Around midnight

Rural, urban, desert, mountain, forest and industrial. All with people.

What else could i call it?

And here’s the print.

I’m still getting used to how the tinted glue works…

MER

Volcano Day

There definitely isn’t a colon in the title…

I was thinking about images for ‘Out of Darkness’ and since I’ve been watching all the latest eruptions in Iceland and Hawaii, I thought id have ago at lava.

Here’s the plate:

This plate uses squares of emery paper instead of slide frames. With the paintings stuck on top.

Emery makes the frames dark and as the images are raised theres no problem with them being under wiped.

Here’s the print with chine collé

I think i need to take a few more prints to be happy with this. Or have leant as much as i can from it …

MER

Dawn’s Early Light

Mea culpa. I’m going to have to set down with all my records and catch you up with the work I have done in the last to years. (And i have been doing stuff not just hiding under my bed. Moving swiftly on. )

Here’s the original concept made from paint samples in jan 2021

Im still working on turning this version of the concept into a reality but meanwhile the emery/glue version.

Here’s the plate:

Tinted glue painted on emery paper. Real paper slide mounts. All stuck to a button polished board.

And here are the results:

Answers on a post card?

I didn’t realise The landscapes are recessed below the frames at first. So they aren’t as well wiped and are therefore darker than i would like.

MER

Prep work

Over the next few weeks i will be posting about the prints I will be making.

I’m using a modified collagraph technique were a tinted glue is painted onto all weather emery paper. The paper provides the tooth to hold the printing ink, the glue covers to the grit so that no ink remains after wiping.

Before any plates can be made i need to remember how to paint.

Volcano Day

Dawn’s Early Light

Don’t let me fool you these paintings may be tiny (24x35mm), but this is not the original conditions. I know usually paint over the lines so these were done on a separate piece of black card and then collaged into my sketchbook.

The white is an ink. Not the tinted glue i plan to use on the plates. I just needed to get used to using washes n stuff.

Anyway here’s some close ups

White ink on black card

From a potential infinite possibilites of foreground, midground and background

I also had my flu and covid shots this week so I’m a little slow.

MER

Embrace the Tea Pot

Among other things i am back to printing after a 18months hiatus and this term we are Out of Darkness. Making Collagraphs from emery paper* and carborundum.

https://www.morleycollege.ac.uk/courses?s=Out+of+darkness+

One of the images I wanted to work on was this tiny thing – originally done in colour pencil.

It probably is this blurry in real life

I’ve aways wanted a pantograph. I brought one during lockdown (as you do). And this was the first time I’ve used it …

This is the 1:4 setting

Finally I worked out how much to tighten up the connectors so it could move with out sticking or flailing all over the place, but I’m still disappointed.

Interesting but not what i was hoping for…

Perhaps the last image works best in terms of proportion, but will still need to be doctored!

It’s blue

*

I coloured over the lines a bit

• the technique involves painting over the textured emery paper to achieve a smooth/ ink repelling surface. As you can see i’m out of practice with my brushes.

So It goes

Congratulate me on not heaving my phone across the room trying to format this ❤️

Prams/Toys

To cut a long story very short after lockdown lifted I threw all my toys out of my pram and have since been very slowly considering what to put back. This is easier now people aren’t insisting I keep things i don’t want.

I have been making stuff. And I intend to back post some of the more interesting stuff in the weeks/months to come.* ( i even have a list of all the Wednesdays I haven’t posted.)

Mainly I have been volunteering with a local group that raises money for local charities. They make things and either donate them to the charity or sell them for cold hard cash.
As the autumn is coming up we are getting ready for Winter Warmers and our xmas sales. Just the thing for the resent heat wave…

A shawl from donated yarn

• this will no doubt be very confusing for future people scrolling in chronological posting order

Taking advantage of the heat to do some sampling

EDIT 22sept

Finished shawl being blocked. Edge length 1 metre.

MER

Ps. It looks like my laptop top is too geriatric to run wordpress so we shall see how long i manage posting on my phone …

Old Project? NewProject! – Millefleurs

I’m finally starting to hang things on my walls. It’s only been 2 years!

Still Not dead?

Hi!

Waves

This is the first post that I have managed to post on anything like the accurate date for the content. The first four months of 2021 did happen, and I did make and write things in among all the unfortunate real life that happened. Hopefully I will manage to back post some of the things I recorded at the time.

