Just a couple of steps behind…

so no change there.

While we were on holiday I came across this, and as I’m trying to improve my minimal photography and Photoshop skills, I thought it would be something to add to the roster of things I’ve started but not finished try.

I think the idea was that we started on June 1st – and I really meant to – but we were on holiday and other things took precedence – like the aforementioned eating and drinking too much.

So I started today, but I have taken several photos in an attempt to catch up. I haven’t photoshopped all of them, photographing being quicker than photoshopping, at least the way I do them, but here are the first two.

The first challenge was a self portrait, but shy, retiring soul that I am, I ducked out of the problem of trying to work out how to take a self portrait which actually showed what I look like, and went for a reflection instead.

I’ve been playing around with ideas from ‘Photoshop Fine Art Effects Cookbook’, which, as it’s written for Photoshop rather than Elements, has been even more of a learning experience. ‘Fine Art’ in this context includes historic photographs as well as paintings and prints.

This is my attempt at a fake wet plate collodion print from the 1850s to the 1890s. It was taken in the conservatory looking into the dining room so there are quite a lot of reflections of things other than me.

The second challenge is ‘What I wore today’. Now this runs into the same problems as a self portrait – how do I photograph what I’m wearing? I could take it off – but it’s not bed time yet.

So what is easily visible? Well, the things I keep having to crop out of any photos I take of things on the floor.  Yes, my feet.

My skin isn’t actually blue, you understand, and neither is anything else – this my attempt at a cyanotype, c1840s, with a black line added by Livewriter without my consent.

Earlier on in the day I had collected my sewing machine from the repairers – so thanks for your suggestions, Sandy, which I will try if the Teflon foot doesn't work.

We also went out to Walford Mill to see the exhibition ‘Under and Over’, which is an interesting combination of very wearable clothes and accessories, and not-really-meant-to-be-worn art works inspired by clothes. I particular liked Carole Waller’s wonderful painted clothing, Elisabeth Hamlyn’s knitwear [oh, to have the figure/courage to wear it], and Elizabeth Forrest's combinations of recycled items of clothing and poems in calligraphy.

Funny how satisfying a busy day can be…

Tomorrow is the Research Project hand-in day. I keep finding new bits to add, so my initial plan not to include any print-outs has gone by the wayside – though I have read them all.

Too darn hot!

For me, anyway. Wensleydale told me that it is only 21C on the outdoor thermometer – that’s the one in the shade, on the north side of the house.

I think it is a tad hotter in our south-facing garden.

So, over the last two days, instead of sitting embroidering in the garden as I’d planned, I've been doing paper-work in the house. Yesterday was RP day – researching and collating images, printing them out, writing notes, putting them in the portfolio. Worthy, educational – boring.

Life got a little more interesting when we went back to the Watermill last night for the second time, this time to see ‘Comedy of Errors’. As usual, with Propeller, it was very very good. If they played Richard III as a comedy, they played Errors as a pantomime – and the music was brilliant.

I don’t think Mrs Cheddar will ever forget it. I won’t go into details, but there are drawbacks to sitting on the front row at Propeller productions. Tall, male, acting drawbacks. Twice.

Today I turned to more interesting paperwork.

These were inspired by a wallet, believe it or not. The paper is some hand made [not by me] from my stash, alternating front and back.

 

 

 

 

This is a little more elaborate. I haven’t made a lot of books by binding over tapes – and none by binding over roving – but it seemed like a good idea at the time. My first idea was not to make a cover, and leave the ends loose, [bottom right]but it didn’t look right, and the binding was sloppy. I decided to contain it in an adaptation of a paper cover from Sue Doggett’s ‘Hand Made Books’. [I am gulping after following that link. Needless to say, I did not pay that price for it…]

In the middle of all that, I made these. Hot uncrossed buns. Well, the bread maker did some of the work.

Despite making our own bread, we usually buy hot cross buns, but we forgot this time. So inspired by Babybel and her mummy’s excellent example, I decided to have a go. Of course, I didn't have all the right ingredients, and I couldn’t be bothered to make the crosses – but they taste almost as good as Babybel and her mum’s efforts – perhaps they’ll give me a few pointers next year?

Where did last week go?

It seems like only yesterday I was wittering on about French flics – and it’s time to brace myself for ‘Spiral’ again.

It has been a busy week, what with long distance wanders, vet’s appointments [nothing serious, just annual jabs], and last night, a trip with Mr and Mrs Cheddar to see Propeller's ‘Richard III’.

It was brilliant as usual –although I hadn’t realised before that the play was a comedy. OK, a black comedy. OK, more of a black and red comedy. Think Immortal Bard  meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre – except it wasn’t just chainsaws.  Not for the squeamish, but highly recommended if you’ve got a taste for Grand Guignol.

