printed material: August 2010

Monday, 30 August 2010

Revival

Butterfly Conservation have just released the results of the Big Butterfly Count conducted at the end of July. Whilst the Cabbage White remains the most common butterfly recorded there has been a resurgance in the number of Small Tortoiseshells. Apparently this little beauty has declined in numbers by 50% in the past 30 years due to the invasion of a parasitic fly. This year though it has come in at number 9 in the top 10 butterflies recorded in people's garden during the 15 minute watch period of the survey.

At the risk of being called Pinocchio I have just counted 15 of them on a large white buddleia we have in the garden. I counted about 26 butterflies in total including the tortoiseshells. They were joined by Peacocks and Red Admirals. Elsewhere in the garden I've seen loads of Speckled Woods and Meadow Browns this year. Also in evidence, although in much smaller numbers are Small Coppers and Commas, even a Small Blue but what I have not seen at all is a Painted Lady. Given the swarms of them we enjoyed last year it struck me last week that I hadn't seen a single one at all to date this summer. Anyone else noticed the same?

If you've seen one please let me know roughly where. Perhaps they've not managed to fly this far west this year because of the wet weather. I'm intrigued by their absence and would love to know if it is widespread. I hope not. It's good news for the Small Tortoiseshell but I don't want to see one make a revival while another one disappears.

Sunday, 29 August 2010

Feeling Blue

I first came across cyanotypes about ten years ago when I was on a feltmaking summer school. We were trying out lots of different dyeing and printing methods on felt but the cyanotypes had to be done with other fabrics as it did not work on wool. It was not a great success so I never thought about it again until a few years ago when I started to get into printing with a lot more enthusiasm. This is a process dicovered in Victorian times and it is recognised mainly as an alternative photographic process but many textile artists have used it because it works on cotton, linen, canvas or silk as well as paper.

When I experimented again a few years ago I was determined to see if I could find a way to use felt for cyanotypes but I hit failure at every turn. The process works by the combination of two chemicals - ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide. You make them up in two separate solutions with distilled water and then combine them. All the time this is happening you have to keep the containers away from the light. Once the solution is mixed it is painted onto your substrate which is then left to dry. After exposure to the sun for a given time the substrate is rinsed out under running water and this is where the felt fails. The solution just washes away as it will not hold in the wool.

I finally cracked it when I combined the felt with silk via the nuno process. I managed to get the solution into the nuno fabric and it worked on the silk. When I washed it out the solution it still washed out of the felt base to this piece but it stayed in the silk layer. If I were to turn this fabric over you would see a white background. I love the texture of it and if you look closely at the surface the wool can clearly be seen where it has migrated through the silk.

Anyway, you know from my last post that Anna has inspired me to experiment with cyanotypes again so I ordered some more chemicals and on Friday the sun came out! Hooray! It was forecast for the whole weekend so I set to. The first experiment was using small pieces of Khadi cotton rag paper and some buttons. Now, once you're ready to expose the paper to the sun it's a good idea to place it on a board with either a piece of glass or perspex on top to anchor it down. That's fine for paper and flat objects but not buttons! All I did was leave them exposed for about 15 minutes. You can tell by the colour of the paper whether you've exposed it long enough. Then you take it to the sink and rinse under running water for what seems like ages. The Khadi paper held up well to the water but I did not get very clear impressions with these buttons. I don't know yet whether to do something else with them or just bind them into a stab bound book and chalk it up to experience. There are lots of choices as I could bleach the cyanotype and take the blue away, changing the colour with tea to brown or I could paint them again and cyanotype over them....

Whatever I do with those pieces, I have managed to complete one book project from this weekend's cyanotypes though. I cut these 4.5 inch squares of Bockingford 140lb Hot Pressed watercolour paper and coated them with the solution. I think it had started to weaken by this point as it wasn't brilliant but I was still quite happy with the results. I used a selection of little doilies that I buy obsessively (why?) from charity shops for pence and laid them one by one on the papers and exposed them in sunlight for 15 minutes minimum.

