I took some newsprint and wax crayons into the forest at the weekend with a notion to take some rubbings of texture. The forest was so wet that the only thing I could really take rubbings of were the trees. I tried to get a mixture of different sizes and species.
It was really interesting to see the different marks that the trees made. I was musing over them and remembered my idea of getting mountain bike riders to ride over lino and mark it with muddy tracks that I could cut, then I had a bit of what feels like an epiphany - I could use the tyre tracks as bark!
If I got a really large piece of lino and got lots of different bike tracks all running in the same direction I could print this and link it together to form large hanging tree trunks. I need to decide whether these are going to be flat or round, my preference is to go round. I like the idea of a bit of collage and possibly stitch auditing to the texture on the piece. I need to figure out what sort of paper to use to ensure strength. Maybe using a natural coloured hand made paper would be a good idea, rather than a white paper. Or a mixture of papers.
I'm really pleased to have an idea I want to move forward with. This feels like progress.