printed material: April 2012

Monday, 30 April 2012

Technically challenged.... or losing the plot

Ever since my morning with Cathy I have been practising layers in Photoshop and I am improving although I acknowledge that what I think is brilliant is probably beginner stuff for a lot of people. Nevertheless, my enthusiasm is high so I've been making up some textured backgrounds to use with my hand drawn images or photos. Whilst I was doing that I came across something called the bokeh effect, again new to me but old hat for some I'm sure. I followed this link and made a lens cover for my camera exactly like the one in the photo above but as you can see I have not achieved the bokeh effect. What is it? Well, it is a photograph where the foreground objects are in sharp relief with the background, which in turn is all hazy and lovely. The heart shape lens is meant to create lots of little hearts in the background of the photo like twinkly lights.... not one blobby shape like I've achieved. Now it's either because my camera is not a DSLR (it's a halfway between type camera) or it's because we've had no decent light since last week here and you need strong contrasts of foreground and background for it to work.
These are the best of my experiments . The ones with the spots are random photos of a piece of fabric I compost dyed a long time ago. It's lying on the table waiting to be used for something after I retrieved it from a box last week so it was handy to photograph but it looks more like specimens under a microscope rather than anything else. I need to go back to the drawing board to crack this technique but there is no sign of the sun coming out here anytime soon so I'm off to practise more Photoshop but watch this space. I have to try this bokeh effect again and if anyone has done so successfully please tell me how!!

Sunday, 22 April 2012

Sewing books

I made this little chap a few weeks ago as a present for my friend Joan. She hits a milestone birthday tomorrow and she is always someone who loves a personally made gift but I've got used to him sitting on my shelf and can't bear to part with him now so I needed a plan B. Earlier this week I travelled home to visit family and spend a lovely morning with friend and fellow blogger Cathy who had promised to explain how to layer images in Photoshop to me. Well, I knew she was taking on a mammoth task but she managed to get the basic process fixed in my head and I have been practising ever since - with varied results it has to be said, but I'm getting there Cathy... honest....

Anyway, I had made Cathy a little book as a way of saying thank you for her time and the wonderful lunch she gave me and I liked it so much myself (words I rarely say!) that I decided to make a similar one for Joan's birthday. The only thing I'd bought for Cathy's was some tape from a local shop that looked like a tape measure, otherwise everything has come from my scraps bag and old stuff I've been collecting for that day when inspiration might strike and I'd know exactly what to do with it. If it didn't lie within arms reach of my desk I have not used it! I repeated a lot of the elements for Joan's book using pages folded from torn watercolour paper and stitched together later on the sewing machine. It's a bit wonky but I shall be convincing Joan that it is 'organic' and 'unique'. It is made from collections of old sewing stuff mounted and put into little tracing paper pockets. There was no plan as such. I just did what I felt like doing and luckily had enough tape and ribbon left to adorn the covers and enable it to be tied close.

I still cannot stop making books at the moment it seems and I have been asked to run a small workshop in St Davids next month working with a group of printmakers, using their prints to make their own books. I am really looking forward to that and it has come about because of Sheila and Deborah, two lovely girls I met on my last course module. The book give away was great fun too and I may do that again in the near future. In the meantime I need to go off and wrap this book up for Joan. Then I'm going back to practising those layers using some great photos of rusty stuff that I took the other day whilst out on a jaunt to the beach. I hope the memory holds out. Wish me luck.....

Friday, 20 April 2012

Visual fun

I just watched a great video posted by Wendy over at Ticking Stripes. It really made me smile so please have a look. It then reminded me I'd tagged this from somewhere as I love all the colour changes in it. Hope either video will brighten your day.

Monday, 16 April 2012

... and the winner is....

The deed is done. I called his nibs in from the garden as it was getting dusk and he doffed his gardening hat so I put the names straight in it. Thank you all for the great comments about the books. I really have appreciated them and hope that when they are received they will be used for something. Everyone was included except Seth, sorry Seth - your comment came after the draw was made, but I will do another in a few weeks as I have a little book I'm making to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and it will be my contribution to the festivities!

Here are the results. I know some of the addresses through past escapades but to be on the safe side, could everyone just send me a confirmation e mail with their address. Then I will know you have seen your name against the books below.

