Books, letters and digging

Art work has slowed down somewhat these past couple of weeks. I said that I was going to the allotment to draw but so far I’ve been clearing edges, helping to sort out accumulated rubbish from inside and behind the shed (two trips to the tip, a third one pending) and liberating rhubarb, raspberry canes and fruit bushes. It is starting to look a lot less like an overgrown field so I’m hoping for some of the predicted sun next week and some sketching. In the meantime here is self portrait with shed (after clearing)

I have managed to cut and fold the pages for Artists Books #20 (?)

And I’ve made a bit of a start on the next project that is happening in conjunction with the Lancashire Archives. The subject this time is The Preston Lockout.  (A brief history can be found here)

I’m not sure what I want to make yet but I’ve been playing with wooden type.

  I’m wondering what will happen if I print it on cotton.

Etching and “?”

I’m enjoying this hopping around.

On the etching front I spent yesterday biting the plate but didn’t have time to print it. The gelli plate printed textures seem to have bitten but until it’s inked next week I won’t know if I left them in the copper sulphate long enough to get a good print from them.

 Moving on to the books. 

Both sides of the ‘pages’ in the book structure will be visible so I’ve been experimenting with colouring both sides of the paper.  I can get two books out of an A2 sheet. 

I’ve made plain using a palette knife

 And patterned using the gelli plate

 I thought the plain was too plain and decided to try out the structure with the patterned sheet. When I cut the page shapes out I came to the conclusion that I didn’t like the stripes with the circles. One of them had to go. 

The circle print was nice but it took several layers of cutting up stencils and peeling the stencils off the block because they kept sticking. OK for a one off but not for the 5 sheets I’ll need for an edition. So I overprinted the circles with a plainer texture to give a contrast of plain and patterned on the two sides of the paper.

And cut and folded. Trying to decide whether to have plain or patterned in the inside of the forms.

At this stage I was thinking that I’d stitch the two pieces together but then I wondered what would happen if I cut and slotted it together like I did with the mock ups. So I tried with some of the plain paper.

 I like the way the colour moves from the inside to the outside of the form (though I’m not sure about the holes). I need paper with some contrast between the two sides to accentuate this. I’ve cut strips from textured wallpaper to get some coherence between the pages of the edition and and I’ve started printing using different palettes.

More playing

I often worry that I’m a bit of a dabbler, starting something, moving on, a new technique here, a different project there, not much staying power. 

But after many years of trying to focus, be organised and follow one thing at a time I’ve decided that it’s time to stop trying to force it.  Dabbling is the way I work best, starting several things at once and dipping in and out, exploring and playing, until at last something is finished.  So from now on I’m going to go with the flow and enjoy the process.

At the moment I’m flitting from the medieval book to a book swop book, from a collagraph to an etching and, to add to the mix, props, scenery and other assorted stuff for Peter Pan which our group will put on in June. 

So in the spirit of dabbling this week I’ve played with etching and looked at more book structures.

I wanted the puppets to have different patterned dresses. I decided that I’d like to take these from real fabrics or lace. I want three different patterns on this plate but I find it difficult to get a consistent result with soft ground etching. Pondering different solutions I wondered if it was possible to print the texture onto the aluminium plate using a gelli plate. It is.

These are a bit grey but have real possibilities 

I think I’ve come up with a possible solution for “?”. It will be a book, in that it will have a binding and open like a book, but once open it won’t have a narrative and will be more of a structural object.  I spent a pleasant afternoon cutting and sticking paper (a good use for old play scripts) exploring different structures.

Playing

I seem to be flitting about at the moment, lots of ideas going on but not a lot of finishing.

Getting the stuff together to work on the covers for the medieval book I realised that I haven’t done the images for the two end sections. These will be based on sundials. I also found a set of pages for the map section that I’d painted but hadn’t put the text on. They are now printed but the covers and end sections haven’t been started yet.

I’m also working on ideas for new book for a CollaborativeArtist Books swop. The title of this edition is “(?)” meaning anything. I’m struggling with this. I find it easier to work with a brief.

I started with ideas for a book that become a structure/sculpture rather than a linear book but it ended up as a carousel rather than a concertina format (size and structure are the only specifications for this project). I also prefer the scale of the smaller initial mock-up. I will finish this idea (eventually) but it won’t be for “(?)”.

I also need to make some new 2D work for the Art Society Spring exhibition; the venue is only suitable for framed images. So Rosamund is being refined ready to start....

.. .and I’ve a new rough for etching on Friday.

Medieval Books

I’ve started working on a complicated structure based on medieval book and manuscripts.

My thoughts are bit scattered the moment, but that’s nothing new at the beginning of the process.

I’ve been thinking about different types of medieval books and their purpose. Whilst looking at different types of manuscripts I was especially interested in almanacs, other folded, easily portable books and those which contained volvelles and diagrams,. These everyday objects with their signs of wear and repair have now become a precious thing to be handled with gloves and kept in controlled storage.

I was intrigued by the way that they provided information that physicians and others used on a daily basis to do their work. Nowadays we can use smart phones in much the same way

I am thinking about trying to create a book that can house multiple sources of information in separate sections which do not have a straightforward sequential structure,  echoing how we use the internet to flick quickly from one subject to another .

But I also want to make reference to our twenty first century response to the medieval book. Most of us don’t understand the languages or have difficulty in deciphering the texts .When we read about them we patronisingly consider many of the concepts in the books as primitive or strange (eg.the zodiac related to parts of the body, the body needing the four humours to be in balance for well being , forecasting the future based on the weather) .

However these books have a visual impact and we can respond to them on a surface level even if we don’t have knowledge to interact and gain from the contents meaningfully as the scribe/maker/ commissioner intended.

So I want my book to be a container of fragmented knowledge collated but not ordered in a meaningful academic/usable way.  I also want it to make clear reference to the source of inspiration, the medieval book, in a way that isn’t a direct copy. And I want it to have a tactile and visual appeal which reflects our modern understanding of the original

After experimenting putting together several sets of pages in various permutations I have a structure that I think will work. Now all I need to do is fill it. Simple !

Holiday books

We’ve been away for the past couple of weeks visiting friends in France.

It was a lovely quiet visit with large parts of it spent in Mary’s studio.

I took the gelli plate with me and made books.

A double sided palm leaf book using lace and letter stencils...

 and one using lace and leaves from the bushes around the studio

An interlocking double sided accordian book

A piano hinge book using my cleaning scrap paper for the pages and adding some of the leaves I used for stencilling and texturing prints

Two woven books using leaves as stencils and for texture

Circle Book Finished

I had an idea for the circles book, necessary opposites, yin and yang. I printed paper using bubble wrap, sequin waste and a lot of stencils cut with my new toy.  My black/white colour scheme needed greys as intermediate printed layers.

When I cut and assembled the book I realised that the pages were too busy to take text well so I decided to let the book dictate the direction and this version is just patterned.

I used a red thread for the closure as a hint of colour and a reference to the Chinese influence on my original idea.