Distressed buildings

 I've had a bit of a rest from Mad, Bad... 

Two prints of one of my favourite subjects, dilapidated buildings.

The first is a tetra pak print and the second a collagraph.

Mad, Bad ....

 The latest archive project that I am involved in has the title of ‘Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know’.

I’ve found it quite difficult to get into.

There is a wealth of information in the Lancashire archives from constabulary and hospital records which not only have details of peoples crimes/condition but also contain photographs. The stories are in the main very sad, coming out of illness and/or poverty. It didn’t seem right to use them as fodder.

I started to type key phrases, such as ‘highway robbery’ into the archive database to see what these would produce and came across a collection of printed police handbills from the 1870’s.

They were distributed round various police stations and posted on the streets asking for information about various crimes/criminals. The use of language in some of these is fascinating and even if they come with a name it doesn’t feel intrusive unlike the hand written records and photographs.

I’m playing with format at the moment. I don’t want to produce a flat image and would like something to tell some of the stories that jumped out at me.

I had thought about making a toy theatre but I’m interested in the characters and figures on a stage can tend to get a bit lost in the space. So I’m trying something on a smaller scale

One of the references in the catalogue reads ” Warrington - Stolen Duck and Nest of eggs from premises of Rev. Frank Hopweed, Bewsey Hall - Reward 2 guineas”. I found the document and based on the information (and artistic license) I’ve made a couple of quick collagraph prints 

 I scanned them, printed them out, and used the bits to assemble this as a trial. I think it’s going in the right direction

 

More Dragons

 Although I finished it before Christmas I realised that I hadn’t photographed the finished dragon book. 

 The collagraph plate made 2 lots of separate heads, tails, and bodies facing in opposite directions. I used the Paul Johnson hinge method of attaching the pieces together. It may be a fiddly way of making what is essentially an accordion book but it means that there are no folds which can wear over time.

 

Here be dragons

 NWBA have managed to start meeting in person recently. Which meant that we could get together all the bits for out collaborative book on Magellan's journey. So for the past couple of weeks I've been pinning bits together and doing more monoprints of sea.

 

I also got to Hot Bed to print the dragon plate I made during lockdown. Some of the glues haven't aged well so I only got 6 prints 

 

But this has given me 12 sets of dragon pieces for a slot and tab structure.

 

 

 

 

 

The storm is over

I’ve finally done with ‘storm in a teacup’.

Colour separation monoprint (a different, better palette but I’m still not happy with it) and collagraph overprinting. Oops I misregistered the collagraph on this one

 And as a ghost, with better registration. 

 And as a watercolour wash with the collagraph print.

I’m still getting halos round some of the stepped areas of the block and I’m not sure whether it’s due to press pressure or too thin paper. When I can go back to Hot Bed I’ll experiment with the heavier press I that usually use for collagraph

Still raining

I decided that I wanted to try a coloured collagraph version of 'Storm in a teacup'.

The first step is the collagraph plate. I made it quite light on texture because I want the colour to show through.

I've printed several to use with washes of watercolour.

 I'm also going to print some colour separation monoprints and then print the collagraph on top. But that will need a decent amount of time setting aside and while the weather holds there's lots of allotmenting that needs doing.

And in between I've been making some small monoprints on fabric to go in ''An inch a day'.

Printing

Things are ticking over slowly. I’ve made a plate from the drawing of the fools in a cage 

 and printed it.

 

 I struggled with the mountboard that I used for the plate. It was stuff I got in a hurry at the beginning of lockdown, not my usual sort and it needed peeling much deeper to get to the rough internal core I need for the darks. This made a step on the plate that was a bit too much for my small press at home to deal with, leaving some white haloing in parts. I may try on the big press at Hot Bed when we can return.

The chair of our book art group is currently making a video for BABE about our group project “An inch a day” and the difficulties of making a group project (which will be about 90 feet long) when we cannot meet up to work together.

This spurred me to trying to make some relevant images for it. As a warm up up I tried monoprint.

Trace monoprints

 Stencils 

 And dark field monoprints. 

 All tacked onto a sample of the book base fabric. All made using an X cut (die cutting Machine). I was amazed how well they worked and this will be a much simpler and quicker process than the collagraph plates I had envisaged making.

(Does anyone know why new blogger keeps randomly altering my typeface?)

Moving into the new year

My puppets are slowly developing into print. I've got the first block drawn out ready to start working into.

While I was doing that I had some ideas for the words for the slotted tab book that I was working on before Christmas. 

The words impose a structure because they have to be revealed in the right order, but I still want the feel of meandering, not straight forward page turning, while reading it. I also want it to look like a section of maze when it is opened out.
 

This is a mock up which uses the slot and tab and the woven paper joinings that I have been exploring recently. Now I need to work on the imagery and refine the text.

Lindisfarne

I finally finished Lindisfarne.

Trying to collage the thin pieces of tissue paper with the text onto the collagraph was nerve wracking but it worked.

 Initially I had intended to cut arches out of all three of the blank panels but decided after doing number one that this would weaken the structure too much. 

Because I liked the texture of the viscosity printing in the blanks I’d already considered ditching the arches altogether, so I  am happy with the compromise.

(you can find a very brief history of the monastery on Lindisfarne as it relates to this book here)