Mmm – interesting – I just Googled ‘Grand Guignol’ to make sure I’d spelled it correctly, and discovered from Wikipedia that it is ‘a genre popular from Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre’. We’d wondered whether it might have been played that way in Shakespeare’s time – looks like it could have been.

Despite all these shenanigans, there has been some progress on the RP and PMS.  My research process:

1. Pluck a name at random from my ever-increasing list of names of book artists.
2. Google.
3. Select some images, arrange them on a page and print the page.
4. Make notes on the information I’ve found [thank goodness for Wikipedia]. I have consulted some real books, you’ll be pleased to know.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 till too bored to continue.

This is the result for William Blake. One of my colleagues was told her RP was too neat – not a problem I have.

Joking apart [though probably not for long], I am finding it a much more useful process than I expected. The process of trying to define an artist’s book led to me formulating a series of questions, which I've been using to analyse the books/works I’m looking at – and that has given me lots of ideas. Which I suppose is the point of it all really.

For the PMS, I have taken some photographs of flowers – anyone know what this is, the knowledge I acquired at my mother’s knee has deserted me?

 

 

 

 

And of litter.  I know what this is, it’s a traffic cone in the Itchen Navigation.

 

 

 

 

Of course, when I did have some free time today – I couldn’t think what to do. So true to my resolution to be more organised – I collected all the scrappy little notes I’d made and made a list.

Number 2 on the list [number 1 is always ‘make a list’ – so I’ve always got something to cross off] was to work in the drumleaf book.

Now you may remember me wittering about how I liked this binding because there was no stitch in the middle of the page.

So what did I do?

I added some stitch. Fringes at the top, a completely non-functional stab binding type stitch at the bottom. And in the middle is my serendipitous discovery. As you may have realised, I like to make holes in my pages – but when I tried to cut these holes i realised that because the pages are double, but only stuck together at the spine and fore edge – it is possible to cut one side and not the other.

You can either leave it like that, and get an interesting shadow effect on the other side – or you can slip a piece of contrasting paper in between. [The middle and bottom shots are two different spreads, I cut old A3 paper in half to make the book.]

Number 3 on the list was to sort out all the printouts I had lying around the work room.

And that’s when I got side-tracked.

 

One of the bits of paper lying around was a print out of this. I started with some origami paper, as suggested – and then some bits of old atlas fell out of the same folder – plus a scrap of hand made paper.

I decided to keep it on topic and make little books to go inside – which means I have made 4 matchbox sized books in matchbox sized boxes. For the first time in my life I appear to be making a series.

I wonder how I'll get side-tracked tomorrow?

How to have a productive night.

 

1. Suffer from insomnia.
2. Er – that’s it.

Still it did result in these three – two variations on a stick binding from Nuno magazine, and one traditional stick binding – the one with the dead fish look-alike strapped to it. The covers are either needlepoint canvas, or wallpaper samples from Mrs Cheddar [how well she knows me], with a dash of white emulsion.

The two larger ones have the usual brown paper pages, the small one has pages made from scraps of handmade paper in shades of brown – apart from that white cotton wool-looking stuff, which is left over silk paper.

I think these might be good for litter photos, especially in shades of sepia, like this one.  

 

 

 

 

And that has been it for today, apart from an hour or so sitting out in the sunshine wrestling with definitions for the RP. Interestingly, the books I have consulted seem to try to avoid defining ‘artists; books’ – very wisely, since people like me come along and tear their definitions to pieces.

It was useful, though, because it made me think about what I like best about the genre – the intimacy of a work of art you can hold in your hand and interact with. That made me realise that the books I make need to be small scale, and to feel right as well as look right.

That’s all I’m likely to do today, since Saturday night is no longer Danish detective night, but French flic night – much more violent than The Killing, but equally gripping – and with a higher crumpet ratio than The Killing too.

What's been happening?

Not a lot – apart from the boring routine stuff like cooking and washing, and the more interesting but still routine stuff like Babybel minding – she does like her routine.

Having been all fired up to get going on the RP and the litter photos – I haven’t done much of either. Finally, today, I made myself sit down and make notes on some of the Googled information on artists’ books I found – particularly good sites here and here. So I have about 4 pages of notes and a mile of artists’ names to follow up.

Instead of playing around with the litter photos, I’m reworking my way through Sharon Boggon’s on-line GIMP course – by way of working up to Photoshop Elements, you understand. So in exploring layers  and the shear and scale commands, and adding the photocopy filter, I turned this bit of Pollocking

 

 

into this. Perhaps not the greatest bit of photomanip in the world, but I like it.

