Revisiting Rapunzell

I started this blog in 2011 to record contributing to Book Art Object. One of the books I produced for this was in response to the title ‘Rapunzell’.

Initially I had wanted to make the image for this book as a collagraph but my printmaking skills weren’t up to it so reluctantly I rethought and developed it digitally. 

Last month I decided to revisit and revise the original drawings to try collagraph again.  I’m really pleased with how it turned out this time.

Rapunzel

Its taken a while but we are finally connected with the outside world again.
Now Rapunzel has arrived safely at her destination(s) I can post images of the final outcome.

I wanted to look at the traditional story of Rapunzel and I was primarily interested by the relationship between the witch and the girl

The witch is not a stereotypical fairy story witch. She has a name, Mother Gothel (apparently a generic term in Germany usually used to designate a godmother). She doesn’t appear to use magic – spells, incantations etc – in the course of the narrative. She obviously has power, or the peasant family wouldn’t have handed over their daughter. She has enough influence to get away with this and keeping her for twelve years before keeping her locked up for a few more. And she probably has wealth, building a tall tower/castle in the middle of a wood, even in medieval Europe, wouldn’t come cheap. 

She presumably cared for the girl. It’s not like the stories of Baba Yaga or Hansel and Gretel where the object was to eat the child. Rapunzel was looked after until she reached puberty then was locked into the tower, presumably to preserve her innocence. The witch, to her way of thinking, was protecting her (medieval Europe not being a particularly safe place for young girls). It makes me wonder about the witches own history.

None of these ideas have been backed up by research. They are purely based on what I know, half remember and have assumed.   But given that I am responding to an unread piece of buried writing which in turn alludes to a handed down fairy tale I don’t feel that the facts need get in the way of a good story.

The tall format (and embossing on the cover) references the tower. I wanted to use the concertina format to play with the idea of stories having different interpretations and readers bringing their own viewpoint to the narrative. How you fold the book influences alters the visible image and these can be read in different ways.

The witch and Rapunzel

Together inside the tower encircled by the dangers outside

A hint of the intruder/outside influences which will drive a wedge between them

The outcome of the relationship between Rapunzel and the prince

The cyclical nature of the story. In the original Rapunzel became pregnant. Does Rapunzel become the older woman trying to protect her child? (I decided in the end to use soft covers on the book so that they don’t intrude when it is viewed as a circle) 

Finally Finished!

Well nearly.

I managed to solve the problem of how to assemble "Where the dead live" a couple of weeks ago.

Earlier this week spurred on by Sara's post on BAO, I finished two copies of "Dead" to parcel up and send to her, along with two copies of Rapunzel, hoping to meet the January deadline.

I have now finished assembling the rest of the edition. I can't quite believe it. These two books have occupied me on and off for a year now. I’ve learned a lot through the process and am looking forward to the next challenge.

 I am going to wait until the New Year to send out the rest of the books. I think they’ve more chance of not getting lost and arriving undamaged if I send them after the Christmas post (so more detailed images will have to wait)

One down, just one more to go

At last  'Rapunzel' is finally finished. Books editioned and ready for wrapping.

Nearly there?

Did I say 'Rapunzel' was ready to print?

3 more tweaks, two more dummies and the artwork is finally finished! Happily the printer likes this version and has given me sets of prints that match, whose colours I like and without any banding.

Not only that but I've almost finished another page for 'Where the dead live'. They only need the layers putting together, although burning the edges has made the whole house smell like I lit a bonfire in my workroom.

Now all I need to do is work out how to put this book together!

Earlier this month I received a great concertina book from Estelle in South Africa. I'll post pictures when she reveals all on Book Art Object

Time to catch up

Its half way through half term and I've had chance to put some sustained effort into my books.

I've almost finished two more sets of pages for 'Where the Dead Live'.  Joe's Cup is done, and I've only got one and a half of Alice Harrison to do.

