Back To The Books...

...at least for a moment.  I had cut a few 'pages' from an accordion book, made from Lutradur XL, and because they were lying around, and a bit battered, decided to experiment on them.  So I started by giving them a coat of acrylic paint, and then stitched into them to suggest a landscape.

Not the most exciting thing you'll ever see, but a good basis for continuing.  It had been a long time since I'd machine stitched on paint, so wanted to check that this wash wasn't going to give me any problems (and it didn't).  I had intended to add more acrylic paint in each section, a mixture of colours and marks progressing down the page, with a slightly different set of colours on each page, to suggest changing weather and/or times of day.  When I got round to actually doing something with it, though, there happened to be some watercolour crayons on the table.  I wonder....I thought... and this is what happened...

I like these strong blocks of colour, though I suspect they suggest different seasons, rather than times of day.  I was quite surprised by how well the watercolour sat on the fabric, though I suspect the acrylic underpainting was the cause of that.  I was even more surprised when I turned over to work on the other side...

The colour had bled through two layers of underpainting (one on either side), and  I think they work really well.  This side has a completely different feel to the reverse, and I'm pleased.  There were a couple of sections where the paint hadn't migrated, but a bit more water on the reverse side sorted that out.  I'd like to add some text, but the words haven't suggested themselves, so we'll just have to wait until they do. 

The Last...

...of the recent batch of monoprints.  Well, not the absolute last: rather, the last of the monoprints I can hand stitch.  Those that remain, have too much paint on them to make hand stitch comfortable, so will be machine stitched.   

I think this is my favourite of this current batch.  More colour variances, and varied texture and marks.  The stitch is pared back to allow those things to show through.  The blanket stitch is perhaps a bit heavy handed...though it looks better in real life. 

Coming to the end of a cycle of work is always problematic...what to do next?  I've started a small creativity group on Facebook, based around a monthly prompt.  I have a few ideas around that, so at least that's something.  However, they're mostly around paint, and I need to have some bits and pieces to do by hand on days when I'm sofa bound...so that needs to be thought about.  I've got a few bits and pieces tacked up and ready to go, so perhaps one of them.  They need a bit more thought, though.

Meanwhile, given I'm set up for paint... I wanted to experiment with Lutradur XL and paint, so, while I was monoprinting, I used some of the excess paint to put a wash on a piece that had been part of a larger book, but cut away when I changed my mind about it.  I then added some machine stitch.

 It's effectively the same colour, both  sides, but with different thread, plain on one side, variegated on the other.  Yup, more landscape... one of my defaults.  I think what this one wants, is to explore the idea of weather, and the changes in light, and therefore colour, that there are when there is a change in the weather.   Which doesn't exactly fit the bill for hand work...but hey... you do the work you have in front of you.

Another One Bites The Dust...

another hand made book, that is (hands up everyone who now has Freddie Mercury's dulcet tones in their ears...?).  Here is the reverse side of the purple watercolour landscape book, finally finished.

As a comparison, here's the front...

They're similar, but by no means identical.  If you look closely, you'll see the stitching on both sides.  Of course, the reverse side doesn't have the heavier thread, but it doesn't seem to have lost anything as a result.  I'd like to say it was carefully designed to fit the stitch...but it wasn't...   I'm pleased with it.  Will I add text?  Possibly.  I need to think about it, look at the piece for a while, see what suggests itself.  Writing, for me, is just the same as art making...it's fairly spontaneous, but also fairly focused. 

As you'll recall, the colour for the reverse side was transfer dye, and that means that I could get a minimum of three, and up to five (if I'm lucky) prints from the same piece of painted paper.  So I happened to have another piece of Lutradur XL cut and ready to make into a book, so it seemed reasonable to turn that into another purple landscape piece.

The colours here are more intense; that's because I ironed them on longer.  The amount of pressure and the length of time you iron a piece will affect the intensity of the colour transferred on the cloth.  I deliberately made the first of the transferred images relatively light, to reflect the tones on the painted side of the book, but this one, I wanted to be stronger.  I contemplated simply ironing onto the reverse, but decided that I was too tired, and that it would be much more interesting to add paint on the reverse, so that's for another day.  Two for the price of one...always a good deal.  Well, okay, one and a half...but who's counting...

