Rain, rain, go away

Every year in July I decide it’s a good idea to sign up for the 20:20 print exchange at Hot Bed Press. Every year half way through September I start to panic that I’ve no ideas, or at least no ideas that are feasible in an edition of 25.

This year was no exception. But then looking through my sketch books (or more accurately piles of loose sheets in boxes) I came across my scarecrow drawings. Subject matter found.

I decided to etch because my collagraph plates start to disintegrate with larger editions (and 25 for me is a larger edition)

It took a couple of goes to get the bite right (the first plate seemed to have developed a sort of grain right the way across the figure) but I’m quite pleased with how she turned out.

Exploring John Piper

Although I don't like working in sketchbooks I have been making concertina books recently and using these to explore a subject. I've found that the scrap material I've been using means I don't get precious about them and at about six double pages it means there's scope to play but I don't get bored or overfaced. And at the end I have a thing rather than a few bits on paper.

Last Christmas I received a beautiful book about John Piper which I've finally got round to reading. When I read about work I like I want to know how it's made as well as why so I chose several different paintings and tried interpreting sections of them in acrylic.

 

Variations on a theme

For the NWBA theme of ‘Remnants’ I’ve been using gelli prints that were left over from other projects and using them to make a set of books all using the Reverse Australian Piano Hinge. 

I’ve enjoyed just exploring variations on a structure without worrying about the content. 

(what I'm not enjoying is trying to mannipulate images in this new blogger interface - I cannot get them to sit where I want them)

More Plates and Pirate Cruncher

Not much book making going on the past couple of weeks but I have finally finished the pirate cruncher.

And I did manage to finish the plates ready for printing for ’Isolation’. 

 

 I’ve also signed up for Hot Bed Press 20:20 again this year so hopefully this should push me into doing some more experimental printmaking.

Plates and Pirate Crunchers

 I've made a mixed set of stuff this past couple of weeks

A plate for the current version of Isolation. I need to make two more small ones for inside the front and back covers.

Multiple facemasks, this is just a few.

I've started a blanket for an anticipated new arrival. I couldn't handle the wool I chose in the shop and when I got it home and started to work with it it felt really rough. So I decided to use some from my stash. They aren't the colours I'd normally choose but at least they feel soft.

And the eldest granddaughter is three this month. Her mum says she'd like a cuddly pirate cruncher (from Jonny Duddle's Pirate books ). So far I'm at prototype number five but apart from a few details I think I've worked it out. Now I need to source some turquoise fleece (and add a few more legs).

Keys

I’ve been playing with a limited palette of materials - four types of paper (brown, tracing, cartridge and the pages from a discarded book), white emulsion paint, PVA, two types of tape (double sided and selllotape), linen thread and a laser printer for the black line.

And using a simple motif

To make a coptic sewn accordian book for the NWBA theme of Collections.

Isolation and keys

A mixed week this week. At the beginning a long, socially distanced walk with friends, in the middle rain, grandchildren at the allotment and redcurrant picking, and hopefully today more currants and seeing the youngest granchild in their garden.

And in between some bits of playing.

Isolation is developing, from this,

which with the brambles all the way round feels a bit like a tissue box to this

It looks like a minor tweak but I'm also going to put solid covers on the back two faces of the cube, and make the central triangle a bit larger.

I've also made the first draft of the text for the inside.

And realised when checking it that I'd used wil instead of shal all the way through so that needs adjusting.

And I'm working on another book for Collections. This time I'm using keys. Who doesn't have a collection of orphaned and abandoned keys somewhere in the house?

Isolation

I’ve been walking round this book for too long. I still like the original rough idea but it needs plates longer than I can print at home so I’m going to shelve that structure for now and try a new aproach.

I’ve been thinking about the idea of the garden in medieval literature. It was a place of beauty, a safe manageable cultivated space, an enclosed space. It was a contrast to the wild, savage, dangerous forest outside.

I‘ve also been wanting to use the words of Julian of Norwich, “al wil be wel and al wil be wel and al maner of thyng wil be wel” , in a book for a while now.

Not much is known about her personally but she was an anchorite who wrote about the visions she experienced when near death. She lived in Norwich at the time of the plague and there is speculation that before she undertook her calling she had been a wife and mother and had lost both husband and child.

The two themes seem to fit well together.

I need to make the book out of sections that I can cut out of A4 paper because it’s the only printing paper I have enough of to make an edition.

At the moment it’s looking like this. No doubt it will change.