rain again

I feel a bit strange today. Perhaps its because its pouring down with rain outside. Perhaps its because I've been at work all day on my own and I haven't spoken single a word since breakfast (except the ones I've spoken to myself :) )

Anyway... today I've been making some rather average monoprints (you know those days when nothing in particular goes wrong, but you're not quite feeling it? yep.) Out of about 50, these are the only ok ones, but I guess that's better than none isn't it!


And, because I had all the ink out, I did a few traditional style monoprints too...


I think these are actually better, maybe because I wasn't worring about the outcome and I did them in about 10 minutes. Hmmm, there's a lesson in that somewhere...

bananas indeed

Well I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who has a bit of an obsession for cardboard boxes!! We can all be crazy together :)


I don't know what it is about a nice cardboard box, my favourites are usually quite small and brown (and did you ever try turning printed boxes insideout? That usually makes them lovely and brown!) I love clever packaging solutions, when one piece of card is used for the whole box, or if it folds together in a clever way...


I was just telling riverlark, that one of my favourite toys when I was younger was a great big box (from a tv I think it was) full of other smaller boxes and things like loo rolls and tissue paper (loo rolls were treasure when I was little, I still can't seem to throw them away...) I would spend hours messing about with the boxes; sometimes cutting and gluing and slotting them together to make things, sometimes just stacking them up, sometimes tipping then all out and getting inside the big box to pretend it was a bus or a boat or a den...


Its amazing how little I've changed actually...


To answer your question, Studiotau, I didn't use a tutorial to make the boxes I talked about yesterday. I just unfolded a few boxes from my collection that I liked the style of, looked at their shapes and then changed the dimensions to suit the books I was packaging...



Some stuff to look at...
Peter Callesen's cardboard castle
Books, jam packed full of packaging ideas, with all the nets on cdrom

bananas

I've had a bit of a traumatic day today. When I started my job 8 months ago I was given a draw to store my things, things like sheets of paper, work in progress and tools. Not a massive draw, but not a small draw either.

So far so good, but the problem arises, you see, from working in an environment that creates heaps of paper scraps everyday; beautifully square cut scraps from the guillotine, strips of somerset and bockingford and heavy smooth cartridge, offcuts of books like mini books in themselves, and I find it almost impossible to throw any of these things in the bin, because (as the classic line goes) I'll definitely find a use for that...

So, for 8 months, in the draw they've gone...


And today was the day I had to sort it all out, because for at least a month now the draw has refused to close :)

To make myself feel better about having to get rid of all my lovely stash (well, I say all, if only that were all... I still have a shelf full, and a wardrobe or two full in my house, oh, and some boxes under the starirs, but you never know when you might need a nice bit of paper do you :) )

Anyway, to make myself feel better about all that stuff I couldn't use I re-purposed some boxes that had been sitting around into... well, more boxes, but boxes that will be very useful indeed.


The problem is, now it's occured to me that I can actually make boxes to any size I like, my box collection* looks set to grow rapidly...

*yes, there's a box collection, surely you're not surprised :)

sunshine

Well, I think summer has finally arrived today... It's been raining for what seems like weeks, but today it was warm and sunny and I went out for a walk at lunch time without my coat on, the first time this year! I hope its sunny tomorrow too, because with all this rain my lawn seriously needs mowing...


Although it is quite tempting to just lie back on it and let the grass tickle my ears...

When I was little I used to love this time of year, when everything is so lush and green and humming. The grass in the field that surrounds my parents house was always a few feet tall by now, grass and clover and all sorts of medow flowers growing free in preperation for mowing and hay making. I would go outside after tea, jump over the wall, lay in the grass in the evening sun and look at the sky. I always felt so safe cocooned up in the grassy hollow, the odd insect rustling below, the odd grass seed fluttering down, bees buzzing. And the grass smelt so... green. So different to the scratchy smell of haymaking to come. I felt miles away.


I always used to get in trouble; for flattening the grass, but I reckon it was worth it :)


I think I spend too much time in doors these days, time seems to go so quickly (and I'm not sure if its that there's not enough time to spend messing about outside, or if spending that time is what will make the time slow down... perhaps its a bit of both) Perhaps this weekend I should go on a nice long walk...

ferns

Some more etchings, that developed from the experiments I spoke of the other day...

I started of with some line drawings of the little ferns I found growing in the courtyard outside...


(you can see more detail if you click on the images) I then put on an aquatint ground (using speedball screen filler in an airbrush, we don't use rosin as it's pretty toxic!) and stopped out various areas to create this...



I'm still not sure which I like best (before or after the aquatint), but there's no going back now :) I blocked out the areas of tone fairly freely, with not too much of an idea of what I wanted to end up with. They're not perfect (and it's made me realise that I need much more practice inking up and printing the plate, its so hard to get it even) but they could've been worse, definitely something to build upon...



I want to try and combine some of these prints with my books, perhaps on the cover, or inside as endpapers, hopefully I'd get chance to have a play around with that next week...

double eek!