It's Amazing...

...how much more energy I have if I don't fiddle about with a computer...  Someone cut a BT cable during some work, plunging Bo'ness and Linlithgow into internet darkness for a day and a bit.  So...I started to develop some new work (of which more anon) and existing work, namely the watercolour landscape I spoke of last time . 

I started by folding the book, so that I could see how each 'page' worked.  As it turned out, it also made the piece easier to handle with the sewing machine, as I could fold and unfold as I went along.  I'm happy enough with the colour and structure ... now, it needed stitch.

I started with some variegated cotton, in purples: it doesn't show up all that well in the main image, but you can see it nicely in the detail.

I wanted some sort of contrast, some heavier thread, so raked out some Madeira Decora, which I put in the bobbin.  I haven't used it in a very long time, and  struggled with it, somewhat...but decided to leave some of the catches in the stitching as they were, added texture ( she said firmly)...

Not necessarily a good decision...but I don't want to run the risk of redoing the stitch, and missing the original holes... so it's going to stay as it is.  So, as I say, not necessarily a good decision, but the best I can make in the circumstances.  I've kept it very, very simple.  I don't feel the need to add more stitch.  I had contemplated adding some applique...but I think that would be overkill.  A poem, perhaps, but no more visual imagery, I think there's enough going on as it is.  It's interesting to swap between the individual landscapes, as designated by the folds that make up the pages, and the entire landscape, across them all.  Anything else would be distracting.

Being a book, of course, this isn't the only side that's important.  The reverse needs to have treatment, too...  Some of the watercolour has leaked through, so the choice of colour is already made for me.

Why?  Because whatever I add, the watercolour would mix with it.  And, on reflection, I don't want the colour on the other side to shift at all...so I need to add dry colour, rather than wet. That rules out conventional paint of any kind.  I could fuse on fabric, but then I would lose the stitch, and I want to retain that.  So... I painted up a piece of paper with transfer dyes in these colours.  That monoprint I showed you was on a large piece of paper, and there was enough room on it to colour a piece for dye transfer, so that I was sure that it was both deep and wide enough to cover the entire strip. 

So far so good... now all I have to do is iron on the colour...

This wasn't the only piece I worked on yesterday... I went on and painted more paper, as I had the paints out anyway... printed with some bubblewrap...  and I designed and stitched another piece... and then had to lie down... but hey, I had fun.  More anon.

Turning Over A New Leaf...

or, in this case, turning a leaf into a book...books are made from leaves, right?   I've been contemplating making shaped accordion books, and decided to make a couple of small ones, just to be sure it would actually work... well, you know how it is...  A leaf shape seemed a good idea...

Not only did it work, they actually stand upright...though, given that they're yellow, they're more reminiscent of lemons, than leaves...so...

That's a bit better...  This has potential, I think... so I went from the leaf, to the tree... drawing an outline first, and then following it...roughly...with the scissors... well, I don't colour in the lines, so why would I pay attention to the lines I've drawn...

Mind you...these have been cut from card; I'm not sure that making them in fabric, other than in Lutradur XL, would actually allow them to stand up... but the principle is good.  Perhaps if they're stitched intensely, and made from the heaviest Lutradur other than XL... Hmm...

Playing With Cara...

...as I did on Monday (school holiday), resulted in Granny's Magic Crayons.  She likes drawing...here's my favourite of what she produced. 

So, when she got fed up, and moved on to something else, I had a turn.  'Oh, that's beautiful, Gran', she said, 'It's awfully big, though'.  Err...it's A4... everyone's a critic...

It's really just a doodle....so, when I wanted to refresh my memory as to how to make a slightly different folded book, this was what I used.  First, though, I had to draw on the reverse...

You can see the difference adding water makes; it softens the lines, and spreads the colour over the piece.  So... folded once down the vertical centre line, and three times, equally, across the horizontal, then flattened out, plus a single cut down three quarters of the central line...and hey presto!  a folded book.

