Bad nights…

early mornings and busy days makes Cheshire a dull woman, who doesn’t achieve much apart from rushing around and whinging about being tired.

I did finish this. I found a pattern on Ravelry [sorry, too lazy to finds the link] which used 2 and a bit balls of Cashmerino.As I had 2 and a bit balls of Cashmerino and it was simple enough even for me in my current mood, I cast on. You can see how much I had left.

It will be delivered to the VHC on Sunday when we VHC and Babybel sit, while his mum and dad run a race dressed as Santas. Of course, although it's a three month size, he could have grown out of it by then…

I have also managed to keep  get back up to date with L&F and POT.

A’s green contribution has been joined by an orange one from Babybel. I haven’t measured either of them but I’m having to stand on a stool to photograph both.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I finally got round to buying some more white floss to assemble the final cloth. Tomorrow I will work out how I want to hang it and, more difficult, where – I am running out of space in the garden.

Then it’s head down, writing up the paperwork for PCs and PMS before handing them in at the end of term – which is all too close!

Today started off well…

but went rapidly downhill in the afternoon.

Printed off my spam messages, rolled them and added them to L&F?  √

Finished another PC? [More details later.]  √

Had an enjoyable lunch with W.?  √

Successfully experimented with inkjet transfer techniques? XXXXXX

A week or so ago, when I was having a procrastinating tidy-up, I came across some of the litter photos [remember those?] which I had printed off for some reason I can no longer remember. So I decided to do nasty things to them, in a spirit of enquiry and filling up space in to make a meaningful contribution to my Personally Managed Sketchbook.

So I glued tissue paper on and drew on top – although it doesn’t show much.

or I scratched and sanded and painted them with watercolour

 

 

 

 

 

 

or painted them with gesso and coloured them with Graphitints

or – most dramatic of all – resisted parts of the image with crayon and then added bleach.

So today I thought I’d try image transfer.

I tried 2 sorts of acrylic gel and plain water.

I tried leaving the image for seconds or minutes.

I tried 2 different sorts of paper, and acetates which turned out to be not the ones you use in ink jet printers [which worked well if you didn’t want a recognisable image]

I looked for the hand sanitizer I once used successfully and couldn’t find it.

And an entire afternoon, much cursing and several cups of tea later I had nothing to show for my efforts apart from a bin full of paper..

Then, in a fruitless search for the right sort of acetates, I came across something called ‘Studio Paper’, which I had bought heaven knows where, and which, though remarkably lacking in anything like instructions for use, implied that you could use it to make transfers just by printing on it and rubbing.

And you know what? You can. Even on to brown paper.

 

 

I also found some sheets of labels I never managed to work out how to print addresses on, and got a rather nice window pane effect, although the labels are a bit reluctant to stay stuck down…

 

 

 

 

So it wasn’t a complete disaster.

Plus I am pleased with these – which I expected to end up looking like lampshades, but which W. has christened storm cones. [He used to live in Whitby – it leads to him coming over all nautical at times.]

Mind you, after I researched storm cones, I can tell you that this signal means there are storms coming from both the north and the south at the same time.

Perhaps I ought to stop whingeing and look on the bright side of life. After all, I have learned that, in the unlikely eventuality that I ever do want to make inkjet transfers again – if I get out the Studio Paper I’ll have no problems. [You can wash off the remnants of your image and, apparently,  reuse it.]

What a difference a day made.

At 2 a.m. on Wednesday I was convinced that my college work had wandered off up yet another dead end – I didn't know where it was going, didn’t think it was saying anything, and I was missing stitch – to the extent that I got up and worked some blackwork samples inspired by security envelopes.

But I took some photos of the tube-y things I’ve made so far into college and begged for a tutorial.

Amazing what a difference someone's positive reaction makes!

Suddenly everything seemed much better than I thought it was:

• it’s not just doing the same thing over again, it’s ‘working in a series’
• POT was ‘ a very strong idea’ and I should consider doing something similar with e-mails
• the photos I’d taken of the other pieces outside were very good and I should put them all outside and photograph the changes over time – this was before I’d mentioned that T&T were living outside
• I should use some of the photos, enlarged up to A2 [!!!] as part of the degree show.

