Gum Arabic Again

I can’t seem to leave the photo album alone. I think I’ve done all I want to for the time being on transparent  images...

 but I still keep playing with layering in photoshop. 

I’ve decided to explore gum arabic transfer printing with these images (I’ve done bits in the past but they are a bit hit and miss).

I wanted to persevere with my old mono laser printer to generate the paper image. In the past I’ve not had much success and have had to keep going round to the corner shop to use their very old photocopier –it can end up being very expensive and in winter you can get very wet!

Eventually I’ve managed some reasonable monochromatic prints. The next step is to start exploring layering different colours and transparencies of ink

Finally finished

I now have an edition of 4 and an Artists Proof copy of "Was she the one who...?".

It needs photographing properly but today it is grey and dull. I’ll wait for sunshine.

I’ve also been working on the next set of letters for ALAW. These have to give a sense of  ‘place’.

When I was small I had several books that had fancy capital letters. They fascinated me. I want to draw on this and create a book that will have the feel of a fairy tale both in the text (creating a fantasy place) and in the presentation. Something unashamedly pretty I think, with gold (or at least gold paint).

So far I've only got experiments and an outline text. I'll need to do 2 letters a week to catch up

I’m not a writer but I’ve found that the constraint of having to use the letters of the alphabet in order and having to produce text that fits into the space has helped.

Stitching

I’ve printed, laminated, cut and drilled enough images to create an edition of 5 for Personal Histories. Now I need to bind them.

I thought I’d worked it out earlier using coptic stitch across the spine but when I made the first one I decided I didn’t like seeing the linking thread that joined the two rows of stitching. I also didn’t like the way that you could see the loose ends of the threads when they were cut off

I have been experimenting and have come up with this solution. 

I’ve also been experimenting with different threads (different colours and transparent) and have decided to use waxed linen. I like the way the star pattern appears up the spine and I can use the thread to link to the wrap around cover I’m thinking of using.

Unfortunately I’ve not got enough of the thread to do the five books so this will have to go on hold briefly while I source more

Progress of sorts

I decided to make a concerted effort with Personal Histories this week.

I finished the digital illustrations, decided on a cover, printed laminated and stitched a prototype. I liked the idea of a hole in the cover to add another layer of transparency but it doesn’t work in practice. I think I’ll probably put a title in the central panel instead (when I decide what to call it)

Most of the images work but one of the gentlemen needs a stronger surround, at the moment bits of his image are disappearing when printed 

 I used a range of colours in this version to try to decide which to use in the final book. I’ve not made any decisions yet other than not the bright blue.

 I also need to consider some kind of box or wrapping to present it in. I’m not sure whether to use translucent or semi transparent materials or whether to box/wrap it as though it had been long forgotten in some cupboard.

Exploring Personal Histories

As part of the experiments I’ve been doing for ‘Personal Histories’ I’ve been scanning family photographs.

My husband has an old family album. It’s quite small with leather covered wood boards (very wormy) and it’s not in the best of conditions. It’s probably more accurate to say that he has bits of a family album. Restoring it is beyond my skills but I decided to scan the pages and boards and create a digitally printed facsimile.

Of course I got carried away; having scanned the pages it was easy to create extra blank frames to add more photos that weren't originally in the album.

I printed it on cheap printer paper in black and white just to see what I could do with it. The images are concertinaed and the end pages glued to the cover. This was just a quick way to explore the idea rather than sewing but I quite like the way it opens out. 

 If I am more restrained with the number of pages I think this structure could be adapted to work with a chain of dancing dolls.

Pondering Personal Histories

I’ve been thinking about how to start my Personal Histories book.

When I went on a solar print workshop a few months ago I used old family photos as the basis for some designs and I want to continue using these as source material for this project

We all have a stash somewhere of old photos, some of relatives and friends we recognise and others who we don’t have a clue about who they are. As time passes they just become faces. We may know their name, if it is written on the back, but we don’t know anything about them.

I also think most families will have a scattering of heroes and villains in amongst the majority of the ordinary people who make up their ancestry. Their stories may have been completely fictionalized in the telling and retelling, or just forgotten over the years.

I want to combine these two ideas, the hidden stories and the almost anonymous figures.

I’ve decided base my images on the children’s rhyme “Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief”. We’ve probably all got some of these amongst our antecedents.

I’m not sure yet what structure to use. You’d think I’d learn from experience and sort this out first. It would avoid a lot of problems further down the road! However, at the moment I’m contemplating a series of unbound images jumbled together in a box/container the same way that the original source photos are kept, although I also quite like the idea of a frieze of dancing dolls.

This is Agnes Hall. I decided to divorce her from Thomas.

Folding prints

College holidays have finished. This means that play time has been restricted over the past couple of weeks. Having managed to ignore it up to now prep for next term has had to take priority.

However I have explored monoprinting plants with a rainbow roll and folding to make a simple structure

I’ve also committed to making something for Robyn’s Personal Histories Exhibition. I think I’ll play more with the ancestors photos as a starting point.