There were a couple of grand failures but I utilised them for the covers for this little book that I then made by folding five of the squares into lotus folds. I then glued them together and attached a piece of narrow ribbon to the stack of folded pieces before attaching the cover pieces which I mounted onto thicker board first.

This is a great little book structure and I always think what a great idea it makes for Christmas decorations (I'm sorry for mentioning the C word in August....) I am very pleased with my little book of lace doily samples but I am at an impasse as the sun has deserted us today despite the forecast - well it is a Bank Holiday in the UK so what do I expect?

I have some fabric pieces and some nuno felt that are ready to do something with. Fingers crossed for sun tomorrow and more experiments!

Wednesday, 25 August 2010

The best laid plans...

For the first time in ages yesterday the sun really shone strong and bright here, perfect weather for cyanotypes. Now, I've been inspired of late by the wonderful work of artist Anna Mavromatis and I've been planning this day for weeks. I knew we'd have to have sun here in the Principality sooner or later so I had plant material pressed and ready for my photograms. I had paper ready and even had my little darkroom construction ready to prepare it in, but..... and you know there's going to be a but don't you.... what I had not done was check my materials . You need two chemicals to make this alchemy work and one of my packages had just hardened into some sort of gel so there was no way I was going to produce cyanotypes yesterday. I did not have a Plan B but I was itching to do something....

On the table I had a pile of fabrics that I'd been sorting through. Last week I dyed some fabrics with some plants from the garden and I'd put them with my other samples to put away. Well, as you can see I grabbed a couple of rust dyed samples and a few sage leaves from outside the workshop door. It was instant gratification stuff! I did the same then to the two bits of fabric I dyed last summer with woad I grew in the garden. I have no idea what to do with the bits and pieces but it got me started. I will probably just throw them back in the sample box!

Last week I did a couple of workshops. The first was a few hours doing monoprints and then I spent a day screen printing on Saturday. The samples from each of them were not brilliant but I do some things for reinforcing the process in my mind rather than producing good enough work and I always know I can use the prints for something else. That's what I did next. I rooted around in the cupboard and found a couple of linocuts that I did ages ago. Now linocutting is not my strongpoint by any stretch of the imagination but I printed the linocut of the leeks onto two screen print samples first. They actually didn't look too bad.

Then I found this little linocut that I did last year and had never even proof printed. So, I cut up another screen print sample and had a go at printing it, in my usual haste, messing up the registration left right and centre. I ended up with a couple that were not too badly centred on the paper but of course now I can see where I need to re-cut the lino to even it out.

By then I was just doing anything I could to occupy my mind so I spent the afternoon doing something I saw online earlier in the day. Don't worry I shall not inflict that on you as well.

I've ordered more cyanotype chemicals this morning but it's rained in torrents all day here and it is forecast to go on and on and on....... but if I get any cyanotyping done in the coming weeks I will show you my efforts. In the meantime please go over to Anna's blog to see how it should be done properly!

Friday, 20 August 2010

100 Years of driving lessons

The other day I read that driving lessons celebrate their centenary this year. They were started by an enterprising chap from his garage in London who went on to set up the British School of Motoring. In those days it took four days to learn how to drive a car, significantly different to the process today eh?

The driving test though didn't come into being until 1935 so it is also celebrating a special birthday this year, being 75 years old! Since its inception there have been 46 million tests taken but it was a voluntary exercise when it began in March 1935 becoming compulsory by June of that year when anyone who bought a car had to display L plates and take the test.

These plates date from 1953, the year I was born (don't bother with the arithmetic, I'll save you the trouble. I am 56 going on 30!) and I started taking lessons quite late, when I was 21. I remember my Dad offering to supplement the 'paid for' driving school lessons with a few with him but they stopped after the night he refused to drive with me again. All I did was drive quickly through a narrow gap between two cars. He took exception to the fact that I closed my eyes at the same time and refused to accompany me again. So, no surprise then that I failed my first test abysmally.

I went abroad to work shortly after so didn't try driving again for a couple of years. When I did, it only took six lessons before I took my test. I remember it being very short and my instructor feared the worst when he saw me driving back into the test centre. He'd hardly had time for a cup of tea, but he expected me to pass and I did! Dad had overcome his nerves by then and the first thing he did was buy me a car to get me on the road. It was an old Vauxhall Viva and the first time I tried to adjust the seat I found it was resting on a milk crate so I didn't try that again.

