Mmm - maybe not…

 

This is the best of my attempts to transfer some dim pictures of India to hand-dye. I think we can conclude there was too little colour in the images and too much in the cloth – and possibly too little acrylic gel between the two, and too much paper left on the back.

However, there is a fair amount of other crud stuff destined to go over the top – like this lot of stamped papers.

I was quite surprised by how many Indian stamps I've got. And how much pink paper.

 

 

 

I rolled some gold paint on the back of the fabric, with a lace covered roller.

Now that I like.

 

 

 

 

I have finished another pair of more red pages – which I'm also underwhelmed by. The threads on the ‘flowers’ seem too assertive, especially on the back, while those on the glitzy diamonds aren’t assertive enough.

I think we can conclude that the last couple of days have been learning experiences.

More book pages.

 

Front and back this time.

I’m not quite sure what these are about – let’s call them samples – possibly working towards one of the ‘resolved samples’ for the 3D unit of the degree – if a book is 3D? Some of these pages are definitely lumpy…

 

 

Mostly, it’s just playing with scraps and bits and seeing what happens. I am getting interested in what happens on the back, though – the unintended mark making resulting from the intended mark making on the ‘right’ side. Like the backs of the fly stitches to the right, which are really quite interesting.

 

I’ve also been experimenting with a Cas Holmes technique for image transfer. It is especially experimental because I’ve used some hand dye which is quite strongly coloured – while the images [some of my photos from India] aren’t, because the ink cartridge is running out – as usual. And although Holmes tells you to use closely woven fabric – the top piece isn’t.

So there may not be much to show tomorrow!

Back to business.

For the first time for a few days I had the energy last night to do more than simple knitting [can’t think why not <g>]– so I finished this, which I started a while ago. It is one of my collagraphs on a piece of fine polyester fabric, backed with white felt and worked in running stitch in two strands of embroidery floss.

I had been reading an old WOW interview with Olga Norris in which she talks about her use of running stitch – see here for some examples. She uses two different coloured threads in the needle, and works the stitch to introduce controlled distortion to the pieces. So that's what I tried.

There isn’t very much distortion, perhaps because of the felt backing, but I like the way using different thread colours allowed me to introduce more shading to the piece. I'm very pleased with it!

That was last night – today I made a book. In my internet wanderings I came across this tutorial, and knowing I had a piece of scrap leather somewhere, decided to have a go.

Serendipitously, by the time I'd cut the irregular edges off the leather, it was just big enough to take pages made from brown paper packaging. [I’ve got a ton of it!] It fastens with a jeans button and buttonhole cut into the leather.

I love the interlaced binding, but I think the edges look a bit unfinished, so I may go back and work a whip stitch round it with some more of the cream thread.

And then, I embroidered a book page, for a book which is yet to be constructed. The page is Bondawebbed together Colourcatchers [which I’d done earlier], with velvet applied with machine and hand stitching. I'm quite pleased that the back, which will show in the finished book, is almost as neat as the [not very neat]front – but I forgot to take a photo and my camera battery is flat, so that will have to wait!

In between all that I’ve been reading my new book. Although I’ve never been lucky enough to see her work for real, I've admired  Cas Holmes’ work in magazines and on the net. And look, she makes books! So when I heard about her book I ordered it sight unseen, which I don’t often do.

I wasn’t disappointed. She writes about how she constructs the fabric for her pieces – a more interesting take on ‘fabric paper’, not that she calls it that. I’ve just got on to her thoughts on mark making with stitch, which also has some great ideas. Strongly recommended for fans of layers, loose ends and carpet tape stamps- although it’s not, I think, a book for new embroiderers - or for neatniks.

I have also ordered Gwen Hedley’s new book, so I hope that is equally good!

We survived!

And we had fun – and so, I think, did Babybel. apart from an unplanned close encounter with West Berkshire Fire and Rescue.

No, we didn’t set Cheese Minor Mansion on fire – we just happened to arrive on the canal towpath at the time as two fire engines, coming to put out a fire on a narrow boat – and Babybel found it all very noisy and ‘a little bit scary’.

She prefers her activities quiet, preferably involving animals she can pet. Or ‘milk’.

Lily the cow at Manor Farm was the biggest hit.

Thanks to everyone who made recommendations for visits – we didn’t manage to follow them up this time, but they are on the list for the future.

Gran and ‘Grangrad’ are, of course, totally knackered. Looking after an active 2 year old is the best cure I’ve found for insomnia.

You forget what it’s like – not only the physical activity but the constant flow of questions. We’ve moved from ‘What's that?’ to ‘What’s he doing?’ – shortly to be followed, I suspect, by the dreaded ‘Why?’.

Today’s parents do have it easier in one respect than we did, however.

They’ve got CBeebies.

100!!!!!