I find it intriguing, how the pattern, already abstract, becomes even more so, once folded.  It's unpredictable.  I have to say, I prefer the blue side, rather than the yellow, but they sit well together.  Shall I add words?  Probably not...not convinced I have anything to say about this piece, just a bit of frivolity, really, to remind me how this particular book sits. 

Growl.

Having a frustrating day (and it's not even 11 am).  Woke very early, around 5am, and couldn't get back to sleep, so read a bit, got up around 6.30am, which lots of people do routinely (like Robin, for example), but I'm so not a morning person...  Thought I would do a bit of stitch on the book from last time...here's the image of the reverse of  one of the first pages that I promised you...it works fairly well.

So, finished the second of the two leaves on that spread, which I had left half done, and started on the second spread.  I admit, my heart sank somewhat when I realised what I had to stitch.  One side is another one of these leaves...but the other...isn't...sigh...it's a good deal more fiddly...

So, I did one, and left the other two for another day, as my energy had dropped considerably after that.   Here's the reverse...

So...I thought I'd have a wee browse. I came across these fairly abstract goddesses while browsing through the box I showed you a few days ago...

They are rubbings of an original lino cut, using metallic Markal paint sticks, or Shiva sticks if you're in the US.  Not overly keen on the green one, but the other two seem to work quite nicely.  These were done a very long time ago, probably when I was demonstrating for Colourcraft; the fabric is a bit of my hand dye.  I was going to stitch them individually, or as they are in that pairing, ignoring the green one altogether (or cutting her up, perhaps)...but I did think, they would be more interesting 'framed' with a contrasting fabric.  Did I have a suitable fabric?  Of course I didn't.  Well, actually, I do have one that would work, but there's not enough of it.  Hey ho.  Frustrating?  Yes.  Do I really know what it is I want?  No, not really....sigh.  A batik, maybe. Do I have the energy to dye something suitable?  Oh, don't be silly...  So no, I won't be doing anything with them, anytime soon. 

So...I may not have achieved much, but I did achieve a bit.  I'm not going to consider why I'm not overly enthusiastic about the leaf book; that's altogether too big a topic for today.  Nothing seems to be working as planned at the moment. Dammit
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Back To The Books...

You might remember that I made some linocuts based on a piece I made that featured spears and shields...or trees and leaves, depending on how you thought about it... see it here .  I can't find a post about the book I made through printing the blocks on Lutradur... but it has been lying around the studio, waiting for me to generate energy... reader, I started... this is the 'cover'.

I have to say, this is much more my kind of stitch.  I'm colouring outside the lines again... it matches the fairly rough and ready nature of the prints.  Here's a closer look...

Proof, if proof were ever needed, that I couldn't do a straight line if you paid me for it.  Partly that's to do with the lutradur (like I need an excuse...).... I'm used to working with at least two layers of cloth, one of which is normally wadding, or maybe velvet; this is a single layer of lutradur, and the foot is levitating above the cloth.  Every twitch of the hand shows in the stitch because it's so light, it moves in a disproportionate manner.  My hands are clearly very twitchy.  Overall, though, I don't think it detracts; it's unusual to look so closely at one particular section, like this, divorced from the whole.  And had it been a big deal to have straight stitch, I would have used a walking foot, rather than a darning foot, and all would have been...errr...regular...and probably boring. 

Note the distortion, too, again to do with the weight of the cloth.  I think it'll iron out to a great extent, and I think it gives the piece some character...it seems to age it, a bit, the way that old paper distorts and crinkles slightly as it gets older.

I ran out of steam half way through the second leaf, but it'll get done, slowly, but steadily.  I meant to take images of the back, but forgot; part of the reason for the intensity of the stitch is that the reverse side is significantly paler than the front, unsurprisingly.  I'm using a darker thread on the reverse, and it seems to be working reasonably well.  More to follow as I work through the pages.

Working It Out.