Ever since then I've loved the independence and freedom driving has given me but I do wonder how I'd fare if I took a test under today's conditions. I'd like to think I'd pass but we do pick up bad habits don't we over the years? At least these days I keep my eyes open at all times, so if I ever offer you a lift, don't panic, it will be fine!

Wednesday, 18 August 2010

Up with the Dawn Chorus

I found this last night. Although it was made a few years ago Jarvis Cocker mentioned the artist on his weekend show on Radio Six so expect to see it in a few places. It was made by recording bird song and then slowing it down. People in ordinary places were then asked to sing it before the film was then returned to the original speed of the bird song. I was mesmerised by the chap with the skeleton and the lady with the mirror who just couldn't look at herself in it.

Tuesday, 17 August 2010

Paper engineers par excellence

I caught something on the television the other night. It was a piece about the large numbers of wasps we are seeing this summer. Someone asked the question 'Why do wasps exist?' The answer? 'To make more wasps'. No matter what you think of them you do have to wonder at their ability to make more wasps. As nest builders they can't have many equals.

Last week I visited somewhere that had a wasp nest that had been treated by pest control people. They didn't like to look at it or touch it so I offered to cut it down for them if I could keep it in return. (I know, sad!) Whilst they took refuge yards away I tried my best to prise it cleanly off the beam it had been built on, using a sharp knife. They were subsequently amazed at the way this structure had been made. When I said the wasps gnaw at wood and then chew it up to make paper to do this there was a look of sheer disbelief on their faces. But of course, that's exactly what happens. Look at the fine intricate papery layers that the wasps have woven around the brood cone.

The cone inside where the brood are kept is a marvel of paper engineering and precision. I cannot even draw a decent hexagon with a ruler yet the wasp makes this perfect cell time after time without fail. Just wonderful..... yet I admit to being as wary of the live ones as the next man. In our own garden this summer we have had two instances of them. Firstly my husband found a dead mole a few weeks ago at the top of the garden. Next he noticed wasps going in and out of the vacant mole run and building a nest in there. We don't know how the mole died but the wasps were there in huge numbers and the nest was not a million miles away from the bee hives. Now, wasps love honey and all things sweet and will kill bees so my husband wanted to protect his bees at all cost. Sadly readers, he took pest control action and the nest is no more.

Then I noticed that our bat box, which is on our garage and hidden by the undergrowth, was sprouting something familiar. A quick look activated a huge amount of wasps and I ran for it trying to remember my Mum's little mnemonic for treating stings. Chanting over and over 'winegar for wasps and beecarb for bee stings' I ran into the house and called for my knight in shining armour to deal with it. Well, this nest has also gone the way of the other. I feel cruel because I admire their building skills but I cannot own up to liking them too close to me!

PS: Don't worry about the bat. Our solitary bat is still living under our fascia board despite the offer of the des res we put up for him. I went out early yesterday as he came home from his nightly travels. He always has to make about 6 or 7 attempts to get back under cover so although he's not much of a flyer at least he had the sense to give the bat box a wide berth!

Sunday, 15 August 2010

Tag. Your it.

Every now and then a chance idea can become something special. This post is all about one of those ideas - an idea to collaborate on something that came out of an e mail between me and a couple of blog chums . Along with Chrissie at Niminy Fingers and Cathy at Menopausal Musing we decided to do a tag project. I provided the tags, Chrissie provided the theme and the topics and Cathy..... well for those of you that know her blog well.... Cathy provided the light relief!

We agreed a few ground rules at the outset such as posting dates and how we would communicate etc. Whenever we e mailed we were all included so all of us knew what was happening when and to whom! If we couldn't hit a deadline we said so. In fact, we were so keen we spent half the time sending things early because we'd rushed on with the next tag! Our theme was the seaside and it could be interpreted in any way and in any medium. Although we had the tag base we could use anything as long as the size was consistent. We also agreed that we'd blog today so please take a look at their blogs to read their take on things.