So

• all the other suspended tube pieces have gone outside permanently and been photographed for posterity.
• POT has also been photographed, for the sake of consistency

 

 

• and I have started a new piece – hereinafter known as ‘Love and Friendship’ [LAF]. I abandoned the idea of using all my e-mails – or even all the spam e-mails – there are just too many of them – and decided to use just selected ones in white [you can guess which from the image] – plus e-mails from friends and family in green.

Mmm – perhaps I need more friends?

I was very tempted to call it ‘Love and Freindship’ [especially as it was an epistolary novel] but decided that trying to show off would just lead to most people thinking I didn't know how to spell.

I have plans for 2-3 more in the outdoor series – and then I'm done up till Christmas  – apart from the paperwork, the contextualisation, the work book, and the PMS.

But I still like the blue blackwork security envelope patterns…

Sometimes one thing leads to another…

and you suddenly realise the whole day has disappeared.

I meant to spend some time on this – the latest litter beast, known as Mark because it’s green.

But before that I was going to try some ideas from Gina Ferrari's sketchbook ideas on her blog.

Her second suggestion [after you’ve coloured your pages with watercolour and cling film] was to make a mask [or six], colour round the edges on a painted page with white oil pastel, and add more watercolour.

We’ll get back to that one in a minute.

Her third suggestion was potato printing. 

Slight logistical problem here.

No potatoes.

But I did have fun foam – and long term readers will know that I love fun foam stamps: they are a bit like Pringles – you can’t stop at one.

[Sorry about the colours]

 

 

 

 

While I was making stamps, I thought I’d try some eraser stamps on the litter theme.

Dedication or what, drinking all that Guinness in pursuit of my art?

 

Then I remembered an article in a recent ‘Quilting Arts’ about using eraser stamps to make little figures.

After I’d made the first set of body parts I noticed that the erasers I was using had little logos impressed on them, which I didn’t want on my figures, so I had to remake the body, head and feet using non-logoed erasers. Fun results though.

Then I remembered that I wanted to recolour the nasty coloured felt, because, as I expected, the spray paint had washed out. So I mixed up some acrylic and sprayed it with that.

Believe me, this photo flatters it. Do you it looks sufficiently like the rotting contents of a plastic bag you’d rather not speculate about?

When the external examiner told me that ‘It doesn’t have to be beautiful’, I wonder if she knew what she was letting herself in for. And will she live to regret saying it?

But I digress.

As I had paint left over, I decided to try out some of the fun foam stamps.  The green was really too runny, but I like the patterns it made, and the Guinness cans over pre-painted pages worked really well.

Then I tried the masks.

Oh, well, can’t win them all.

I think the technique is great, but it needs:

1. better quality oil pastels
2. a more interesting shape
3. better quality oil pastels
4. more contrast between the underpainting and the overpainting 

And better quality oil pastels.

So, without meaning to, I’ve done quite a lot for the PMS  - on top of the drawing I’ve done for Sian Martin’s Summer Sketchbook Project. 

All litter, apart from the shell. The one on the left is a stripy plastic bag, top right is some crumpled metal. The shell crept in because none of my litter has the right sort of texture.

Oh, and the black felt did shrink. And really interesting things happened to the iridescent plastic when I zapped it.

I’m not sure how that effect fits into my litter theme but I’m going to have a really good try to find something.

Progress has been made…

on the PCs/PMS, though I’m not really sure what constitutes either. At the moment I’m working on the assumption that if it’s 2D – or 2.5D. like a book mock up – it goes in the sketchbook, and if it’s 3D and/or textile/stitch, it’s a personal cloth – or a sample for a personal cloth. I have come to the conclusion that I should just make stuff for the PCs, and whether it is a PC or a sample will ultimately depend on how much stuff I manage to make [The target is 10-15.]

So if I make 16 – 1 or more of them will be samples. Between 10 and 15, they'll all be PCs. Simple.

On that calculation – these may or may not be PCs, but they are definitely not for the sketch book:

Daisy because she’s a textile, and lumpy

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Cadel, Andy and Frank because they’re 3D [and look as if they are on a podium]

I’ve noticed that a major constituent of litter is fast food detritus, so I decided to have a go at making my own ‘disposable’ cups using papier mache and photographs of the things which litter despoils. These will eventually be photographed in situ, but they are still a bit sticky. The rims need a bit of thought, but in general I’m pleased with them – especially Cadel.