Not quite what I’d intended it to be – the picture of men, bikes and sunflowers did not transfer as hoped – so I cut out some of my collagraphed leaves and made a pop-up.

Unfortunately I haven’t managed to photograph it very well, but the central leaves are attached to a concertina, like a flag book.

Is it a drawing? Who cares!

 

I have also spent part of the afternoon wrestling with my printer in an attempt to get it to print on the fabrics I prepared earlier in the week. I have ironed them onto freezer paper, but it definitely does not want to print on any of them. It throws up it’s little pizza wheels in horror and sulks – in that ‘I’m never going to print anything again, but neither will I let you cancel the print job’ way that all my printers have had.

So when I get a moment [i.e. Friday at the earliest] I shall try the glue stick and ordinary paper technique and see if that works – I already know that it won’t do the masking tape on the leading edge method – not fooled by that trick at all.

Failing that it’s a new printer – which W has been suggesting for a while. Nice Epson with Durabrite inks I think …

Numbers 92 & 93

 

are these two collagraphs - not perfect, but the instruction was not to make 100 perfect drawings. Or if it was, I missed that bit – too late now!.

 

 

 

 

Number 94 is a cheat er - ‘found art’. Spore prints on the bottom of a box of large mushrooms. I wish I'd added some stitch before I put it in the sketchbook, although I don’t know whether the box would have stood up to it.

 

Number 95 is a tissue and paint sun print, overprinted with found objects. I was sorting through a pile of the stuff I’ve done over the summer and decided to include some of them – in truth, I’m getting a bit bored with all this ‘drawing’.

Number 96 is a tissue and paint sun print without additional printing. A bit of doodling on it might be called for if I can work up some enthusiasm.

 

 

 

Number 97  is a screen print, which I think you've seen before, with washes of Koh-i-Noor and ‘The Works’ cheap opalescent paint, .

 

 

 

 

 

Number 98 is another screen print,  on turquoise card, over-stencilled with spray paint.

 

 

 

 

 

Just for a change, number 99 is a new piece. Before I printed with the collagraph plates, I tried using them as rubbing plates with a black oil pastel – and this one looked like a seascape with dinghies to me.

I cut it up because I was inspired by Linda McLaughlin’s beautiful quilt here - I hope she will forgive me pinching her idea. Then I gave it a wash of different shades of watercolour.

And number 100? It doesn’t exist yet – or only in embryonic form. I decided I had to include an image inspired by my essential summer viewing – and the image which epitomises the TDF for me is one like this. So while I was pinching ideas, I pinched an image from a well known cycling magazine, and will work some chemical magic on it to transfer to one of the sketchbooks.

And then I made a book. Very quickly.

Here it is with the means of production.

I’ve never stapled a book together before – see what sins buying a long arm stapler can lead you into?

Stapling a book together isn’t quite as easy as you might think – it’s a bit difficult to get the staples in precisely the right place. But not that difficult.

And it is much, much quicker than sewing.

The whole book is made from recycled packaging – apart from the ribbon – oh, and the staples. [Not even I will attempt to recycle staples.] I was going to use a bit of recycled Christmas ribbon – until I ironed it.

The pages are made from the brown paper Amazon and others use as filling in their parcels, and which I can’t bear to throw away. The cover is corrugated card, which I had painted white at some time, for no very good reason, [left-over emulsion paint of course] and the concertina spine is a from a box base.

I think I may use it as a sketch book – it’s got 112 pages so it could be for drawings 101 – 200.

Or maybe not.

Little will happen next week, as we are on four days of Babybel duty. Apart, that is, from lots of dog walking, play park visiting, and the occasional outing to places with animals or birds of some variety, preferably ones who are amenable to being fed. [Any recommendations for suitable places in West Berkshire or Hampshire will be gratefully received.]

Followed by sitting down to recover, preferably with a glass of something cool and white, after we have returned her to her doting parents …

Testing, testing…

 

First – the collagraph plates,

 

 

 

 

 

extensively tested,

 

 

quite successfully, I think, if you like imperfect prints. Fortunately I do.

For the ones on fabric, I used [and recommend] Heidi Miracle-McMahill’s method from Quilting Arts No 41- although any imperfections are entirely my own. I used foam brushes to paint different sections in different colours, but found it quite difficult to get the amount of paint right – not so little it dried out before I could make the print, not so much it made blobs – and not so much water I lost the texture.  But several of then have possibilities for stitch, and inclusion in the ranks of the 100 drawings.

So I’m still in love with collagraphs.

I also decided it was time to test the various chemicals I’ve bought to facilitate printing on fabric. Most some of which I’ve had for years  a very long time, without using. 

Here the fabrics are drying – I haven’t actually got round to printing on any of them yet – but I did remember to mark them so I know which is which.

Of course, Quality Control had to join in. Here she is testing my box of old newspapers for me.

They seemed to need a lot of testing, she was hard at work all day…