Rollin', rollin' rollin'...

I am very fond of the serendipitous marks the can appear when one is cleaning up ink.

From great swirls of colour left on the glass as you rub, to the colours and designs that can appear as you clean your brayers or your rollers.

It is nice when you aren't in a hurry and can take the time to see if they might take you somewhere.

A couple of times of late I have had the chance to play and have been rewarded with some interesting marks.

From the collagraph print, these appeared - mixing Payne's Grey with Burnt Sienna - who knew?

My favourite - I remembered in time to do some asemic-like writing into it whilst it was still wet. And I was rewarded for remembering!

I also managed a little bit of extra play into this one as well.

After printing with black on some letterpress cards on the weekend, I rolled and rolled and rolled and was left with these interesting, random grids towards the end.

I am intrigued by what they are offering...

The sky, the ground and in-between

We have had those glorious days of big blue skies during the week- chilly but stunning.

For some reason, the yellow-tailed black cockatoos have been filling the air with their screeching as they restlessly move from here to there and back and again.

Every single time, they stop me in my tracks; and I have been distracted by them quite a lot this week!

One day's morning midday and afternoon shots, as the clouds rolled in.

In between times I have been doing small calligraphic bits.  The pebbles have been a hit this week in the gallery/shop so it was time to do some more.

And a young visitor left us this message in pebbles which made me smile so much.

And then I began playing around trying to work out how to incorporate calligraphy and type on a card...

And then tried to see which ink would work best (not bleed) and which nib size would be best; and even which nib would let ink flow best.  Decisions decisions.

 I haven't yet arrived at the answer but am definitely closer!

And so to the ground, from which Barry and I dug our latest crop of potatoes.  An excellent haul and I have to say they were creamy and delicious.  I am sorely tempted to simply roast a stack of them tonight, slather them with butter and call that dinner!

Thursday Thoughts...

“Pursue, keep up with, circle round and round your life… Know your own bone: gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw at it still.”

Thoreau

These words refer to the life of an artist and I really liked them.  They speak to me of tenacity; of just keeping on going.  They speak to me of the relentless pursuit of the things that matter; the things that are your truth and that need to be said, spoken, made, shared, drawn, painted or printed.

I honestly believe that we are all unique as artists and that we can only truly make our own work. We can't make other people's work - we must make our own; and our own is unique to us.  And from these words I guess they can mean drilling deep into your well and discovering what matters to you; going around and coming back to it, even tho it may be challenging, unpopular or deeply personal.

They seem to say I think that working away at it, fraying its edges and then going at it again is the way.

Just keep going at it, go around and around and around...

And finally to print!

Way back a while ago I started to work on this collagraph plate.

It started when I looked at one of my 'Under Construction' pieces and thought how much I loved the stitched-on twigs.

So I sketched an indication of them onto tracing paper, and transferred them onto some grey board.

And began cutting.

And then I shellacked the plate.

And so it remained for over 6 weeks until last Friday when I picked it up and got to print. At last.

I chose to print with  a combination of burnt sienna and Payne's grey, with loosened up water-based etching inks.

It was quite the challenge to get the surface lines to take the Payne's Grey without smudging the back ground too much; but then I worked out it would be fine if there were smudges.

Same with the edges.  I started out trying to keep within the lines; then decided to actively rub outside the lines

I hadn't printed in aeons it felt like, so I was tentative with the pressure, but in the end I quite liked the ethereal look of the print. Although the more heavily printed parts don't please me.

But there are some lovely moments.

I kept printing with different papers and different pressures and directions and ended with a stash of prints that I numbered and recorded what I did differently between each one.

They are so far removed from twigs now. Are they people dancing? Are they a forest after the bushfires?  Are they hieroglyphics telling of our times? So many things can be seen within them and that intrigues me.

I was particularly happy with how well the ink came off the plate without a laborious clean up session. Yay.

The works will act as a reference and guide to future experiments and hopefully prints.  At some point I want to include letterpress with prints in some way so that will be the next bit...

Calligraphic cards

Now the busy-ness of getting letterpress printed cards ready for sale has slowed; I have turned my mind to calligraphy again and have been thinking about how to combine some calligraphic lettering and some print maybe?

But to start, a visit to the studio by friend resulted in this gorgeous little bouquet. Stunning colour and lovely fragrance from the thyme and the rosemary.

I was thinking that we needed another, softer, thank you card.  I pulled out this polymer plate and left it on my desk to remind when I returned. I had done the calligraphy and had it made years ago and never touched it.  Now seemed to be a good time.

I looked at it and wondered if I should try to cut close to the edges of the words because it wasn't very high, and from previous experience the ink went all over the background as well and smeared and smudged.  Then I pondered rolling the ink on by hand and hoping I didn't mess it up.

And then I thought - I wonder if it will blind emboss???

And it did!

And just because I can't bear waste, I wondered if it might sort of blind emboss on some scraps I had?

And then I wrapped them in Habu thread and sat them in the sunshine and lo, they were lovely.

I had been cleaning up at home and came across a postcard I had made several years ago, and thought you know, the times still need this and so I went and did some of my heartbeat script on postcards. I then drew and hand-coloured a bouquet of blooms in between and thought folk might just like these.

And through the week, the sunset was colourful and full of movement; and high above, slipping through a veil of cloud sat a wee moon.

Thursday Thoughts...

"In the end, we’ll all become stories". 

Margaret Atwood

I don't think I have ever really thought of my life as a book; or as a story, yet of course, that is exactly how it will end up!

For now, I am a person who does what she does - who breathes, who speaks who reads, who laughs, who gardens, who drives, who stitches who....does all sorts.

I was thinking about something else just ending up being stories that are told about it. How people will always pick out the key bits that they remember or like about something and then that is the part that gets told.  In effect, every event gets distilled down to the bits that folk remember to tell.

And even then I hadn't thought to apply it to a life.

For we will all be stories.  Most of us won't be books, but we will be stories. Stories told of this and that and do you remember when?  Or I loved how she always ...? Or that reminds me of the time...

I sit here quietly having my mind explode with the notion - when it should really be self-evident!

Thanks as ever to Ms Atwood for making me think.

A Place Among the Clouds...

Ahhh...it is done.

I continued to play and worked out that I could add add an overlay to the cover. I printed two off-set printings of the title, one inked and one a ghost print so the the depth of colour varied between the two on the floaty paper and the one on the grey cover.

The next challenge was attaching the floaty paper to the cover; and stitching the whole thing together without it slipping.

To the very hi tech technique of washi paper.  Sticking it to my trousers helped take any extra 'tack' off it as I really didn't want it tearing the floaty paper or the cover when I removed it

The pages and back cover taped - each page was taped to the back cover individually; but all in the same spot so only one piece of tape touched the back cover.

The overlay taped to the front cover (seen after stitching) and the front cover attached to the back cover (in the same spot again). You can see I decided to reduce the number of lines of stitching, but still went with the straight lines .

After I had finished it, I needed to find a way to wrap it, store it, protect it.  I decide to hand stitched a sort of folder to keep it safe and flat.

Using figure 8 stitches along the sides.

And then you lift the book out and begin.

The front cover.

Then through the book...

Satisfied sigh.