I don’t like Daisy as much as her brother Tommy, the blue litter beast, so she may end up as a sample, if I manage to make enough pieces. Mind you, the quality of workmanship wasn’t improved by working on her while watching the TDF time trial – not normally my favourite part, but this one was almost as exciting as the Alpine stages. And now the right man has won [sorry Schleckies], all I’ve got to worry about is Mark Cavendish falling off in the Champs Elysees. [Does that really mean Elysian fields? I’ve never really thought about it before.]

I’m so productive, I’ve even done a bit of drawing. Sian Martin has been running a summer sketchbook project on her blog. As I already had a collaged, stained sketchbook like she suggests, I decided to join in.

I’m a bit behind, but at least I’ve started, and I hope to do more tomorrow. Not the organic forms Sian recommends, but more potential litter, which makes it a contribution to the PMS, and kills two birds with one stone.

Speaking of birds, there are either more pigeons this year or they are all following me around. Paranoid? Moi?

Is there a name for forward slippage?

Apart from forward slippage? All because I had an unexpected morning off.

We’ve been having problems with our phone line – intermittent broadband and a very crackly line – so when BT wanted to come this morning to fix it I thought for a very long time before agreeing to cancel my gym appointment and wait in. Fridays are Wensleydale’s hydrotherapy days, so I very nobly volunteered to be the one who stayed at home – and yes, it’s better now. So far. [This is the second time we’ve needed a repair since we’ve had Infinity, which is twice more than we ever needed it in the 20 years previously.]

So having an unexpected free day, I decide to face up to a looming cloud on my horizon, and tackle the essay – which, you may remember, was on the timetable for this weekend.

I think because I’d written a fairly complete draft, I really wasn’t looking forward to revisiting it – boring, boring, boring. However I’d had a couple of ideas for  improving the beginning and ending, so I got down to it this morning.

In the end, it wasn’t too bad. I tweaked the bits I wanted to tweak, pruned some other bits [its still too long but I won’t tell anyone] spellchecked it and saved it. I'll look at it again tomorrow, give it to my trusty editor for approval, and do the final draft on Sunday. One weight off my mind, only another three to go.

Unfortunately, there has been backward slippage on SAM. We had a busier week than expected, and I've been too tired in the evenings to do much mark making. I’m a long way short of 50 marks, but I will do what I can this weekend and start PMS’ing and PC’ing on Monday.

We are going to have more time on our hands for the next few months anyway: Babybel’s mummy starts her maternity leave today, so no Babybel sitting for a while. We had a lovely few days with her this week, and we are going to miss the little monkey [though not getting up at silly o’clock].

A decision has been made.

This week will be devoted to SAM, next weekend to the essay [probably with some slippage] – and after that it’s PCs and PMS till September. [With a bit of room tidying if I feel the need to procrastinate get the urge.]

Will I stick to this? Who knows? Now I’ve told you and Wensleydale, it is more likely to happen.

As next week is going to be busy, I’ve been making backgrounds for SAM, so I have stuff prepared for a little bit of mark making in front of the telly. [The only problem with the Tour de France is that I actually have to watch it, rather than merely listening. I can knit and watch young men on bikes at the same time, but not embroider.]

Yesterday was machine embroidery, today was embellishing – with a bit of heat gunning thrown in at the end, which is why some of these look a bit burnt.

The embellishing allowed the recycling of some old failures pieces whose time had not yet come – and the creation of one or two more.

The black smudges are not the result of an inadvertent conflagration, but some of the marks I made at the beginning of the course, printed onto an OHT. Mark? Definitely, Stitch? Maybe not, yet.

I have also managed a bit of mark making in the book. The top one is pretty mundane – sort of Kantha plus appliqué – but I like the way it shows through the hole in the next page – and then through the embroidery on net which started all this.

Is appliqué ‘stitch as mark’? I’m working on the principle that a smudge of paint is a mark, and the simplest way to make smudges in stitch is with appliqué.

 

Some of my other marks are a lot more vestigial – otherwise I'd never finish.

 

 

 

 

And I’ve Photoshopped some of my litter pictures - can you spot the interloper? Found only a hundred yards from the ring pull and the screwed up bit of paper.

These were done with a variety of filters and a bit of additional work – don’t want to make it too simple…

 

Amazing what you can achieve with a couple of freeish days and a bit of motivation.

[We won’t talk about the failed loaf of bread – I’m sure the ducks will enjoy it…]

A sunny day…

a good night’s sleep, Wensleydale out and chores done meant that for the first time for ages I felt like doing some college work!