I've had a maze book folded for some time, waiting for me to do something with it.  You may remember, I showed you some work I'd found when unrolling what I thought was some plain paper (see it here), and said I would make books with it...well, this is the dry run for those.  I wanted to see how paper of this size folded into a maze.  So, having done most of what I wanted with the previous books, I thought I'd play with this one, rather than make something from scratch.

I had an idea.  I was going to play with the idea of 'taking a line for a walk', Paul Klee's well known description of drawing, by adhering scraps of rust dyed silk to the book, and then stitching to connect them.  The silk, however, when I positioned the first piece, had other plans...and here's the first page.

I think what interested me first, was the space surrounding the scrap (try to imagine it without the stitch).  Rather than stitch it down, though, I wanted to surround it with stitch, cage it in some way, so that it was held within that space.  This was the result...and here are the two pages that combine with it, when the book is opened, to make a spread.

Each piece has its own definitive space, a different shape, a different positioning on the paper, and it's own cage.  Here is the spread:

The spread tells a different story, somehow.  The balance is different...on reflection, that central piece might have been better, had it been smaller...but I don't want to change it.  Something to think about as I work the remaining spreads. 

Of course, each spread has its reverse :

The reverse embraces a fourth page, but the stitch is at the top of the page, and doesn't relate to anything on the other side...that's because it is folded in a similar way to the last book; if you remember, there was a section which was folded in on itself, like this :

I'm talking about the green V shape to the left of the book.  Instead of leaving that open, in this book, I've stitched the two pages that constitute the V shape to each other at the top, creating a pocket for an inclusion.  And that's as far as I've got.  I like it when the materials dictate what the piece wants to be.  It relates now to the other 'fragments' pieces I've made.  Not sure if I'll leave the stitching as it is on the reverse, or do something else with it...that remains to be seen, and probably won't be decided until the whole piece is stitched.

Done?

...maybe.  I speak of the book I started as a trial run, here.  I found enough energy to finish the reverse, so here it is in it's penultimate incarnation.

Despite what you're seeing in the images, the colour on the reverse runs the other way from the front...you can just see that the pink on the 'back' has green on the 'front' (it's peeping through on one of the folds). I thought about adding more curved lines to the 'back', but instead, I think I'll add individual words, to make up a poem.  I may collage them on, rather than writing them...but first, I have to work out what they are... always a good thing...

You can just see the large box of pastels I was using, along with a smaller box.  I do have a lot of pastels (there are a couple more boxes in the studio); fortunately, they don't take up as much room as, say, paint.  I used several, blended together, to get the colours you see here...that's my excuse for having such a large selection.  I may not have a fabric stash any more, but I do have a lot of pastels...

Yes, I Know...

...I did wax lyrical about building time into the process...but...   I looked carefully at the book, and realised that, actually, there's a theme already there... it's about curves.  The brain is a wonderful thing; it insists on finding meaning in seemingly random marks.  It's a tendency I'm profoundly grateful for.  To my intense surprise (I'd love to say it was planned, but it so wasn't...), each of the spreads created by combining the three monoprints in book form, seems to create a new coherent whole, with a flow from one side of the page to the other.  Have a look, see what I mean.  Each of the spreads comprises one side that is the reverse of a print, and one right side of the next print (if you see what I mean), with the exception of the centre spread, where both sides are the reverse of the print.  Come to think of it, I could have turned one of the prints round, so that I got the print side showing as the spread, but actually, I think this way is best.

Spread One:

The first spread is quite intriguing (okay, I find them all intriguing, what can I say, I'm an artist, it's what we do...).  This one has two curves, which seem to echo each other, but they do meet in the middle...can you see it?  Interestingly, if you placed the original prints together, they look quite different, but combined in this way, they seem similar to some degree. 

Spread two:

To me, this reads almost like a semi-abstract snail, or a strange beast of burden...but you can see the curve running from the top of the 'head' to the base of the 'shell'. 

Spread three:

Here, you can see how different the reverse of a print really is.  This, to me, looks similar to a ghost print, the second print that you take from a monoprint.  The stitches on the left hand side have a really random feel; I like the sense of space that I get from it...this time, the strong curve shown by the dark stitches then continues on and upwards, over the egg-like shape on the second page. 

