Plan C

The more scanned drawings I added to the text the more it reminded me of old kitsch wallpaper (the sort with views of Tuscany interspersed with peppers and Chianti bottles). Time for Plan C

The object of the exercise was to experiment with the printer so I decided to see how I could use it to add text to pre-prepared papers. I made several different coloured surfaces using watercolour and water-soluble crayons on cartridge paper, and when dry I ironed them flat. 

 

Some work better than others, the salt is too busy 

 

but the cling film is really effective as a background.

I also revived the artwork from an old idea for a book. ‘Twelve Dancing Princesses’ is meant to have the feel of traditional fairy story imagery, princesses and delicate colours, but if you look at the text that makes up the pattern on their dresses it picks out the qualities that seem to apply to the ‘heroines‘ of many fairy stories (eldest, youngest-the middle child never seems to do anything remarkable, kind, meek, dutiful-nothing wrong with them as qualities on their own but put together its a depressing role model for girls)

I printed some in black only to hand colour later....

and some in blue and pink as well. 

The Barbie colours fit the subject matter. The colour is miss registered which I quite like. It fits the disparity between the feel of the artwork and its commentary.

The printer uses soy ink which will take a while to dry completely before I can start to cut and assemble the books.