That's Better...

...though you may not see the difference.  My sister kindly gave me some water based oil paints, some time ago, having heard me talk about them.  I finally tried them out.  I hadn't realised quite how big a difference there is between acrylics and oils, but this confirmed it.

Reader, I painted.

Boxed In I and II...and there's a lot to explore in this, for me, at least.  It's how I feel about ME: locked into a tiny space, unable to move much, or do a great deal.  The observant quilters among you might notice a resemblance to a log cabin block in the structure of the painting...that was certainly going through my mind as I was painting. 

I've never used water soluble oils before, so I tried monoprinting.  Okay, maybe not.  Each of these was made on paper that had been underpainted in acrylic.  The first one then had additional marks added, the other two were left as they were.  Don't think I'll be doing that again, though.  Not fussed about the red one, but rather like the other two, especially the second one.

The upside...I love painting with oil paint, it's thick, buttery, easy to work with, and this watercolour version is incredibly easy to clean up.  The downside, though, other than the oil smell, is the length of time they take to dry.  This is day three, and we're still not quite there...I don't really have enough room to have work lying around drying for days on end.  So the jury's out on what to do about it.  I suppose the simplest thing would be to stop painting, but I get a good deal of pleasure from it.  So I think I'm going to reserve judgement, and perhaps play with some more of my toys...I have both printing inks and a lot of pastels, soft and oil.  Maybe there's something I can do that will be easier to do and not take as much energy.  I'll let you know.

Sharing...

...what I know, is one of my favourite things to do.  I miss running workshops, and coaching people, more than almost everything else.  I had a visitor yesterday, and took her into the studio to see the paintings and monoprints I've been making recently.  And when she asked how I made the paintings, it seemed easiest to show her, rather than try to explain.   And these two pieces were the end result, a painting, and a monoprint taken from the painting.

The paint was quite thin, so the guidelines in the top piece are clearly visible.  I'm not actually sure that that's a bad thing.  They're both interesting, in different ways.  My friend left, determined to try it for herself, which is a good thing.  The more people making art, the better, after all. 

I told her, during the session, that the thing to do was to trust oneself, and trust the paint ( I should have said, trust the process, but hey...).  And interestingly, when going through some old journals, looking for some notes I made for a possible book (didn't find 'em), I found this.  'There is something about just letting the paint be paint... that it will ultimately be part of a landscape is irrelevant.  Work it as it needs to be worked and it will come together eventually, and you will have what you will have.'.  Which is really what I was trying to say.  At least I'm consistent: that must have been written at least ten years ago.  It works for fabric, too. 

Watercolour...

...isn't something I've worked with in a long time, but playing with Cara using Granny's Magic Crayons at the weekend inspired me to try them out on Lutradur XL.  I'm not a huge fan of acrylic on lutradur, because, unless it is thinned down to the nth degree, it blocks the little holes, which give it its transparency, in my view, its greatest asset.  Besides, it does unpleasant things to the hand of fabric, and I'm not overly keen on stitching through it.  By and large, I stick with transfer dyes for lutradur, because they do none of these things, and were designed specifically for colouring polyester.  But hey, a girl can try other things... and it's tiring, by my standards, to work with transfer dyes, because they have to be painted onto fabric, then ironed on.  Great results, and fixed, to boot...but needs must when the devil drives. 

So...I wetted out the lutradur with clear water, and started adding colour direct, mixing it on the cloth.  I chose red because there was some red dye already at the corner of the lutradur, so I wanted to work with that; watercolour wouldn't have covered it up, of course, being transparent.  The risk of doing that is that you don't like what you get... and I didn't... so I took a monoprint of sorts from the wet paint. 

I didn't bother to unscrunch the paper, hence the white tree shape to the left hand side, and the crackle texture of the print in general, which I rather like.  It got rid of a fair amount of the paint, and I was able to continue...and finally made this...

This was taken while it was still wet; it will dry slightly paler, but hopefully not too much.  I'm planning to add another wash to the reverse side, so that this can become a book after stitching.  No, you're right, it's not particularly interesting at this point...but it has lots of room for stitch...and possibly some applique... we'll see.  I then went on and played a bit more with a block of lino and some paint, to make a selection of monoprints.  I don't have enough energy for lino cutting, so that seemed to be the best way of using the block...

