Surface design

I have been making some surfaces to print on this coming term (eek, my last in this course! Quick, change the subject). I chopped up some prints I'd made, mostly on found paper, and sewed them back together using a faggotting stitch on the machine. I like! I suspect this is my long history in quiltmaking putting in an appearance - I didn't think it was going to crossover into my other art, but here it is at last. The one above was made with scraps from the making the ninepatch (not sure why blogger is putting that photo first, but I'm too braindead to wrestle with it). There are several of each version.

This one was also made with scraps from a previous print, that I chopped up to apply to papier mache bowls.
A ninepatch composed of pieces from three or four previous prints.

And a surface of long skinny pieces, also leftovers from the ninepatch. I hate to waste even the scraps, so nothing new there because I'm the same with fabric - if I hadn't done something with the paper scraps, they were threatening to need their own receptacle as I clean out the studio (a work in progress that seems like it may never end). Now they are neatly stowed in my printmaking folio, ready to go off to school and be printed over with another image or two (one more thing out of the house, one more plus on the decluttering side. It's a losing battle - last week I found a perfectly good child's wooden wagon on the side of the road for collection with the rubbish and brought it home. I think it's destined to become part of a sculpture).

Skimming the surfaces

These are three English paper pieced patchworks I made to use as surfaces for printmaking. My printmaking leans heavily toward found and unconventional surfaces, and given my past in quilting (sounds like I've given it up - no, just not enough time in the day at the moment!), it seemed a natural progression to try printing on surfaces such as these. I haven't decided on the images to use here, at the moment I'm thinking something swirling and circular...maybe white ink on the red one, green ink on the pink, red ink on the green, but I'll have to do some experimenting to see what works.

Alphabet series

Drawing day sixty-four

Drawing day sixty-five

Took inspiration from the other day's "y" like drawing and I've decided to do my own "illuminated" alphabet. So there's ideas for the next twenty or so day's drawings!

I had quite a productive day, today, for the first day of term break. Made my drawing-a-day early, made two skirts to sell on ebay, sorted out the weeks newspapers (I go through them quickly before recycling to cut out any inspiring bits for my visual diaries), finished a small patchwork piece to print on next term (and dragged out fabric for the next couple - the brown one is finished, then I think perhaps a yellow one and a green one), heat set the screenprint design I put on five tank tops (also to sell online, I hope), and spent some time scrutinizing my current painting project trying to decide if one of the three panels needs its image darkened a tad. It does, so that's on the list for tomorrow - the light was failing by the time I reached a decision and it will be easier in daylight than artificial.

School, drawing, hothotHOT!

Drawing day fifty-six

Drawing day fifty-seven

Still drawing, still busy at school, and now March has decided to revert from autumn to simmering summer - 38 degrees C today, a predicted 40 degrees C tommorrow, and high
30s over the weekend. Urgh :)

I'm loving printmaking at the moment (painting, not so much!). I've been working on a silkscreen print from one of my drawings (I suspect I doodled the sketch it's based on during a meeting at my ex-employment), playing with the medium and seeing how far I can stretch it before I get tired of it. After several incarnations, I washed out the screen yesterday, so bye-bye Green Man. I did an edition of ten over an existing print/poster a friend gifted me, several in fabric paint on tank tops (which I'll list on Ebay/Etsy over the upcoming term break), three in fabric paint over embroidered doilies sourced from the op shop (still working on mounting them - I'm going to try starch and iron-on interfacing, then depending how firm they are use velcro dots to hang them, or if that fails put them on some foam core), several more on various fabrics (red, white, black/white stripe - the optical illusion that creates really does the eyes in!, and a black/white print) which I'll incorporate into either clothing or other prints, then five on black and five on white paper for which I have a cunning plan (if it comes off, I'll show it to you). I'm burning along in printmaking, with several editions of work already and so many more I'll never fit them all into the year.