This means just two more pages to go. For one of them I want to use the idea of seed pods and the blue commemorative plaques that we put up on buildings in the UK for interesting or famous people associated with them, but I haven't decided yet how to do this yet. Nor have I worked out how I'm going to put the pages together in the final structure.

Rapunzel is changing again. I originally thought it would be hand printed in black and white, responding to Beardsley and Arts and Crafts woodcuts/early book illustrations. When I decided to print digitally I tried to include the textures and colours of old paper and faded inks. These worked well on screen but either wouldn't output as I wanted (inkjet printer) or flaked when I folded the the print (laser printer). This week I started playing with the colours and altering the way the layers blend. It has resulted in a much more colourful image than I intended, and its more complicated than the original drawing, but I like it. However I still have to get the printer to give me at least ten uniform versions!)

One step forwards....

Although work on it has slowed down since term started 'Where the Dead Live' is making progress.
I've made another batch of pringles (if in doubt start squishing paper!) and printed another set of etched pages.

I also finished the scanning for Rapunzel and put the textures into the image last week so I thought I'd print out the final artwork and start to put it all together. I'd decided to laser print the whole edition as the test pieces and mock up I did before the holidays (using found textures) worked well even though they weren't the right colours.

All the decisions have been made and this was meant to be the easy part. The printouts looked great. The colours and the textures worked well together. The dark  had a rich leather-like feel to it. But.....

when I started to fold the prints the ink started to flake off leaving white paper showing through

It doesn't look worn and in keeping with the subject it just looks tatty.

I thought I'd print it on the inkjet instead. On printing paper it bleeds and the colours are decidedly grubby.

 So I ordered coated inkjet paper. It prints cleanly and the image is sharp but now the printer is resisting all attempts to calibrate it to the monitor and has decided it can improve on my colour scheme.

At the moment it favours custard yellow and something that can only be described as poo brown.

Decisions made

Rapunzel is almost there!

Having experimented with incorporating photographed paint textures and colours with the illustration design in Photoshop I have decided that the best way forwards is to use a digital solution.

I have printed out the protoype, and some extra textures, and have even worked out the binding and cover. I now have a mock up that I think works. Production will need to wait until I go back to work as I need access to an A3 scanner to get a good copy of the textures for the final version but it is a relief to know how this is going to look.

Time now to start to work on 'Where the dead live'. I have some ideas but I'm not sure yet how to tie them together

Printing Rapunzel

I've been experimenting with gum arabic transfer to see if it is a viable way to produce the images for the book.

I prefer the brown prints to the black. Where the ink has laid a wash over the white space the black looks grubby whereas the brown seems to work as a tint.

But even though these are printed from a smaller version of the final image they are still A3 sized (in width). This is the largest my press will go. To construct the book as I want to I'd need to make the image out of two A3 prints and join them. I think it's beyond my skills using this method to reliably print the two halves at the same density of ink so that the join is not immediately obvious.

So I've been experimenting using photoshop and painted textures to try and get a simillar feel to the brown gum arabic print. 

The colour isn't quite right yet but with a bit of tweaking I think this may be the practical option.

Summer Holidays!

It's the first day of the summer holidays. Six whole weeks to draw, print, play, go see friends and exhibitions. I can't wait to get started (though I think to finish everything I've got planned I'm going to need to be off work until Christmas).

 I've finished the illustration for Rapunzel (I may have said that before!). It needed redrawing, rescanning and re-fiddling with in photoshop. When I'd done this and printed/constructed a rough I realised that how you 'read' the image depended on how you folded it. This meant I needed to reconsider the binding. Which meant I needed to add yet another panel. However, the drawing, with extra panel, is finally complete.

Now to work out if it is feasable to hand print an entire edition using xerox litho. Because of the size of the image it would need printing in two halves and then joining. I'm not sure if my printing skills are good enough to make that join invisible. More experiments needed I think.

Catch up

I can’t believe it has been so long since I posted anything.  This is going to be longer than normal just to catch up.

