this year.  It was based on Iguassu Falls in South America (on the border of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina).  They are the best waterfalls in the world.

Lino Prints and Collagraphs

 COLLAGRAPHS

I did a two day collagraph workshop recently with Jo Hollier.  This photograph shows my sample collagraph plate and two prints from it using a printing press.

The plate is at the bottom using a thin piece of plywood although heavy cardboard is OK too.  There are 18 different types of materials/objects that I might like to use to make a plate that can be printed many times.  They must be very low relief - maybe 5mm to work well.

The blue print is printed like linocuts in relief method with only the raised surface printing.
The red print is printed like etching using intaglio with the paper (which has been soaked) embossed as the lower parts of the plate are printed. The ink is wiped from the surface before printing.





LINO PRINTS

This linocut printed in red ink by hand came from my doodling in a drawing book one day.  There is no particular meaning just fun designing.




This lino print of chairs was more interesting and done as a reduction print cutting away each colour as it is printed.  Again it was done by hand rather than the press and I thought the blue paper was more effective than white.




These lino prints were again done by hand.  I like the purple one best. The coloured one I did some time ago and used a brush to add ink/paint to the print.  I like the colours but the technique was not great - designed more to save time!