 

 

 

 

The only place anything vaguely related to my vague idea about litter and books has been happening is in the PMS.

A one sheet book made from a stuffed plastic pocket.  OK, it’s not litter – but the contents are made from junk mail, so it’s related, right?

Of course after I’d punched all those asterisky flowers out of the junk mail I had left-overs – and one thing led to another…

 

 

 

 

 

Woven left-overs.

 

While I was in a bookmaking mood, I experimented a bit more. I was inspired by a hand stitch idea on someone’s blog - if it was yours, I apologise for nicking your idea and not crediting you, it’s the CRS again, let me know who you are and I'll be glad to tell everyone.

I tried machine stitch on tracing paper. The result is best described as a qualified failure. Straight stitch and a long, wide zigzag worked OK – anything else jammed and tore the paper, even with a Teflon foot. But I love the way it looks – with the one sheet book format, you get lovely shadows through from other pages. More experimentation needed, perhaps with better quality tracing paper, or trapping things between two layers.

A long way from litter, though. Trap bits of litter? Crisp packets might be interesting, if we ate crisps – I can’t quite bring myself to pick up real litter…

And finally – the developing story of the ‘orrible collage.

The ripped and over-painted stage. Wensleydale keeps telling me that litter is related to an old craze of mine, graffiti. Perhaps I need to get the spray can out?

I’ve started!

The Research Project, that is. During an insomniac Thursday night I started the essential mindmap, which I tweaked yesterday and copied into the portfolio.

Copied, because:

1. It will allow me to add bits to it when I change my mind, and
2. I am trying to use glue as little as possible. I have a hate/hate relationship with glue.

Why?

• PVA? – too messy
• glue stick? – dries out and peels off
• wallpaper paste? – too wet
• something obscure in a tube from a chain that no longer exists? – buckles the substrate [showing off again]
• Bondaweb? – currently my favourite but the iron can have a funny effect on the print, as I found out with the photos in my Identity book, which are slightly more distressed than I intended.

Yesterday I found a Wikipedia article on ‘Artists’ book’ [sic], which I summarised, as instructed by the tutors, while sitting outside in the sunshine this afternoon. [Note to self – must add details to the burgeoning bibliography.] I also began a list of artists to research, none of whom I have yet looked at, despite spending the early evening Googling about. Why? I rediscovered the UWE website. Fossicking around on there led to a paper on UK and Irish book artists, and following up some of them led to the Oxford Brookes artists’ books website. And their list of links led all over the place – MMU, the V&A, the British Library. I’m beginning to realise just how much stuff there is out there.

One of my colleagues has got a box for her RP and is putting everything she finds in it. I've only got a box file. So far.

I have also started the ‘personally managed sketchbook’ which, we discovered on Wednesday, is what is known in this house as a compost heap – chuck everything in it and see what grows. We are supposed to be including design ideas arising from the RP, [but not  people’s ideas, they go in the portfolio], reports and evaluations of exhibitions we’ve been to, other design ideas, doodles, great thoughts etc. etc. etc. ‘Design ideas’ could be drawings, words or photos. Yay! Photos!

So as I have had a vague idea about doing books about litter – I have been photographing litter.

This was prompted because every time we go for our Thursday dog and Babybel walk, [no ducks on Thursdays] I am struck by the fact right next to something like this

 

 

there is a lot of this. Even Babybel has noticed – and she doesn’t like it, any more than her granny does!

So maybe my book will be about litter – or alternatively I’ll find another idea and you’ll never hear about it again.

Since then I've been carrying my camera when I’m going somewhere I think there may be litter – which, of course, is almost everywhere – but this morning that did allow me to take advantage of this surreal experience.

Not often you see half a house on wheels.It gives a whole new meaning to ‘mobile home’.

I’m much more organized…

now I’ve made myself an organizer.

In theory, anyway.

By consulting my organiser I can tell you that today was marked out for getting ready for college tomorrow, and working on my research project.

Of course, that didn’t allow for slippage - this morning was spent finishing off the book of photos instead.

After lunch I got round to looking at the list of requirements for tomorrow – which is ‘student managed sketchbooks’. [No, I don’t know either.] The list includes a sketchbook - we had a discussion last week about whether this meant an old sketchbook or a new one. In the absence of a definitive ruling I made an executive decision and packed a new one – or rather three – a commercial one and two hand made ones, of different sizes.

The next thing was ‘images relevant to your research project’. Like pictures of books? It was at this point that I realised that when I think of artists books, I think of books like these – and it is difficult to see how images like those might relate to working in a sketch book – apart from just drawing them, which I don’t think is the idea.