I put my name down to do two titiles for the 4th edition of BOA. I had originally intended to try and do each edition in 6 months. I think I overestimated what I could achieve whilst working full time hours, but next academic year it looks like I’ll be going back to part time so I’m giving myself an extension on the first book (my ‘deadline’ is now the end of August) and aiming to finish the second one by the end of  December! 

Rapunzel

This is ticking over but I decided that the image wasn’t balanced and needed expanding. The separation between the prince and the girl wasn’t large enough but putting in an extra piece here means adding one elsewhere. (I want to have a part of the image visible when the cover is opened so this means an odd number of panels to concertina into the binding) 

I also decided that I wanted a visible difference between the opulence of the inside of the tower and the woods/brambles outside. Making the extra panel here meant that the window could be bigger (I wasn’t happy with the size of small arched shape I had before) and I could experiment with ‘wallpaper’ patterns. I wanted a Victorian medieval feel, influenced by the design of Burgess at Castel Coch but it also need to be simple enough not to overpower the rest of the image. I decided on a repeat based on the bramble structure from the forest, taming the wildness of the outside to emphasise the safety of the inside.

I’ve also decided to go back to my original idea of using photocopy litho printing for the image. Having tried lino, considered wood, having looked at the earlier experiments I’ve decided that I prefer the older worn look of the dark areas in this method to the solid blocks of the relief print. Also the fine lines are just too much for my cutting skills; on the trial piece they look too crude. Having added the two panels the image has now grown to the point that it will have to be made out of two blocks because of the limitations of my press size. I think I’ve convinced myself that making a join from a scanned master may be easier in the long run than carving it.

These changes have been stitched together on Photoshop and I am happier with the overall composition but whilst Photoshop and scanners are ok for working out the composition the joins between the old and the new are too apparent to use it as the master for the photocopies. This means back to the drawing board (or light box) and drawing up a new master with ink not digits– more scope to change my mind again! 

‘Paying it forward’

In response to the ink drying issues I’m trying new techniques but it is progressing slowly and I’m hoping to get this finished in the next two weeks. I’ll post images of it then.

Holidays

Last week was half term and we’ve just returned from a week in the Orkneys (a small group of islands ninety minutes sail away from the top of Scotland).

We stayed in a place called Harbour View, and it really was. Any closer and we’d have been in the water.

See the view from the window!

There’s a fantastic small gallery less than a minutes’ walk away, The Pier Arts Centre, that just happened to have a print exhibition on.  I spent several happy hours over the course of the week with my nose against the glass trying to work out ‘how did they do that?’

The weather wasn’t good enough to sit out and draw, although in the main it was better than most of the rest of the country but I’ve got loads of photos and a whole stack of ideas to be going on with.

Moving forward

I have made a set of test prints from the lino trying out some different weight papers and using both the press and hand printing. On the heavier weight paper, which I think I’ll need to use to give the book substance, the press works best.

Apart from the halos left by bits of lino stuck in the ink, the offset print from the first block is interesting, and has future possibilities but not for an edition!

The composition isn’t finished yet. I need a compromise between the plain wall between the women and the fussy wallpaper. I also need to make the back of the prince’s head visible.

There are also some things I need to resolve with the carving. I think the trees should use some of the carving marks for texture so these need enhancing in future. The faces will need to be clear of marks unless I can use some on the witch to suggest wrinkles. I also need to work out how to cut some of the smaller more delicate details.

I went to a Japanese woodcut workshop last weekend at the Hot Bed Press. Very interesting. I’m not posting images – I learned a lot for future reference but nothing I’d want to show.  I could carve finer detail though using wood.....

Did I say I wasn’t going to do Rapunzel as a wood cut? I’m sure I’ve got some small bits of plywood somewhere.

A Productive Easter Holiday

Its time to go back to work but this has been a productive Easter holiday.