Spread four :

Here, the dark curve above what appears, on this side, to be more circular than ovular, continues on into the lighter area, sitting inside a second curved shape suggested by the print.  The straight lines of that dark curve on the left are echoed by the lighter, longer lines in that curved shape on the second page. 

Spread five :

This is the most visually incoherent of the spreads, but there is still a suggestion of a curve, in two places, though one is not as obvious in the image as it is in real life.  The first of those curves sits where the pages meet, the lines stitched into the beige coloured area on the left, meet the curves stitched into the lower brown area on the right.  More abstractly, though, the upward  movement of  that beige area continues until it meets the brown semicircular area at the centre top of the opposite page.   Interestingly, this is the only other spread in the book where the stitch appears more abstract in places.  I think that idea of stitch on one side not matching the stitch of the other side, is something I'd like to explore. 

So, there you are.  One finished book, other than the stitch to bind it.  I think its name is Curvilinear.  Interestingly, I've already made a quilt with that name, a long time ago, admittedly...the two are not particularly similar; you'll find it here, in a post entitled 'Creative Surprises'.  Not unlike this book, really.

The Last Page...

...is finally complete. 

I wanted to continue the theme of long, straight lines that I started in the 'tail' section of the larger motif, so used blanket stitch again in the circular section.  That, of course, meant that I was limited in the number of stitches I could get into the small circle at the centre, so I ended up adding a couple more straight stitches in places that seemed too wide by comparison with the others (if you see what I mean).  I don't think you can tell the difference, really. 

And then there's the vertical secondary motif.  That is made up of long, straight stitches, couched down with that same thread, as in the 'tail' section.

The reverse of this side is intriguing...for some reason, it reads in a circular format, rather than a straight line...who knows how that happened.  But for the vertical lines to make visual sense, I decided to whip them, to make coherent lines.

What next?  I hear you holler.  Well... ostensibly, I sew the pages together.  In practice, however, I'm going to leave them for a week or so, and go back to them.  I'm contemplating drawing on them, and it would be easier to do that if I leave them unbound.  I'm undecided, and the best thing to do for that, is to build some time into the process.  We get too close to the work while it's being done, and stop seeing it objectively. 

I'm still not sure if these pages make a coherent whole, but perhaps that's the point.  That's another reason to live with this a wee while, and see what emerges.   There's a lot to be said for having no deadlines or imperatives other than the lack of energy; I don't have to make immediate decisions any more.  The lack of energy has its upside, though there is only the one... I no longer procrastinate.  I can't afford to; I don't know from day to day whether I'll have any energy at all, so I tend to use it while I do.  I've always said that procrastination comes from fear; the only fear I have left is that I'll be bedridden and unable to do the work, or anything else, for that matter, so I choose to work when I'm able, and try not to waste too much time on regretting the amount of time I wasted in the past.  Sigh.

Thinking Back And Front...

...albeit coincidentally, at least at first.  Working on the last page of the book, I decided I wanted something as textured as the chenille whipped stitches, but not using chenille (mutter, mutter)...so chain stitch, it was.

I rather like that.  I liked the way it worked on the reverse, too.

Pure fluke, I have to say...but then I started to think about it all in earnest.  The simplest thing to do, would have been to have worked more chain stitch within the motif, but that didn't work for two reasons...firstly, I thought it was boring.  And predictable. Secondly, and more importantly, the motif stretches over two pages, and I wanted something to work across the fold, and that meant something other than just reinforcing the overall motif.  So, I worked long stitches on the 'tail' of the motif, but quickly realised two things...one, that the need to fold the paper would mean that those long stitches were likely to gape, or at least, move around, and the second, that it would give nothing to look at on the reverse, other than a small stitch top and bottom, if that.  So, killing two birds with one stone, I couched the long stitches down, using the same thread.  And because it is a hand dyed thread, with variations in colour and tone, it reads, close up, as if it was a different thread.  That was, I got lines on both sides of the paper, clearly delineating this section of the motif.  Hurrah.

More tomorrow (I ran out of steam).