Meanwhile here’s a little something I that came up quite unplanned.

Cards for the Sewing Angels: a local group that made PPE all last year and now are making textile craft stuff to sell for charities.

SketchBook Project Submission Time

This is the third year that I have submitted sketchbooks to the Broolkyn Art Library. Although this is the first year that I’ve actually had an uplifting subject matter. The submission deadline is mid Feb and I’m about halfway done. I thought I’d stick my work so far up here, because I hope to reference it for my own work process.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

MER

ps You can find my previous submissions here.

Hello World

You’re still out there? I am still in here!

I have been well, and busy doing creative things. Not so much with the organising my way out of a paper bag (or a piss up in a brewery). In addition I have mainly been watching book binding and ukulele videos*.

And Oh my they’ve updated the blog interface while I wasn’t looking – its been a while since May! But I hope I can find what I need and not die of frustration in the meantime.

And Lo! An actual bit of content – below are what I have taken to call my External Brain, as the one I was issued with at Birth is a bit glitchy. I’ve started 2021 early in an attempt to locate myself in reality – something that slipped a lot this year.

Top L > R ‘Array’ print project book, notes for small/ random projects, Bullet Journal Bottom L >R page per day diary kept during lock down, Travellers Note Book with home made inserts

I’ve been keeping a Bullet Journal (top right) since july 2017 and it revolutionised my life even before my ADHD diagnosis. It was, and is very important to things outside the house and studio. So at the start of lock down in March I changed to the Lemon note book which just happened to be an out of date page per day diary to keep a record – that way I didn’t have to freak out so much at time slipping by. I moved back in August to the Bu Ju which was fine…

I was not Fine in November.

The Book June ’19 (top middle) was, suprisingly, started in June 2019 and from the start I filled it with a bit of everything, Pop-ups, Flower Type Things random things that caught my fancy. It quickly became the book to make notes on one off projects; like decorating a bathroom cabinet and recording the form of a ply-split braided pot. Yes, I told you I had been busy.

The blue book with the Toy story? aliens (top left as if you care 🙂 was actually started in Jan 2017 when I was groping around looking for direction with my Printing – so many false starts! When Morley College reopen this September I picked it up to continue in the same vein. I use this book to think about What and Why I am printing what I do. Print Diary Vol.v (not shown) is used to organise/record what I actually do in the print studio; prints made, ink used etc.

Also not shown: workshop/shed diary – used to record activities and time spent on tasks, many Crochet note books, three Brooklyn Art Library sketchbooks that need to be finished and returned by mid Feb, several volumes that could be files under Flower Type things and a book for my book binding notes (which I did not make).

In conclusion, on struggling out of the hole that was the 11th month of the year, I realised that I need a place to take notes for things that fell between the “public facing” Bullet Journal, the continuous stream of IDEAS of June 19 and specific large/long term projects records. Things like shopping lists, Ikea orders, research questions, items to the ever expanding To Do list (currently at 5 pages, i note absently). Nothing precious, but something more substantial than the waiters note pads I had been using. Which brings us to the last volume in the photo – a travellers note book. So shiny. So expensive. So tempting. Then I couldn’t even bring to use it even when I actually did travel.

Then I realised I could easily make† low cost inserts and turn it in to a Stay At Home, a !Travellers Note Book. When they’re full take them out, put them somewhere safe and make a new one. It’s the indexing that’s going to be the challenge… Then I can really treat it like an external hard drive for my Brain

Well. that was my year. I did take pictures of things as I made them. And at one point was planning to post them without much text – my english is FAIL you might have noticed. My current intention is to post things back dated as if they were posted at the correct time and fill in the gaps in my the story of 2020. This is in addition to posting new stuff as it happens. [what am i like?]

So Best Wishes for the New Year. Take care. Be safe

MER

*So I have a tag to add to may collection and its not about my attempts to learn the uke.

† The inserts are about the size of the square you get from cutting down a sheet of A4. My sections are a gathered of 8 folios of cheep printer paper sewn into a pamphlet º , but you could use more. The off cut 8.5cm can be bound into a separate little book for a specific subject. Mine are Books and Shiny Toys.

º Now my foot notes have foot notes! Don’t worry only the first 4:40min is strictly relevant, I used a sheet of lightweight decorated card on the outside of the section for minimal protection.