New Interest

I have been absent for a few years busy with life in general as we all know it changes from time to time.
I have developed a new interest involving wood carving via a friend who creates lovely pryography and being a lover of cutting lino I felt this would satisfy the need to "carve" also providing me with a new challenge.
This was vying for first place interest against the adult colouring book craze which in the end I succumbed to and pleased I did as the desire to work with colour after so much black and white (mainly)in the printmaking has been very relaxing.
To choose the "same " colour but use in either pencil, watercolour, gouache, acrylic, graphite and anything non oil based material can achieve very nice effects. The vibrancy of one particular set of pencil I received from a dear friend for my last birthday really does compliment the whole picture. I wrestled with "using" another artists design but realised that especially with patterned images I could add to it by using colour as another dimension. The challenge to have the use of so many choices of materials and colour tones can take me weeks to decide as I view them as I would my own original pieces, live with them awhile before moving onto the next step.
The following are from book number 1, Christine Lovatts 'Inklings' which included mazes and puzzles so three times the fun . Love these shapes and designs and these are only a few.

A gentle blending of colours.

 

Feathers of a different kind.

Once I started  I found the pattern which wasn't always as obvious at first.

The orange effect cooled with green.
 

Pretty in blue hues.

 



 Book number 2,my favourite.



Glasgow Fine Arts, Charles Rennie Mackintosh

 



Art Deco Jewel. Some pages are mirrored images which gives the colourists the choice of opposing colours or matching as I have done.



 

 

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The simplicity of his design is very appealing.

 

Tiffany Lamps and Motif. This one I chose complimentary colours.

 

 

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Love this one.

 

Art Deco Illustration, Vogue front cover.

 

1920s Art Deco door.

Art Deco Motif.

Art Nouveau Tile, page dedicated to my friend using my gift so became an exercise in colour alone.

Art Nouveau Motifs. So much can be achieved with colour in one image.

This book has all the relevant information re the images from jewellery, tile motifs, furniture, buildings, gates, cars, planes, flowers and magazine covers. This is a real bonus as can be Googled  for ideas. As a printmaker the shapes and designs are what appeals to me the most and in no way is it nearly finished. I have done 21 of 89 images including doubles.  Presently I am working with one image of 6 designs though two are the same so I intend to change its' style by approaching it using colours applied in the opposite to the other one and with the rest I'm doing tonal in cool to warm colours.

 

BIRTHDAY LUNCH.

Was celebrated with three friends at lovely hilltop hotel bistro looking over the ocean. This pyrographed gift along with a bottle of my favourite wine  and the set of colouring pencils and blending stumps certainly made it a memorable day.

Jacranda .

 

WOOD CARVING.

I am such a newbie at this but really enjoy the process and the friendly chaps and ladies  who all do some amazing works with timber.

 

Leichardt timber block, 23cm squared by 17cm high. This is to eventually sit my computer screen on as at present a large book on fishing and two smaller blocks of wood suffice so my aim was to make something useful. This is a nice yellow coloured timber , soft to carve without much pressure (yet).

 

First carving and of course an art deco design. I was trying to be  adventurous but not too intimidating

  with the design , hopefully allowing for ease of carving but gave myself a bit of a challenge re the sharpness of the petals and the narrowness of some areas, never mind all will be well and it's only for myself.

 

Second day carving and cutting deeper around the image pre deciding how deep I want it before sanding.

I had thought I could practise some patterns on the side from articles I am reading about on how to create them with the tools.

Stay tuned to find out if it's successful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making another book.

This one is for my sister who I have travelled with and I find it interesting how one person relates to another family member and how individual we all are. Our interests are similar in art too.
I stayed with the same format of landscape design I used with the Double Image book for my twin but not with the concertina folds. The cover is in one piece with the pages hand stitched down the centre spine, so it doesn't open and close as normal. I printed the covering papers and splurged out for some book cloth to cover the slipcover in a darker green.

 

 

The first page has a childhood family photo and title  with her initial's embossed and intertwined.

 

Embossed lettering.

 

On the inside cover of the slipcover I printed out a timeline of our travels in between two maps of cities we had visited. One page just to add interest was a list of movies and books we had read or seen and discussed in our letters. 

 

 

We have shared kayaking on an island weekend with family, hot air ballooning for birthdays, art exhibitions, our very first opera in Melbourne, climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge for another birthday celebration, cruised to New Zealand for her 70th birthday and also went whale watching at Hervey Bay stopping at local towns to explore museums.

 

To finish the slipcover I tried for the first time quilling as I needed something to close the opening as well.

 

 

I have enjoyed making these books and learning new skills so I have started to write my own story about the workshops, exhibitions and  my private collection so that is keeping me busy and it's great

to read old notes and I keep taking photos of photos especially if I no longer have an original of a particular exercise. As I write, and thank heaven for old notebooks and journals to rely on for information that  can be forgotten, my brain plays with ideas for it's cover and how I might build the book itself especially as I will be printing it myself which means single pages so need to create a nice way to join them to form the signature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Double Image, a book for my twin.

This year has developed into my year of bookmaking which has been nice to revisit those old skills.
Presented in a red slipcover with a marbled trim and for the very first time I tried my hand at quilling and found it to be very useful though delicate to perform.Sometimes one learns new skills along the way.

I have gifted this particular book to my twin sister who lives in Brisbane . The object was for a keepsake as well as my own satisfaction of making a gift to honour our relationship.
A very simple concept where I tried to explain only in a general way to any reader what being a twin means.
Being post war babies, twins in our growing years were not as common as today's birth rate and while some people would be curious about parts of that relationship I attempted to answer those queries with photos and some text.

The structure was adapted from a book I had previously admired at Libris Awards and kept it in mind for this project. Certainly it wasn't the same design or size as it morphed as part of me from the photos. The back was one piece with the pages, only a few, hand stitched down the middle instead of the usual practice of  opening a book from the left this opened from the middle out towards the left and right, a concertina style fold.
  The marbled end cover was in one piece naturally and the back was decorated with the matching marbled paper. To conceal the start and finish of the thread presented me with challenge to hide the ends as no knots were used. I used a very long thread and stitched one way and returned   therefore covering the middle line or spine. Each loose end was glued in place under the page very neatly. To decorate the actual stitching I twisted the thread part of the way down on each end before moving onto the next hole.

Title page with hand embossed image.

Slipcover.

Folds from the middle.

Spine with a twist.

Quilled decoration.

Book Circle.

In between projects another one presented itself which I hope will be handy. A good way to use up odds and ends of old prints, paste paper, marbled papers etc, strips torn from other book making efforts which are just not the right size for another book.

Palm size notebooks that are good for shopping lists I have recycled these materials and made slip covers , reusable to suit these books.
 

                                                      

 Book Circle.

 

Once I worked out the template it progressed smoothly.

I'm putting them aside and will donate to my grand daughter's Christmas Fair.

Introducing Other Interests.

Considering I am not that active here at present, I will be adding new posts on what I have been working on at a later date.

I thought I would broaden my site and introduce a couple of my other interests. My hubby is dabbling in orchids, I used to take care of them before but art took over, along with child-minding on a reasonably regular basis and of course participating in my love of swimming.
 Just to  start it off here are a couple of his newest purchases. Always a beautiful flower which gives pleasure for so long. It is nice to have more than one at a time in our living spaces.

 

I shall leave you to enjoy these,too.

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.