printed material: September 2010

Sunday, 26 September 2010

A bit of a giveaway....updated

I've mentioned before some of the magazines that I subscribe to or like to buy. If you don't know it already let me introduce you to 'Bound and Lettered' which is published in Canada by John Neal Booksellers. It started out life as 'Tabellae Ansatae' and was the brainchild of book artist Shereen La Plantz before changing its name a couple of years ago. If you're interested in book arts, paper arts or calligraphy this is a great magazine to look through. I used to buy it for many years from a small bookshop in London, its only UK distributor, but they retired and I now just purchase quarterly online. Due to a mix -up with my current order I have been sent a recent copy as a goodwill gesture, but it's a copy I already have, so I have told them I will pass it on to someone who is interested in the same sort of things as me. So, if anyone reading this wants my free copy please e mail me or leave a comment. Should there be more than one request I'll put the names in the hat at the end of the week .

This is not so much of a giveaway, more of a 'pay it forward' type of thing I suppose but a project I've been playing about with this week is definitely the product of a 'giveaway'. The 'giveaway' in question is a paint chart from Farrow and Ball, a left over from some recent decorating we have done.

It struck me how good a quality the paper was and that it was evenly and crisply folded - the great base for an accordion book and no measuring and cutting to do! First thing I did was collage some old book pages onto the front and back. They came from an old gardening encyclopaedia which had lots of fern pictures so I made sure they were postioned on the mountain folds.

Once the collaging was done I took some bracken from the garden - there is a surfeit of it after all - and made up some green printing ink which I then rollered onto the fronds before pressing them on the pages. I only did a small amount of type stamping on it before adding some hard covers and making a slip case to hold it together. The extra paper gave the paint chart a bit of 'spring' and it works better within some sort of enclosure. The slip cover was a discarded monoprint using the bracken. I painted acrylic wax onto the print but because I had used water based printing ink originally it all smeared! Not to be daunted I covered my tracks with some more bracken prints using a gold stamp pad. The print was a trifle short in length but I am not bothered. It performs the function I need it to do!

It's not a brilliant work of art but it does show you that the means to make books is within your grasp if you look around. This sort of paint chart could be cut in half or cut shorter so it lends itself to other structures. It is also the perfect shape to make a flag book with. I think I'll do that example next as I have another paint chart I can use. Please note I am not advocating a wholesale rampage through the DIY store grabbing charts you don't need but I am encouraging you to look at things you already have and that you may be going to discard with new eyes and if you want to try making books and read that magazine... just let me know!

Thanks everyone who e mailed or left a comment. I put the names in a bag this morning and my assistant (aka my better half) pulled Dan's name from it. There's obviously a keen interest in making books and lettering out there and I'm sorry that I've only got the one magazine. I shall look forward to seeing what creations it might inspire Dan to produce!

Saturday, 25 September 2010

Tidying up

We realised this week that we have been in our current home for nine years exactly. I used to be quite a nomad, rarely settling in one place for long so I suppose this is evidence of the 'pull' that this place has had on me. Despite that, I've been feeling very restless lately and talking about moving on. I think my husband wanted me to banish these thoughts by making me so tired I would drop the subject so he suggested we get started on the annual clear up in the garden. The ash trees have started to shed their leaves everywhere and the ground is littered with ash keys and sycamore wings. It is certainly time to get on with things as you can see.

In the time we have been here we have made beds. moved beds, planted cuttings and seeds, watched them get huge, moved them, split them. composted them etc etc.... and the garden has done what they all do... it has evolved and changed and I have always loved every part of it at all times of the year. In fact we often say we bought a garden and the house was an afterthought.

There are two borders halfway up my garden that are planted with lots of grasses and architectural plants i.e large overgrown things. It is time to get in there and make some semblance of order but we usually leave things to provide seedheads for the birds in winter, plus nothing beats tall grasses covered in frost..... so the plan yesterday was to get into our front garden and tidy it up as I noticed our postie has suddenly taken to coming up the path with a machete....

Well, that was my husband's plan but I got sidetracked. First off I found a frog hidden in the undergrowth to study at length , then I found the wing of a swallow (not attached to the swallow unfortunately) and then I noticed the huge number of butterflies swarming over one of the eupatoriums in the overgrown middle borders. I am easily distracted when this is the reward.

