Sidetacked by Inspiration

Georgia's Book.

After making the book my supplies of decorative and marbled papers was running very low. My friend is very pleased with the result.

After reading various recipes on other blogs, just a refresher as I have done paste and marbling previously but it has been so long since I had made any.
It was lovely to watch videos and see how the professional do it, so became all inspired again and collected materials together and of course up until all hours last night working.

Once started one needs to be well prepared with materials ahead of time as ideas kept running through my brain as I worked. Eventually I had to call it a day or night whichever the case maybe!!!

Some I like and some patterns not so much but that's art and I accept it and work with it. It's interesting the different bases and colours and the effects one produces. Below are some of mine.

 

I enjoyed working with the watercolour papers as compared to the finer papers.

Old photographs as stencils.

Another day in the studio and I wanted to keep nice lines in a stencil and had found that some mylar/plastic sheets etc. are too fine. I rummaged around in the spare "tool" drawer and thought to try old photographs. They are strong to work with , cut easily and gave me the finish I wanted and can store for later use. Who wants to keep cutting stencils? Anyhow here are some samples.
                                                                            

The print so far.

Number one stencil. I want to add another image for interest and possibly from a stencil.

The bird stencil printed but an unfinished edition. Still to add  another point of interest.

 

 

A book for a friend.

I have been busy making a book for my friend for her to use as a journal which she wants to present to her grand daughter in time to come. I was chuffed that  I hadn't forgotten how to stitch the book together as it is a long time I since I had made one. There is an error and any book maker will find it but for me I am treating it as part of the design as  it won't affect the book's purpose. It is 24 x 18.5 x 3.5 cm with box board covers . Ten signatures made from various old prints with cartridge paper for writing. The cover image is a print on paste paper I made especially for the book so have others from that exercise for future books. All acid free papers and adhesives were used for stability.
The introductory page is hand pulled embossed with the grand daughters first initial and a stencilled image of two adults printed as a ghost print from a stencil, hand in hand walking away into the future on the final pages.

Paste paper with leaf print.

Cover with end paper.

Vinyl plate for embossed title page.

Cover end page and title page.

Ghost stencil print.

Printing a ghost print using a stencil.

Here I am again after a long break away and I have been experimenting with stencils for a current project. I cut the image to create the stencil, inked it up in position and removed the stencil and placed a "frame " around the stencilled image to protect the good paper and placed it on and gently hand pulled the print. Depends on how much ink you use on the first image as to how good the
result of the ghost print is.
Naturally as all printmakers know lettering must be in reverse pre printing, I've made this error before!

Original stencilled image.

 

For this demonstration I simple folded the paper over.

 

 

To protect the good paper I made a "frame " and placed it in position then printed it as per normal.