And back again

It began as a book, started to become a set of three multi-layered images and turned back into a book.

I made a set of prints, of each block of text and images in both brown and blue on gauze. I already had a set of brown on cotton for the back.

The gauze that I bought wasn’t as fine as the original stuff so when I put two layers over the back image they obscured it too much. As  I started to layer the gauzes to see what I could do with them it started turning back into a book with the cotton as a cover.

I initially thought I’d join them a Japanese stab binding, something that looked a bit like blanket stitch, but even that was too obtrusive so I settled for a simple backstitch.

 I wanted the womans words to ghost through the images.

At the moment the edges are a bit too clean cut but they are fraying each time I turn the pages and with time they should soften up nicely.

Printing on Fabric

I’ve been experimenting with gum arabic transfer and text recently with the aim of making a small book but last week I decided to try floating the text over the image rather than setting it into it.

I considered different types of paper but decided that they were too opaque. I had been reading Sue Brown’s blog and she was talking about printing on fabric so I thought I’d see if printing onto gauze would work. While I was digging through the fabric remnants I found some shiny organza and some fine gauze. I also found some lovely lightweight shiny stuff (I’m not good at fabric) and some old cotton sheeting that I thought might work for the background image as an alternative to paper.

I enlarged and re arranged the text and re worked the images so that they would balance. I didn’t have enough of the remnants to do the full set so I’ve only printed some samples (using blue, brown and silver ink) to see if they would work. It looks promising

On paper

On sheeting

 

 On  shiny stuff

On gauze

On organza

And layered in various combinations

I went to  to see  if I could get some more of the same fabric but no chance. The woman said she hadn’t seen any of the ‘shnny stuff’ for ages and the gauzes they had weren’t quite as fine as the one I’d tried. But I bought half a metre of a couple of things and I’ll see if they’ll work.

The layering looks better in life than it does on the screen

Holiday books

We’ve been away for the past couple of weeks visiting friends in France.

It was a lovely quiet visit with large parts of it spent in Mary’s studio.

I took the gelli plate with me and made books.

A double sided palm leaf book using lace and letter stencils...

 and one using lace and leaves from the bushes around the studio

An interlocking double sided accordian book

A piano hinge book using my cleaning scrap paper for the pages and adding some of the leaves I used for stencilling and texturing prints

Two woven books using leaves as stencils and for texture