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

Etching experiments

I am working at the moment on a book that I'm hoping to print using gum arabic transfer. I’ve written the words and worked out a provisional layout. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on the images.

These are some of the earlier thoughts.

 I took photos of them to use to work out the layout and for some reason the black and white drawings seemed to have developed a slight colour cast. I exaggerated this in photoshop and like it so much that I’m going to try and replicate it for the final images.

I’m struggling a bit at the moment though because the words need a landscape format but the images for the individual pages want to be portrait.

I’d spent so much time working in charcoal that I hadn’t anything worked out to take to the press this week so I decided to crop a section of one of the charcoal drawings and try to translate it into an etching. 

I used different tapes, lipstick, marker pen, oil pastel and Vaseline as resists. I’ve only just discovered Vaseline and it’s great for making brushstrokes. Because nothing needed to dry, unlike traditional grounds, and because I only put the plate in the copper sulphate for a minute at a time the image developed really quickly.

The two proof states aren’t good finished prints but I’ve enjoyed just playing and seeing what happens. It's ended up more painterly than my prints usually do. I think I’m going to do more with this in between other projects.