I’ve rescued a chair (It was a 21^st birthday present to my mum which makes it nearly 60 years old and it looked very much the worse for wear) and upholstered my rag box (which was inherited from my mother in law) to match.

I’ve started to learn to weave (sounds very grand but I’m only using a simple frame loom) and had another go at trying to learn to knit.  No pictures of either of these. I’ve not produced anything worth sharing. Tapestry weaving  is something I’ll continue with. I’m really enjoying playing with colour and texture without having to ‘make something’. But knitting!  It’s one of those basic skills that I feel I ought to be able to master and every now and then I have another go. I think its back to the bottom of the cupboard for now for the needles.

 On the book front Rapunzel has moved again (I wouldn’t say it’s made progress, more gone sideways, but I’ve been busy with it). I decided to push the long thin concertina format for the time being which meant looking at the composition again. Not only did it have to fit the format but it also had to make sense as separate panels as well as one large image.

The collagraph plate still didn’t work for this so I started to play with extending the composition. In the meantime it has changed from simple silhouettes to a more detailed image. It started to make me think of a cross between woodcut chapbooks and Victorian illustration, especially Morris and Beardsley. 

The Victorian influence fitted in well with the inspiration from Castell Coch and I enjoyed bringing in references to that type of painted imitation wall tile decoration in the space between the two women. The motif is based on hawthorn – a plant that is said to have protective qualities and comes in a variety with seven petals. Seven being a magic number I thought this was apt for the witch’s interior decoration. 

The strong white dark contrast should also make it easy for Xerox lithography, or so I thought. 

Problem number one – Staples have changed their photocopier. The copies from this one aren’t as good to print from as the old one.  Problem solved by using the ancient (if expensive) machine at the corner shop.

Problem number two – the large areas of black just aren’t printing well and though I like the worn look for other purposes they make it difficult to read this image. I think It may also be difficult to produce a uniform edition with such large photocopies. 

Problem number three – although the copies are large for this process (and my press) they are only A3. This is making the size of the book, when the image is folded into eleven panels, feel a little on the mean side

On the positive side with the Xerox litho, I did print copies of the collagraph plate. I don’t want to use it for Rapunzel but I think there are possibilities here that I want to explore for ‘Where the dead live’

I have decided to try working in relief print for Rapunzel, lino rather than wood, which means I can scale up the block. I'll have to loose the hawthorne motif - far too complcated for my cutting skills, but on reflection when I've seen it printed it looks a bit too busy for the rest of the image anyway. So far I’ve only tried a test cutting piece and still have to print it.

Printing may have to wait a while. Next weekend I’m off to the Hot Bed Press in Salford to a  Japanese Woodcut Course - a much appreciated Christmas present from my kids.

Rethinking structure

I’ve had some time to reflect on what to do with Rapunzel.

 

 I like the long thin image that I’ve got in the collagraph experiments but this doesn’t fit the book structure I’d thought about using. To make it fit the structure means shortening it by nearly half but this means the illustration doesn’t work as well.

I’m also beginning to think that the original structure is a bit too much like a folding box and not enough like a book.

Extending the end pages gives longer compositional possibilities and the concertina added to the tower makes it feel more like a book and less like a model.

But further experiments with the tower are showing problems with the opening of the book and the flow of the folds, it doesn’t feel natural.

Although I’m not entirely happy about losing the tower shape, I may, after all this messing about, just go with a straightforward accordion and have the long thin shapes echoing the tower.

An accordion means that I will be able to use a heavier weight paper for printing than I thought I’d be able too. The box fold was not happy bending two ways even with mock up paper and I’d been ignoring the fact it might get worse with a thicker one.

There are still lots possibilities with this construction. A long thin narrative piece, perhaps with images on two sides. Or stitching the folds to make tall thin ‘pages’. And that’s without playing with cutting and reverse folding........

I do like the idea of having the cover as a three panelled piece, this wraps the story within the tower like the witch tried to do with Rapunzel.