I started with a little painting for the PMS. Somebody recommended this book, and when it came I saw why, but I hadn’t got round to doing anything with it. But on a sunny day, what could be nicer than sitting in the conservatory with some paint and a sketch book?

 

The first two exercises are  ‘wet into wet’ [the circles] and ‘wet into dry’ [the squares]. They are simple enough not to deter the least confident watercolour user [i.e. me], and, once I got going, fun. Because I was using these two little sketchbooks, in which I’d collaged some bit of paper, I ended up using the techniques as colour exercises, based on the papers, and I could have gone on all morning. But it got very hot in the conservatory, so I drifted out into the garden to look for ‘marks’ – as in ‘stitch as mark x 50’, aka SAM.

This made me wonder what a mark is, anyway [according to W. it’s a stain], but I did end up with a collection of photos of lichen, bark, planks and peeling paint – which tells you a lot about our house and garden, really…  These are the edited highlights. I love that daisy-like shape in the top row, which is knot marks in the fence.

After lunch I went out and tried to draw some of them, before deciding that a pen wasn’t a good idea and I’d have been better off with my favourite oil pastels.

So I fired up Photoshop for today’s challenge –’close-up’. This is a photo I took of a Jaume Plensa sculpture at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park last month – I’ll show you the whole thing tomorrow, which is ‘from a distance’. The effect, from PFAEC as usual, is ‘intaglio’ – and was much easier than it looks. Yes, the letters are back to front, but that is not because I reversed it, it’s because I was inside the sculpture when I took the picture. Obviously.

When I’ve finished writing this, I'm going to sit down outside, if it’s cooled off enough, and sew a stitched mark or two while W. sands down the window sills. Mmm – wonder who’s got the best bargain there? I will make him a cup of tea to keep him going first…

And last Sunday’s challenge was…

to take a photo from a high angle – while Monday’s was, perhaps unsurprisingly, to take one from a low angle. Both of which said ‘stairs’ to me. I did think of lying down in the garden and photographing the trees and sky but there was too much of an overlap with ‘clouds’ and ‘green’ so I abandoned that idea.

I took several shots from the top of the stairs but the one which appealed most was this one – my attempt at the ‘lith printing’ effect from ‘Photoshop Fine Arts Effects Cookbook’. I wanted to get a slightly spooky B-movie effect and this is the closest I got.

Looking the other way, I tried the ‘Polaroid transfer’ effect. That border isn’t quite right, but I enjoyed adding the wiggles.

That – and a bit of knitting - is about all the creative stuff that’s happened recently. I hope to get something college-related done tomorrow afternoon – although I suppose improving my Photoshop skills is college related. Wonder if I should put these in my PMS?

One down…

a few more to go. Modules, that is. I handed in Module 9 today, although I was still finding interesting book artists last night – or rather this morning, after insomnia struck again. Enjoyed it [the RP, not the insomnia], but I'm glad it’s done. The draft of Module 11 is due next week, and then there are no more deadlines until next term – apart from the end of term show.

We all had tutorials on the PMS and the Personal Cloths – or in my case the Personal Papers. Obviously, if I’m going to work in paper, there is an overlap between the two, but I suggested that the PMS would be about the structure of books, and the PCs about the contents, and that was acceptable – although it was strongly suggested that either might wander off in other directions and that would be OK.

Now all there is left of the second year of the degree is two sessions of peer review, photographing the sketchbooks from drawing studies for video display in the exhibition, setting up the display and stewarding it. Not sure where the two years have gone.

Insomnia did give me a chance to play around with some more of my photos in PSE. Challenges 3&4 are ‘clouds’ and ‘something green’. For some reason I often seem to photograph clouds when I go to Walford Mill, so I took some more when we went there yesterday.

Guess what the weather was like? I did try photoshopping this one, but it wasn’t improved by the process, so this is the original.

I wanted to avoid the obvious solution for ‘something green’ – but there are very few green things around here, apart from the obvious. I did assemble a green still life – knitting bag, watering can, water bottle, potted plant – but I am clearly no Cezanne and the result looked dreadful, so I drifted down the garden and found some cobnuts, which the squirrels haven’t got to yet.

I took some photos, one of which looked like this – a combination of the wind and, I think, a bit of stray finger on the right.] By the wonders of PSE I combined it with a better one

 

and ended up with this. OK. it’s not as green as it was, but it’s not quite the obvious solution, and I like it. [Didn't know you can get catkins and nuts at the same time.]

