Ode to the Desert Oak

I'm in love with a tree.

Its the Desert Oak, from Central Australia.  Its latin name is Allocasuarina decaisneana and its a slow growing tree with the typical branchlets of the casuarina family.

Young trees have a narrow trunk and form, looking somewhat like old-fashioned feather dusters.  They mature to an adult form with spreading limbs and bushy foliage.

They tend to grow in multiples in the one area which creates a surreal looking landscape of the variously shaped trees in different growth stages.

During my recent trip to Curtin Springs Cattle Station, I decided to produce a work based on these trees.  When I visited in 2018, I did sketches of the trees, their branchlets and their cones.  This time I wanted to extend myself a bit more, and decided to use cyanotypes to record the trees.

Using my unit's bathroom, I created a darkroom to pre-coat my papers with the cyanotype solution, then exposed them the next day with various samples I had collected.   The sunlight was very strong, so I couldn't use my standard exposure times, but chose instead to work fairly organically and probably did overexpose the prints.  I love the serendipity of it anyway.

I've assembled the cyanotype prints into a concertina book, using a piece of my handmade paper I created from the station's grasses.  The cover features a sample of paper made from the Desert Oak.

We have casuarinas here on the coast, known as She-Oaks, but the Desert Oaks have really captured my imagination, so I've enjoyed creating this book to record my memories of them.

Recording Desert Oaks in my sketchbook in 2018.

Young Desert Oaks -
they look like feather dusters I think!

Mature Desert Oaks, surrounded by a few young ones.
I can still hear the wind whispering through the branchlets.

The front cover of my book, featuring
Desert Oak paper and cyanotype of the branchlets.

You can see the texture of the paper in this photo...yum!

Close up of some of the pages. I applied the cyanotype
solution roughly on purpose, leaving the white of the
paper showing through in places. 
To me, this evidence of brushstrokes replicates the breeze
was flowing through the oak's branchlets.

This photo shows the spine of handmade paper.
The earthy colour of paper sits well with the indigo of the cyanotypes.

Photo from the top downwards - you can see that I've glued
the cyanotype papers to the handmade paper spine.
A simple concertina construction that lets the cyanotypes and
handmade paper take centre stage.