John

Joanna @ Fiddlesnips

Jeanne @ Tales from a Cottage Garden

Patricia

Jane @ Things to Make and Do

Gill

Anna @ Inky Fingers

Fiona @ Paper Ponderings

I am away until Wednesday and will start posting the books from then as soon as I get your confirmation e mail. Thanks again to everyone for joining in!

Friday, 13 April 2012

Drawing on....

Thanks to everyone who has left a comment on my previous post or sent me an e mail about the book give-away. My husband is in training flexing his muscles ready to lift the names out of the hat - or bowl - on Sunday night. He is a bit stressed out about the responsibility as some people have sort of suggested which book they might like should their name get chosen..... he is feeling under pressure to perform well on the night so to make it a bit easier for him I have made a few more this week, finally using the last scraps of that banana paper! I'm not sure about the one above. The covers are rusted paper with banana paper pages but it is not my finest hour so it may not end up on anyone's doorstep anytime soon. What I will be adding to the others in the last post are the following:

A small origami folded pocket book. I've already added some manilla tags in each pocket but the choice of what to put in them eventually will be up to the recipient!

Last year sometime I relief printed some of the bamboo in the garden onto some paper already painted with acrylic inks. The signatures for the ensuing book idea have sat there for all this time so this week I cut them in two to make a smaller but chunkier book. It can be painted over or collaged over but it makes a change from the blank pages which I put into the small red book. It's very simple, plain pages sewed over tapeswith some monoprint offcuts for covers. Actually, I think it is one of my favourites. I like 'simple'.

I've also been experimenting with making flag books this week, something I've not done too much of before. These old Typhoo tea cards have a fabulous shape which just lends itself to this structure but I think I could have made the spine wider and the book would have then closed better. Still, you live and learn and I am quite happy to put it into the draw if someone likes the look of it.

Finally, in the last post I said I'd won the little letter in Jane's give-away along with some other treats. Together with some lovely cards and books, Jane generously sent me some wedding photographs because when we were all posting about our 'collections' last year I owned up to my predilection for collecting photographs of people's weddings. I don't know any of the people in them and the older they are, the better. I just love imagining who they were and hoping they had happy lives. This one here is just fantastic. The note on the back from the senders says 'Here we are in our wedding clothes......' Look closely at those outfits. This lady is wearing an incredible hat and sporting a tippet or stole made of something wild and previously alive.... could it be a ferret? As for her groom, I love the fact that his trousers have lost sight of his spats. Perhaps he dressed in a hurry or maybe he was not a standard size. Is it my imagination or does his head look too large for his body? A studied glance at that hat he's carrying suggests it really was as big as it seems......

Actually, now I've scrolled down past the photo I can see it's not a ferret but what on earth was it? Any ideas? Have a great weekend everyone. I'll post the results of the draw on Monday morning. Still time to leave comments if anyone else wants to join in.

Sunday, 8 April 2012

Paying it forward

Just after Christmas I was the fortunate recipient of a wonderful small book in a give-away made by Anna Mavromatis, an artist with two beautiful blogs full of inspiring things. I was so busy at the time I failed to acknowledge my good fortune and I must rectify that as Anna's blog has long been one which I follow for the exquisite way in which she portrays her ideas. Have a look here at the original give away post so that you can see the book I am now lucky enough to own but then browse around. You will be hooked, I guarantee it!

Hoping this will be seen as the sincerest form of flattery I have subsequently made a couple of similar books to the one Anna sent me and I thought it was about time I paid something forward and did a give-away of my own. It's not a significant blog post event or a special happening, just something I thought was overdue. I have been so busy in the past few months that I have not really made something just for the fun of it so I remedied that this past couple of weeks and made quite a few small books, some of which I am now offering as my 'give-away'.

This first little book is similar to Anna's and is made from some rusted paper I found in my stash with a cover made from some old prints that I've cut up. The second book also has part of a print as a cover. It was an image that didn't work out but I had chine-collee'd some printed tissue paper onto the bottom of it and I quite liked the image of the type. The inside pages are small khadi papers and can be written on or drawn on if desired. It is a chunky little book with a ribbon and button closure.

In my last post I mentioned the paper from the banana boxes. It has a coating to it but I thought it would make interesting book pages and covers. It might be hard to draw on it but it will take ink and/or collage so I have used it in book number three. The cover is a piece of copyright free collage paper given away free in a magazine. I've just laminated it to the banana paper and given it a coat of acrylic wax for toughness - but it really is tough enough already, believe me. My fingers were sore from stitching it as it was a struggle to get the needle through it.