Day 9’s challenge is ‘someone you love’ – and tomorrow is Babybel day – so guess who that will be? [Sorry, Wensleydale.]

What to do on a sunny Bank Holiday?

Make books, of course.

This one was completely unplanned. I'd seen a photo of a book with a photo of the sea on the cover, and when I came across this sea and sunset paper while looking for something else, I decided to use it as the cover of a little pamphlet stitched notebook. [It was going to be sand and sky but I put the cover on upside down.]

The paper was rather thin, so I went looking for something to back it with – and came across several pieces of sea-ish paper – I think I painted them when I was making a sea-themed hanging for C&G, but never used them.

Now it was going to be a pamphlet with sea coloured pages – but I realised that it would be better as a drum leaf binding – full spreads and no stitch.

Of course drum leaf takes a tad longer than quick and dirty pamphlet binding – but the result is much better.

This was an impulse too. During another insomniac night [shouldn’t complain. it’s ages since I had one] I decided I needed to start using some of my images in my books, instead of scrap paper. So this morning when I came across this on Donna's great ‘Make a Book a Day’ blog, I was inspired to make my own version.

Can you spot the deliberate mistake?

I could pretend that I intended to rearrange the picture, in order to symbolise the disruption of nature by human intervention – but I’d be lying. And I think it would have been better if I’d grunged up the card a bit. And the perfect beads had holes too small to get the perfect threads through. But apart from that …

And finally – people who are working on brightly coloured embroidery on brightly coloured prints shouldn’t throw stones make critical comments about ‘any colour as long as it’s bright’, should they?

There is some embroidery on there – honest. I'm not quite sure why it’s there, or whether it actually adds anything – but it is definitely bright.

The next couple of print samples up for a bit of stitch definitely aren’t.

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?

I’ve come to the conclusion…

that scanning is boring. [Like this post, which goes on a bit.]

Scanning is especially dull if, like me, you have to scan everything 4 times.

I was feeling idle last night  so I played with PostworkShop – quite the easiest way I know  to produce interesting manipulated photos – on these two images.

 

Yes, litter photos again. I bet readers who’ve been with me a while are missing the flowers.

 

I applied ‘white sketch’ to the images,

 

 

 

 

 

then printed them on calico, previously painted with Inkaid, and collaged with the backs of envelopes. As you do.

Today I scanned them

Once as a colour image.

 

 

 

Once in grey scale.

 

 

 

 

 

Once in black and white.

 

 

 

 

 

And once in inverted colours. 

Boring process, interesting results.

 

 

 

 

Then I did the same for the other four pairs of images I printed off last night.

Don’t worry, I'm not going to show you all of them. Just the first scans – to prove that I do eventually  use the fabrics and papers I prepare for printing.

‘Sketchy marker’ on emulsion painted junk mail – for the flower lovers out there, the left image is of daffodils. The right one isn’t.

 

 

 

My own combination of filters [known as ‘plasmaxor’] on a bit of old curtain painted with clear Inkaid. The daffodils are a bit more obvious here.

 

 

 

‘Abstract 1’ on the left, and ‘antique drawing’ on the right, on calico painted with Printability and collaged with brown paper.

 

 

And my favourites – the ‘kitchen garden’ filter [I kid you not] on heavy but not pelmet weight Vilene, painted with moulding paste and Inkaid, a recipe from ‘Digital Art Studio’. It has a wonderful crunchy texture, which the scan doesn’t show, but which works really well with the images.

And if you decide to try it and put the result though your printer – on your own head be it.

The I did some more scanning.

When my mum died, I inherited a lot of transfers. Anyone with an ounce of sense would have binned the lot – but when did I have an ounce of sense? I am not really a transfer person – all the designs seem to involve satin stitch, probably my least favourite stitch after cross stitch [one because it’s boring, the other because I’m useless at it]. In any case, the transfers don’t work very well, probably because many of them are even older than I am.

But I have a vague idea of adding floral transfer images to some of the litter photos – and perhaps even embroidering them – so I decided to scan them.

I’d only need to scan each one once, wouldn’t I?

Wrong. I couldn’t decide whether I liked the colour image or the black and white image best.

I managed a few before terminal boredom got to me.

This post is going on a bit , so I won’t write about our afternoon out at the Hillier Gardens.

I’ll just show you.