The first tag was 'On the Pier' and knowing my penchant for maps Chrissie cleverly used a street map of Brighton with those wonderful diamante beads twinkling like lights along the promenade. Cathy went back into her memory box and used a photo of her Dad. If you enlarge the photo you can see how she cleverly stitched lines into the tag. All the components she chose were just right.

Then we moved down the promenade a bit to get 'On the Beach'. Cathy managed to capture the essence of it and Chrissie remembered my desire to get to the Quilts exhibition at the V&A and tailored her approach accordingly. There are also other things on the rear of some of these tags but I couldn't work out how to take the photos to show everything!

I think a favourite one for all of us was then our 'seaside memories'. Chrissie went back to a time in Singapore and used precious memorabilia from her youth. What you can't see is the airmail envelope on the reverse . It contains a typed letter from Chrissie on tissue paper. It was stunning. So too was Cathy's tag. Every time I recieved one I'd be saying to myself 'how on earth have they done that!?' The little camper van is a work of art and it is just so perfect. One of my favourites of the whole project without doubt.

The final theme was 'our favourite resort'. Cathy chose somewhere close to my heart. Weston-super-Mare was the seaside place closest to home and I just love donkeys whereas Chrissie chose the balmy Mediterranean for her focus. Both of them so different and, as ever, using very different techniques. That papercutting took patience and a steady hand!

One of the things that cropped up time and again during this process was the number of times we all had similar ideas. That was quite uncanny yet probably showed more than anything that we were kindred spirits and absolutely the right people in the right place at the right time.

I have had a wonderful couple of months doing this. Our friendship is now firmly cemented as we've held each other's hands through the weeks. These two are very special people for me. The excitement of receiving their work in the post has been tremendous. I would love to do it again or at least something similar. This time we wondered if anyone else would like to join in? Let us know in your comments to any of our posts. It probably won't happen for a month or two as we need to re-charge our batteries and finish other outstanding projects but we're up for a challenge. How about you?

Saturday, 14 August 2010

Monochromatic moths

Just a few images from the moth trap we had last night. At last we've had a few dry nights here in Pembrokeshire and it was quite mild so the conditions were perfect. There were about half a dozen of these Magpie moths . They are really common at this time of year.

Resting on the wall of my shed is this beautiful Black Arches. Again, it's common at this time of the year and we had three or four dotted around and in the trap. I love their feathered antennae. Such elegant creatures and, in my eyes at least, quite beautiful.

Sunday, 8 August 2010

Spore Prints

Whenever anyone complains of a sore throat I always advocate a gargle with warm water that has had sage leaves infused in it for about 10 minutes, so when I woke up with one yesterday morning I took some of my own medicine. It worked very well but I could feel a cold creeping up on me all day. By early evening I felt decidedly woolly headed so we went off to the local woods for a bracing head clearing walk. It was a beautiful evening, a rarity here in Pembrokeshire at the moment, so we headed off on a well trodden route for us... except I got distracted by all the fungi I noticed around me. Has it really got to that time of year already?

There were loads of them around, many just coming through and others, well nibbled and gnawed by some hungry animals. Look at the amazing pattern of the gills. Every year that I see them I have to have a go at some spore prints so I abandoned all thoughts of clearing my head because I wanted to hurry home with a few caps and get them started off.

As these invariably come out white I took a sheet of black paper and placed them gill side down. If you have never tried this and want to do so you need some coloured card or paper to show the contrast with the spores from the fungi. I then covered each of mine with a glass. The objective is to seal it and the cap will then release its spores. I did this about 8.00pm last night and came down to this about 6.00am this morning, so you can get this type of result just by leaving them overnight.

The paper is cockled with all of the moisture that has leached from the fungi in the sealed atmosphere but what a great pattern. The one above comes from the fungi in the top photograph and the photo below (which is not great, sorry!) shows all three of them.

I might play around with some of these images digitally now or coat the original when it's fully dry with a layer of acrylic wax before using it in a book maybe. Or I might just leave it and study the pattern. In the meantime it's taken my mind off the fact that I really do now have a summer head cold.....c'est la vie.