Recycling

Whilst we were in France over Easter we drank a lot of tea and I had this bright idea of drying the bags, putting things inside them and making a book. When I tried it the bags weren’t transparent enough but I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away. Home they came – Yorkshire Teabags that had travelled full to the supermarche in France and then back empty to Lancashire – a lot of air miles.I decided it was time to stop keep moving them out of the way in the workroom and actually use them for something.

I wanted to use text but also to keep it quite simple. So I got out some rubber stamp letters that I’ve had for years and never used and started to play. The first thing I realised was that the words would have to be no longer than 5 letters long to fit onto the bags. This limited the possibilities but I thought “Tea for Two” was quite apt and I wasn’t after deep and meaningful. 

A bit of paint to heighten the contrast with the lettering and .....

Keeping it simple, for the backs I made stamps, a teapot and two cups, out of foam and milk bottle plastic....

I thought putting them in a box was more in keeping than binding them into a book.

 

Aquatint Workshop

I still can’t lean over or sit at a table to work but last weekend I did manage to get to a workshop run by Kate Desforges at HBP that I’d booked weeks ago - aluminium and zinc etching in copper sulphate. I use copper sulphate with aluminium already because aluminium etches to give tone, but I hadn’t used it with zinc before, and I have wanted to learn how to aquatint for ages.

So by working on the tops of various cupboards and plan chests and using the press whose wheel rotated highest from the floor it was possible without bending too much.

I managed to make sandpaper texture with this very deeply bitten aquatint

My aluminium etchings were better but I was back in my comfort zone for those.

The 20 20 print exchange happens in November. I think I want to explore using aquatinr for that so I'll have to get back to printmaking regularly as soon as possible