Which made me think. Maybe I ought to to put something on the pages of the books I make? Like this? [I love Dorothy Krause’s stuff.]

I assembled a few images to explore in paint or collage – mostly sort of grey, blurry, amorphous things. Hey, Picasso had his blue and pink periods – I can have a grey, blurry, amorphous period!

Back to the list.  ‘Materials which reflect your practice or are experimental and will complement what you have planned.’ This of course assumes that you have ‘a practice’ and/or have planned something.

After panicking long, hard thought I  decided my practice was probably splashing left over paint at random on bits of paper, ripping them up, sticking them down and printing computer manipulated images on them – a tiny bit like Krause but without her talent – so I assembled lots of interesting bits of paper and must remember to take the laptop. I shan’t print anything in college, though – I think it will cause less aggro if I don’t wreck their printer by putting strange layered things through it – that might be a bit too experimental.

So now I have 6 bags sitting in the hall, containing paper, sketchbooks, books, paints, glue, and drawing stuff – and the all-important organiser. That’s not counting my lunch bag and my handbag. This is one of the problems of not knowing what you are doing – you take everything you think you might possibly need and you still don’t have the right things.

I think I need a mule.

By now it was mid-afternoon and I hadn’t even thought about the RP – well, apart from the thinking that went into getting ready for college. [My brain hurts.]

To be fair to myself, I have been doing a bit of reading in the evenings – this, which is where I first came across Krause’s work, and this – but I’ve been put off making notes by the thought of working direct into an A3 book. Difficult to manage on your lap, along with the book you are making notes from, a spritzer and a cat.

So use a ring binder, I hear you cry. In the old days, I would have grabbed the nearest ring-binder and got started – but that is no longer good enough.

1. Take one tatty old ring binder.
2. Take two experimental screen prints which almost match, sew them together, quilt them and make a cover.
3. Take two experimental bits of calico, gesso, muslin and wallpaper [inspired by Lynda and Carol] and make end papers. Sew on a page protector to one to make a pocket  and stick them inside the ring binder with carpet tape. [The left hand one is back to front – when I made it I used up left-over bobbins in the machine, so the wrong side is multicoloured, and I decided I liked it better.]
4. Make dividers from an old calendar, and add paper.

Now I feel much more organised.

Books, books, books, books.

As planned, [I’d written it in my planner!] we went down to Walford Mill on Friday to visit their used book sale, look at the current exhibition, have a cup of tea and toasted teacake in the cafe, and collect our purchase from the last exhibition, by Pat Hodson.

As not planned, and definitely not in my planner, we arrived very late due to a broken down tanker on the A31. [Those who know the A31 will know exactly what that implies.] There was only time for the cup of tea [essential, after sitting in a traffic jam for an hour], a look at the books, and a very quick whizz round the exhibition. I wish we had had longer – the lively and exciting work was mainly by artists with learning difficulties, and made me realise what can be achieve if you forget your inhibitions ad go at things with enthusiasm!

I did pick up one or two books – well, at £1 a time, proceeds for a good cause, who could resist?

 

 

 

 

 

This was a little more than £1, but well worth it, especially given my research topic – and the next exhibition at Walford is of artists’ books. How serendipitous.

My planner also told me to work on the triptych and book of manipulated photos on Saturday afternoon. I disobeyed, and got ahead of the game, by managing to complete the triptych on Friday morning.

It is quite difficult to photograph, but here is an aerial view and the first panel, showing some of the more embarrassing photos.

 

 

After that promising start, things went pear-shaped on Saturday, as making the book took a lot longer than expected. Of course I’m used to making books where the pages are blank, or made from stuff I made earlier, so all I have to do is assemble them. For this book, although I'd printed off a lot of the images in advance, I had to glue them to the pages, and it all took a lot longer than I anticipated. It wasn't helped by the fact that I kept having ideas.

Ideas like pop-ups, and weavings, and paper dolls, and tearing pictures up, and cutting letters out of photos … And since I took these photos I’ve drawn on a lot of them too.

The binding is my speciality, wonky Coptic. I think it’s finished, apart from the colophon. [What a show off! I mean a note thanking my colleagues who took the photos and listing the programs I used to muck about with the images.]

According to my planner, today was going to be the day I started on the research project properly. Needless to say, I didn’t.

I did, however, make the RP book. A3, utilising the backs of two old sketchbooks and some hand made paper I bought years ago at Ally Pally, for some purpose long forgotten. Those clips were going to be temporary. to allow me to add more pages if needed, before stab binding it when I’d finished – but they are growing on me.

Now I've made the book I can really get started.