Working on the premise that 'if you can't beat them, join them' my husband then provided me with a tray to 'collect' my treasures in. He started off my collection with some fabulous leaves from the paeonia lutea in the front garden. They are already being pressed for monoprinting sessions but these are the seedpods. They are about three inches long and all knobbly and chunky. The colours are fabulous and the seeds inside are shiny, black and hard as marbles. They cry out to be drawn or painted don't they?

There is more 'hacking' on the agenda today. I ended up more fired up by finds than physically exhausted yesterday. I might have to show willing and put in a bit more effort today but I have my 'collections tray' at the ready, just in case I am lucky enough to be distracted.....

Tuesday, 21 September 2010

The Last Knit

I've always had a love/hate relationship with knitting but things have never been this bad for me.......

Saturday, 11 September 2010

What's in a name...

Over at Purple Podded Peas, Celia has been sharing the early Penguin and Pelican books she has recently found. When I was clearing some shelves yesterday in preparation for some decorating I came across this old copy of Tree Fruit Growing from the same sort of era. It was first published in 1943 and we must have bought it from a charity shop or somewhere to add to our gardening books collection.

Reading it is very enlightening. I found out that there was an apple with our name to it, the aptly named Crawley Beauty. It must be fashioned after me as it is ....'very fine with a very late season. Blooms very late (how true) , missing all the frosts, and should be put with another late-flowering variety (this has come to pass!) Makes a good size tree and fruit is medium to large and of good shape (I couldn't possibly comment....) Colour is green flushed and striped with red (well., given my time of life that's no wonder!)' Luckily I'm not much afflicted with scab and my season is Christmas to March and later so I've yet to peak for this year but am sure I will get there eventually!!

I'm very taken with the names of the apple varieties. I'm wondering how they came about and whether some of them are still around. My imagination went to town with some of them and I started to visualise the people they were named after... there was the upstanding Rev. W Wilks ; the doughty Arthur Turner and his pals, Charles Ross, James Grieve and George Neal ; the haughty Lady Sudeley and the aristocratic Lord Lambourne; the flirtatious Belle de Boskoop and her friend D'Arcy Spice, described as a 'little tart....'

I'm most enamoured with that sweet young man about town the Rt. Hon Allington Pippin. Word is he was set upon and beaten to a pulp by some lads who were under the influence of too much cider.... I know....perhaps I need to get out more.....

Wednesday, 8 September 2010

Less than positive

The video I posted last was one I found a few weeks ago. I wasn't going to do anything with it but I was struck by how many comments that were left on the seaside project pages posted by Chrissie, Cathy and myself were saying how people wanted to join in but didn't think they had the creativity needed. I guess I just wanted to somehow say that we can all do anything we want to and no-one is going to judge. After all, we are often our own harshest critics aren't we? I constantly judge what I do but I have learned to go with the flow and enjoy my experiments. This is how I am still approaching the cyanotypes and last week I gathered loads of seedheads from the garden and took a few photos. I love their structural shapes and outline.

After cropping them and sharpening the image I made a positive and a negative image of all of them. I then printed out the negative images on inkjet transparencies and now I have tried to make cyanotypes on small pieces of mountboard using them. As the substrate has to be rinsed in running water I didn't expect the mountboard to stand up to the treatment. In fact it didn't even take the solution very well. The coating puddled and dried in odd shapes on the pieces. Either it wasn't totally flat or the mountboard has its own particular coating which might have stopped the solution from permeating the surface well enough. I also have the added variable that the solution is now over ten days old and should really not be viable at all.... but I had some great results which I'm over the moon with.

I did these yesterday in between heavy rain showers so my timing went all over the place. Some are still drying out but you can see where the original solution dried in patches and stayed that way. I think I will utilise these experiments and make some small coptic stitch notebooks. I know I cannot replicate them again. The whole process keeps throwing up ideas and I will just see where they lead although that Indian Summer I was expecting seems to have evaporated. I hope I don't have to abandon my cyanotypes until next year as I want to do some work with images inspired by our bees. Over at Bee House Hives the lovely Sarah has said I can use a couple of her photos. Even if you're not interested in bees please go and take a look at her wonderful photos. They are stunning. She tells me it is snowing in Montana whereas it's just raining again here in soggy Wales. No cyanotyping today then!