I did some prints on paper, some on lutradur, the last image is the one I like best, but, like the painting, it has plenty of room for stitch.  Should keep me out of mischief for a while...

Playing With Paint

If you remember, I made a couple of monoprints on paper, recently; I talked about it here.  What I don't seem to have shown you, though, is a couple of prints on small sheets of paper, ready to make a book.  Or if I did, I can't find the post....sigh.  Here they are

Basically, a print, and a ghost.  I wanted to make a few more this size, and to print on the back of these, as a base for stitch.  I thought it would be interesting to see what happened if I had random prints on front and back, and stitched in response to one side.  It could be chaos...it could not...  So today, I made a few more pages...

There's no particular rhyme nor reason to any of these.  They're based on curves, and use the same colours of paint, and that's really all they have in common, other than that all of them are printed on both pages.  I'll be machine sewing, and that will need to wait until I get my machine back from its service.  The problem with using a really well recommended local engineer is that everyone else uses him too, so I've had to wait three weeks for him to do the work, such was the length of the queue.

Here's a few in close up.

The last image is a cheat, to use up the last of the paint; it's a piece of lutradur, too small to go in a book.  It may end up in the bin...but you never know... Looking at them, perhaps hand stitch is the way to go... depends on how difficult the paint is to sew. 

Monomaking

I said yesterday that I'd talk about monoprinting a bit.  This is probably not the best example, but it's the one I've got, so... The reason it's not a good example, is that it is made using the last of the paint left over from earlier printing sessions, which had dried up a bit, and was therefore not printing as well as it might.  Usually, I would use fresh ink. 

The way we usually think of monoprinting is of a single print from a plate that has been carefully prepared for it.  But it can be done in a series of stages, as the print I'm going to show you has been done.  This one is a single print, which I took off in stages, allowing it to dry and then adding more ink.  Stage one looked like this.

It's basically brown, from the leftover paint, with hints of yellow I'd added later, and a red circle I'd added.  This is what the plate looked like before I printed again, with ink added in a specific pattern.

The previous layer does need to be dry before you do this; otherwise, you're likely to transfer ink back to the plate from the wet sections, and that usually isn't the plan.

A stage further on, and you can just pick up the red zig zag motif in the centre, though it has somehow printed more brown that red, probably because the brown on the plate is still wet.

And the final stage

I wanted to add something...a highlight colour...so I used the yellow.  It's interesting enough, but not overly so.  If I stitch into this, it will be by machine; there are now three layers of (admittedly fairly thin) ink on the cloth, and it would be unpleasant to stitch by hand.  I'm likely to add hand stitch round the edges, though, to add texture.

I'm really not sure why I'm bothering with this... perhaps I'm just lazy, and don't want to put in the work to improve my skills... perhaps I'm trying to hang on to this last vestige of painting, when really I should just let it go and concentrate on things that are not so tiring...  That said, I do think it could be a good way of adding colour and interest to the books.  The jury is definitely still out on that one.  And yes, I probably think too much.  I'm feeling my limitations today, and maybe that's all it is.

Trials...

...and the odd tribulation.  You may remember that I had some printing ink left over, so I decided to test print the two lino blocks I've managed to cut.  Test printing shows you all the little bits and pieces that you haven't cut back sufficiently, so they print, as well as the actual subject.  Just inking the block throws it all into sharp relief, allowing you to identify the areas that need to be carved away.

Here's the first of the blocks: the other one printed really well, no additional carving required.  This one, though, shows quite a bit needing to be done, mostly round the edges.  How did it print?  Well, I printed on some white cotton; here's the result.

It has printed pale; I think that's about my lack of energy.  I used the lower table, thinking it would improve the print...but it has made little difference.  Might not have used enough ink, of course, but don't think that's the case.  Should have used the press...or even stood on the block (I'm certainly heavy enough...). 