Thank you all so much for your kind comments on my post yesterday (and I'm sure it was nothing to do with a giveaway hazel you cynical thing :) ) Anyway, you all really made my day! It was quite nerve wracking overcoming my feelings that I won't be able to make good enough stuff (because the closer I come to putting something in the shop the higher my standards seem to become. I think its a subtle, yet successful, form of procrastination...)


So far so good though, and I've sold from (and restocked) the shop :)


Now, down to business... I decided (because I'm feeling super happy) to have not just one, not two, but three winners of the giveaway I mentioned in passing yesterday (whilst trying to bribe you to tell me what you think of my shop :) ) I wish I could give you all a prize, but my finances don't stretch to that much postage, so this randomly generated three it is...

ali
kaija
ciara

Send me your addresses and a little present will wing it's way to you tomorrow :)

eek

Well, I've gone and done it... I've finally put some books in my etsy shop! I opened it about a year ago but I've been working up the guts to put something in there (because it's scary isn't it :) )


So, please feel free to pop over for a visit... if you can see anything I've missed (or any spelling mistakes!) or if you think there's some useful information I should include, then any fedback would be greatly appreciated, and you guys are good at feedback, so don't be shy :)


And to celebrate (and because I haven't had one for ages) I thought I'd have a little give away... So if you leave me some constructive criticim (or advice, or just say hello!) by 6pm Wednesday then you'll be in with a chance of receiving a little something in the post...

Right, now I'm off to bite my nails a bit...

experiments

I've been doing some more etching experiments (continuing on from the vaseline ones a few months ago), this time with oil based printing ink...


The ink doeasn't hold up very well in the ferric (the chemical used to etch the plate) but because of this, and depending on the ink's thickness, it gives a lovely speckly etch, which you can see if you click on this picture to enlarge it...


It's hard to catch it at the right moment, too long and all you get is black... not a good look! I tried various ways of applying the ink; directly with a roller, transfered from another plate by passing through the press, smearing with a cloth, and inking up ferns and pressing these onto the pre aqautinted plate.

Here I applied ink with a roller, then ferns, then run it all through the press so the ferns picked up the ink and left the copper exposed. It wasn't as successful as I hoped!


And this is kind of the opposite process; ink from the ferns transferred to the aquatint plate (the scratches are becuase I was using the backs of old plates for my experiments, copper is expensive these days!) I think this has potential for use as a background, in a lighter colour (but don't get me started on colour, there's too much to think about already!)


This is the print that was left on the paper when I ran the first plate through the press...


And this one is a print of the ink left on the ferns...


I like these mono prints, you can really see the detail of the ferns if you click to make the image bigger :) And they're so quick and surprising to produce (remember the bird mono prints I did a while back? I've been wanting to have a go at that with plants (as opposed to paper cut outs) for a while now, hopefully I'll get chance to try it out next week!)

I feel like I'm getting somewhere with these etchings though, it's difficult as there are so many variables, but I also kind of like that, it's partly out of my control and I feel like that gives me the freedom to mess it up. I'm not trying to make anything 'finnished' with these, just to see what's possible. The hard bit comes when I try to take a bit more control and it becomes my fault when it looks rubbish; insted of being able to put it down to chance, fate or accident the outcome relies more on skill. Scary prospect!

more pamhlet stitch books

I was messing aroung with pamhlet stitch again today, and I came up with this...



The phots are a bit rubbish as they're from my phone, but I hope you can get the idea, it's a kind of wider version of the linked up pamphlet stitch I was talking about the other day, a kind of herringbone pattern... I'm really enjoying playing around with this stitch, seems like lots of possibilities... (I'll take some better photos soon, promise!)

I had a fun day on Sunday... My friends little girl was 4, and she had a princess tea party! It was lovely and sunny (sunny!) and we had yummy food and cake and someone dressed up as a mad hatter on stilts (slightly scary but stil quitel fun :) ) and all the little girls had lovely princess dresses on, it was great! And I made her a princess birthday cake...





And then I had a lovey walk home...

click for a better view...

Happy days :)

wet

Well after all the sun at the weekend it's been nothing but rain all week. I've lost count of the number of times my brollys blown inside out and I'm sick of wet feet. There's something nice about being wrapped up snug inside when it's pouring down with rain outside, but after 6 solid evenings of it I'm getting cabin fever...


I've been away from the computer this week, on a first aid course at work. It's been pretty intense, (home work each night an everything!) and it makes me wonder how I ever managed school... information overload :)

But it's good, and I passed my exam today, so now I'm fully qualified to do the right thing when someone stabs themself with a stanley knife, drops a weight on their foot, swallows acid, suffers hypothermia, passes out or a variety of other common print room hazards (eek!)

So I haven't been up to much craft wise, most of my spare time's been spent on an embroidery for one of my mum's friends. She chose the pattern, and it's a tricky one... all those varying shades of brown mixed up together, makes my eyes boggle!


Anyway, I'm off to my friends little girl's fairy and princess party at the weekend, all pink of course, and fairys need sunshine don't they, so here's hoping :)

Between showers, a sunny sunday...

A bit of shade...

And a cheeky chicken... (she got booted out right after this for pooing on the rug, but the dog cleaned it up, if you know what I mean so all's well that ends well... isn't nature wonderful!)

Hope you've had a sunny day too :)