Saturday, 4 September 2010

Out of the mouths of babes....

Friday, 3 September 2010

The tag end of it

Thanks to everyone who read and commented on the posts that Chrissie, Cathy and I wrote about our seaside tag project. Those that did will remember that we had to finish the project by creating a container to house them all in, something I had had sort of pushed to the back of my mind.... I had actually made a start by trying to make a large tag shaped box from scratch but when my husband told me it looked like a large coffin ...well, something did die, namely inspiration...

...and then Chrissie sent an e mail last week saying she'd made hers and how were Cathy and I doing? Well, I went into rabbit in the headlights mode and cool Cathy said she'd better her skates on too. I was lost for an idea and then remembered this little suitcase that I'd bought earlier in the year. I'd been reading about a group of book artists in Scandinavia who were creating books in a box like these and had bought one when I'd seen it in a shop that sells all sorts. It was covered in lots of 1980's style shoe pictures and needed covering . There was no question that I was going to use a map. At last, a chance to get a map into the project! I picked a map of Scotland because it was all I had but also because I wanted large expanses of sea for the base of the case. I set about covering the lid and other side with the main map, using the sea to put a strip around the sides. I gessoed the inside and painted it with acrylic paint to hide all the illustrations inside. It took a few coats but it eventually worked.

I made a mess of getting around the handles but hey, this is for me so that's fine. I cut out lots of little line drawings from an old book that has been a good friend on this project and I stuck them all around the side . The map had not stuck well on the front of the case for some reason but a judicious byline from the Guardian came to my rescue and sort of acts as camouflage. I then painted some small wooden letters that I had and stuck them on the top as an instant reminder of what treasures lie in my box. Finally I printed a hard copy of the tag posts that the three of us did, complete with comments so that when I open my box I will be able to see and read everything to do with this great project.

All three of us are posting today about our containers so go and take a look at what Chrissie and Cathy have made. As ever we have all approached it quite differently yet in the same vein. All of us are missing the creativity, the sending of parcels and the communication so we are cracking on with discussing what we shall do next and when. All of you who said you'd like to join us are duly noted. If anyone else wants to add their name please do. If not, there will be 9 of us involved in the next idea. The thoughts of what creativity that could unleash is exciting. The thoughts of what creative friendships that could forge is even more exciting. Watch this space!

Thursday, 2 September 2010

Regrets.... I've had a few....

I get such a kick out of things that go wrong as much as I do when they go right! Sometimes the 'happy accidents' yield things you love but can never replicate. This has proved to be the case with the cyanotypes I've been experimenting with this week. Up above are three pieces of watercolour paper that I cut last week with the intention of doing the photograms with the lace doilies on. Well, they dried a bit streaky so I discarded them, finding them two days later virtually black where they had reacted with the light. I never thought I'd get an image but I exposed two of them with some leaves from the garden and the third with a transparency I'd printed out from one of my photographs. When exposed and rinsed the images were a dark blue on a marginally lighter blue background so I painted them, whilst wet, with neat bleach and I really love the effect. Will I be able to do it again....mmmm.... doubtful, but I might give it a try!

Similarly, I thought I'd try the process on fabric again and grabbed a couple of pieces of what I thought were white cotton. By now my solution has been made about 3 days and it is only supposed to have a shelf life of 24 hours so I didn't expect much. The material above was painted and left to dry and then exposed. It's not a dark blue but it's getting there whilst the piece below was painted, covered while wet with an inkjet transparency from one of my moth photos and exposed for the same period of time. The colour difference is quite marked and I have to experiment more to find out why they are different. Is it because one fabic was exposed wet and the other was dry? Or, maybe I haven't even picked cotton fabrics? The process does not work on synthetics so is my moth printed on polyester cotton and therefore paler?

Every piece I produce makes me ask more questions. It is a fascinating process and I hope I make a few more mistakes today.....