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

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 ❤️

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 So at the start of lock down in March I changed to the Lemon note book which just happened to be an out of date page per day diary to keep a record – that way I didn’t have to freak out so much at time slipping by.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.

Array- new toys!

I was gifted a pile of 50mm slide transparencies as they are similar to the plates I was using to produce my Array Prints. I’m going to put the set I printed first up as a slideshow and then comment on them below. There is lots and lots of potential to use this material to further the Array inquiry.

• There were three kinds of slide in the pile: card, thin plastic and heavy duty with glass. Obviously these three kinds take ink in very different ways.
• The inside and outside of the slide frame print differently. The card frames have glue residue that is unique to each frame.
• The slide film can also be used to make tiny dry points. The slides came from a collection on art history, so plenty of scope for interesting subject matter.
• Depending on whether you put the film infant, or behind the slide frame you get a different sized image.
• There are many directions that Chine collé can take a image.
• I am going to have to go away and think about which parts of all this new material I’m going to use first.

MER

All cats, at night, are grey

This print didn’t get this name until pretty near the end of the process.

This half term was relief lino printing. Which I’ve never really been successful will. So working from a familiar image I made my first reduction print…

Flower sketches

Flower sketches

So the second half of winter term is relief printing and i would like to make some kind of floral image. Or flower adjacent ; you know me by now…

This summer’s cards

I got four cards this year from the Arte Postale exchange. The theme was climate change.

Okay

You can count…

When i find them again I’ll photograph the last one and stick ip some details.

MER

Arte Postal 2019

This year had a theme – climate change. Heres my contribution …

Too much rain, too much sun

ex Hurricane Ophelia

More energy, more drama

With our. Weather, we always have something to talk about…

Found Flowers

There are about a 100 boxes of Stuff that i need to rehome at some point in the future. A lot of it is textile related. Sorting though I came across a pile of period embroidery. Most of it is 1930 – 50’s? – where you would iron on a blue design to your table cloth and satin stitch over the top.

Could I use these bits of cloth in my new, more positive facing project? I painted some with acrylic medium and had a go.