'If you make happiness your goal, then you're not going to get to it… The goal should be an interesting life."

Dorothy Rowe

Thursday 22 July 2010

The sun hat strikes again.

 

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Yesterday we went to Highcliffe with Mr and Mrs Cheddar.

The sun shone, and the sea sparkled.

 

 

 

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Ronaldog was in her element.

 

 

 

 

 

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I had fun too. Shells, stones and seaweed. [I didn’t bring any seaweed home.]

But I did take my sunhat.

 

 

 

 

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As a result, we had a thunderstorm overnight, and in the morning what we laughingly call the terrace looked like this.

And I didn’t even wear the hat – it was too windy! Perhaps I can solve the drought problem single handed – or single hatted.

Of course, it did rain on St Swithun’s Day – and it is the last day of term – and JP wants to do some sun printing - so we are probably due for more rain …

It did cheer up in the afternoon, but I used the weather as an excuse to stay in and potter with pictures [dither with drawings?]. [Wensleydale was up some scaffolding clearing the gutteimager – no wimp, him!]

I revisited no. 30 – except it is number 34 now.  It is such a long time since I last used Inkaid that I had forgotten that it ends up white, not transparent [at least the matte white version does – I think there may be a clue in the name].

So this ended up rather whiter than I had intended – but I think it works. The paper was bondawebbed to black felt, and cut into strips which were overlapped and machined together. Then I machined the result into the book, which was probably the hardest part of the whole shebang. Definitely an improvement on the previous version – more character, and overlapping the felt makes it look more like the corrugated hoarding which inspired it. I feel happier about it too, as I have put more work into it – the previous version felt a bit lazy. I have this belief that you need to use at least three processes with a piece – like Inkaid, deconstruction and stitch.

I also revisited no.32. I'd read somewhere that if you cover an inkjet print with black Quink and then bleach it, the print will resist the bleach but the ink won’t. I thought it would make the image more oilslicky, so I gave it a try – but using a previous version first.

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Guess what. Inkjet prints don’t resist bleach, any more than Quink does. It’s very atmospheric though.

 

 

 

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As is the back. 

 

 

 

 

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Just to confirm, I tried bleach on Mark 2, without Quink. I was a bit too enthusiastic with the bleach, but I like this version, too. So this is no. 35 - I seem to be working in a series. And it just manages to fulfil the three processes criterion, if you don’t count computer manipulation of the image and adding text as the same process.

I learned something else as well – don’t add bleach with a natural sponge …image

Number 36 is something I started a while ago, using a magazine image and Applicraft Transferglaze. [I have a feeling you can’t use this with inkjet images but of course I can’t find the instruction leaflet…]

Not too pleased with this one – I ended up with a stretchy, plasticky, sticky image, which I found difficult to stick down – although that might be because of the background I chose. I tried to add more colour with Graphitints but they didn't like the plastic, even on the back. And only two processes – unless you include the background.

And then I splashed white emulsion paint on a variety of papers which I may eventually get round to monoprinting on.

So, a good day overall, despite the weather!

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