Painting, hmm. We're working on "Diaries and Collections". I had an "AHA!" moment last week and I'm "collecting my thoughts". I've painted three canvases a kind of parchment colour, and on the first I wrote a list (in Indian ink) of things that shit me (not a complete list, mind, that would take a LOT more than one smallish canvas!) and then knocked it back a bit with a wash of watered down white acrylic paint (the ink was a little too black for my liking). Over the words, I've transferred a photocopied line drawing of a brain (using eucalyptus oil, a really cool technique) with branches erupting out of it to represent my thoughts, in graphite first then went over it with grey Indian ink. At least that was the initial plan, but now I prefer it upside down to the way I originally planned it, so that the writing is upside down and now the brain has a network of roots representing all the incoming knowledge feeding my rabid thoughts. On the second canvas, I've eucalyptus transferred photocopies of random pages from the travel journals I keep while on holiday, so the writing is backwards. I'll put an image over the top of that, too, but haven't quite decided what yet. The third canvas is still in the ideas stage.

Summer reading

Drawing day three

I had less trouble stopping at one drawing today :) Perhaps they're like Timtams, one is never enough but more than one isn't good for you.

Yesterday I worked on my linocut, but it's going to be a longer term project. It's about A3 size, so largish, and I have to pace myself or my carpal/cubital tunnel syndromes complain, loudly. Patience, grasshopper. I always want to get on and finish, NOW (did I mention the obsessive/compulsive tendencies?). Just one more section, ooh look at how it's going, just one more section...I get so entranced that hours can pass and suddenly it's 1a.m. I'm like that with everything: knitting, quilting, any form of art, even reading. Just one more chapter...

Speaking of chapters, I went to the library yesterday (and forgot the digital camera, which I'm trying to remember whenever I leave the house - there's a lovely round window in the church next to the library that I want a picture of, to work into a drawing) and borrowed a lovely selection of summer reading. Two of Kerry Greenwood's earlier Phryne mysteries, which, surprisingly, I hadn't read. Thought I'd seen all but the two most recent. Oooh, those books are like chocolate, I just can't put 'em down. I finished one this morning, over breakfast (okay, and extended breakfast with a second cup of coffee. Remember what I said about not being able to put Kerry Greenwoods down?). Loverly :) When (if) I ever have a few spare $$s, I'm going to buy the latest in her Corrinna the baker series, which I think I like even more than the Phryne ones. Oh, and I meant to save the other Phryne for last, but guess which one I started this afternoon?

Hmm, haven't quite figured out this blog yet. Tried to post the skirt I made and listed on Ebay today, but can't make the image appear where I want it. See next post

Oops

Day two drawing

Hmmm.

My attempt to kick start my art process seems to be working but the muse has brought along a less welcome friend: my obsessive-compulsive tendencies have joined her entourage.

I woke this morning keen to get drawing, scoffed down breakfast and scalded my tongue on my coffee in my anxiety to begin. The drawing went well, hands busy=brain quiet and happy, but - BUT - then I didn't want to stop. My fingers wanted to go on to page three, day three's work instead of moving on to something else. Hello, Brain? The idea was to draw ONE thing and use the creative stimulation to work on something else, not turn out elebenty-seven novel page pieces in a day!

Finished with the drawing above, my hand crept toward the poor mutilated book to tear out another page. The other hand was clenched about the pen, itching to make a mark on the paper.
I reluctantly put the pen back into the case with its fellows, packed up the pencils and eraser and novel, and put them all into another room. I had to shut the door (much to the cats' disgust - the "studio" is a fun playground) to drown out their siren call.

Next on the agenda: finished sewing a skirt to put up on Ebay, cut out another to work on later today.

Now I'm going to get out the lino panel on which I've already sketched a design, the linocutting tools, the lovely timber rest The Bloke made me to cut on, and cut a block ready to print when my printmaking class starts again in February. I may take a hand print or two (I bought a cheap burnisher) to see how it's turning out, but it'll be much easier to run a series of prints on the press at school. I'm looking forward to school :)