Whilst I was planning my 'give-away' I entered another offered by Jane. She was offering everyone who left a comment something and I won a small letter which I received yesterday along with some other little treats which are a joy. I might share one of them in a few days as it is hilarious. Thank you Jane!

Here it is with my last little book.... and it is little as you can see. The pen was the only thing I had to hand to give an idea of scale. The letter really is a wonderful thing. It is a card sent in 1907 after a wedding in America, yet it doesn't have a US stamp. I couldn't believe the serendipity of winning the letter given that Jane had a whole range of great things she was passing on. You see, I've also been working on some ideas to do with writing and penmanship triggered by my recent sculpture course.

Years ago I bought a large brass nib in a junk shop and it usually stands up in the corner of my office bookcase. During my recent course I did a lot of paper casting with some fine japanese calligraphy papers I was given last year and the nib has been a real source of inspiration for me. I can't stop making lightweight paper nibs and thinking about how I might use them in a piece. I've rusted a couple and intend to dye some more. I've been wondering how to print on them, maybe by flattening them and then re-forming them. Who knows? It's just great to be enthused by something isn't it?

So, now that I've shared my good fortune with my two give-aways let me ask if anyone out there will let me pay it forward? If you would like to go into a draw for any one of the four small books I have made and shown here, just leave me a comment or send me an e mail. I know some followers don't have a blog and I don't want to miss anyone out. I will get my assistant , aka my husband, to do the draw next Sunday evening and I will then post the results. I hope I get some response....

Sunday, 1 April 2012

Pressing matters

This week I finished the sculpture module of my art foundation certificate course with Aberystwyth Uni and after making things with a vengeance for weeks it all came to a shuddering halt and I was a bit lost without something to work towards. During the course, one of the other girls had brought in some really thick brown paper that she'd picked up in the local supermarket layered between the hands of bananas. I just fell in love with the stuff and ended up making a bag for her from it which the sewing machine sort of liked, but not much! I have folded it, pleated it,papier mache'd it, dyed it, stitched it, printed on it, drawn on it etc etc for the last few weeks and only had a small bit left which I cut into squares and dyed after collaging some bits of old painting onto it. I sort of thought I might stitch it together but have got carried away by starting hand stitching into it even though it is as tough as old boots and resistant to the needle big time.

Whilst waiting for dyes to dry and trying to get my hands back to a respectable colour before leaving the house I have been using up old prints and drawings to make some small books. I think of all of this as displacement activity now that the heavy workload associated with the course is over, leaving me with nothing to work at. While I was cutting and folding pages I found some thick card offcuts and then decided to make a few small printing plates with the few things I had within reach like reinforcer rings and odd scraps of packaging. There was no set plan or design to any of this at all. My hands just needed to be working at something.

Well, I printed these today but I have had problems with my press and it has all come to a head this afternoon. It has never been right since I bought it and the manufacturer has recently sent me some new gauges to put on it. The problem has always been that the top roller has never seemed level so new gauges put on with a sprit level nearby meant that all seemed well. Not so. Today's activity has resulted in just one set of prints before the press bed started to resist movement at all. I have no idea what is now wrong with it but I shall be going back to the manufacturer again tomorrow to try and resolve it. I think I have a Friday press... you know, where they were made in a hurry before clocking off for the weekend. Probably this is doing it a disservice. After all, the bad workman always blames his tools etc etc.

Considering they were made up from scraps of stationery I quite like these two prints with the circular motifs. They were the ends of some ribbon packaging from Ikea. Amazing what the humblest of materials can do isn't it? Now that I'm stopped in my tracks by a dodgy press I either have to go back to stitching the banana paper.... which might result in hefty blisters.... or I go back to making more small books until I decide what to do next. I think it might be time for me to do a giveaway. If I make a couple of books for one would anyone be interested I wonder?

With the press out of action I cannot carry on with my collagraphs but I really do have the urge to keep busy at the moment. I've been waiting to try a new style of indigo dye vat for a while so I might do that this week and maybe try dyeing the banana paper in it too. Notice how I don't mention keeping my hands busy with household duties like dusting and cleaning etc. My energy level and restlessness just disappears at the thought of it.....