This is now sitting next to me on the sofa.  Overall, it's not a bad design or print, but I can see all the flaws.  I've trimmed a couple of the spear heads; I knew at the time that I didn't make that good a job of them, but the one on the far left is really unfortunate.  It's a bit better now, I think.  I also noticed that a couple of the individual spear shafts are wonky.  That's pretty predictable; I can't draw or cut a straight line to save myself. 

Are these things real problems?  They're irritating, certainly, but I'm not printing in order to make prints as standalone entities, but rather to use as the basis for stitch.  I can redefine any areas I'm not happy with by stitching carefully.

Incidentally, I looked again at the first of the monoprints I made last time, the one I said was irredeemable.  Here it is. 

It's not overly interesting on this side, which is why I rejected it on sight.  But as I went to throw it out, I turned it over, and found...

I had drawn into the ink through the paper with the end of the brush.  That doesn't show up particularly well on the darker side, but the marks have seeped straight through on the other.  I suspect that, stitched, these will make interesting book pages.  So I've set it aside, and will make some more in these stronger colours (stronger compared to the monoprints I showed you earlier, which were made on similar paper, in much lighter colours).

The jury is out on printing, though.  I will set up the press, but what I've always enjoyed about print making has been the directness of hand burnishing or rolling the print.  It's not the same, using a press; the immediacy is lost, along with the ability to print selectively, by choosing areas of the plate, and placing a particular area of the paper or cloth onto it, to take a small print.  I do that quite a bit with monoprints, I'll show you, tomorrow.  Looking at these results, though, I'm not convinced that the game is worth the candle.

Waste Not...

...well, yes, I have a thing about not wasting paint.  And there was some left over from the painting I did on the last piece so...reader,  I made monoprints.  Well, technically, one monoprint and one ghost print.  I had been given some interesting paper, just the right size for the inside of a pamphlet book, so...

A ghost print, if you're not familiar with the term, is the second print from any given monoprint plate. There isn't anything like the amount of paint left, hence the term 'ghost'. The texture of the second piece of paper, which holds the ghost print, is quite interesting.  I think, for once, I'll leave the white as it is, it works fairly well.  I don't have any more white at this size, which will make the book more interesting, I hope, though I will stick to pastel colours.  And because of the nature of a single signature pamphlet book, I will only add perhaps another two sheets, three at most.   There's a fair amount of work to be done before they are made into a book, though.  Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, there needs to be another monoprint made on the other side of the paper, because books are three dimensional (yeah, I know, I'm repeating myself...). And then the same with the other pages. Interestingly, fortunately and completely coincidentally, there's clear space on both sides of the print, allowing me to add words....hurrah... and that will have to be repeated throughout the book. 

So now, I need to work out how many pages, what the theme is (landscapes, I suspect, and possibly  Norfolk landscapes, more specifically), what the words are (I may already have a poem...but I think I have a different idea...so perhaps a new one).  And what the cover will be.  But it's a good start...and all because I didn't want to waste some paint.  See what I mean about ideas?  They're ten a penny.  All you have to do is pay attention.

Monoprint Magic...

...was the title of a workshop I gave at Festival Of Quilts.  'What's so magical about monoprints?', one participant asked in a rather snippy voice, 'I've done them before, I didn't think that there was much magical about it.'  Ouch.  Well, I said, we're using transfer paints.  The magic of transfer printing is that you the one (or two) prints that you usually get from a monoprint plate, becomes four (or five, if you're lucky) prints, as the exhaustion point of the paint is much later than it would be using printing ink.  Oh, she said.  I suspect she was unimpressed...but she seemed to have fun anyway, so it can't have been that bad.

I've written about monoprints, too, in the Evolon book, as a good way of developing a series.  So I guess it was inevitable that when I went through the Evolon I'd kept, I would find a couple of monoprints.  These two are, I suspect, Print One and Print Five, as they get paler and paler as the dye exhausts. 

As you can see, I had already started to work with both.  Print One is clearly the stronger of the two; that yellow really sings.  It needed a treatment that was equally as strong, so I started by needle felting a piece of yarn onto the background.  I think I may add another two, and then see where we go from there. 

Print Five, though, is delicate, much too delicate for needle felting. I really like the structured stitching in the lower section of the piece, it seems to work well.  It was intended to reflect the way that the paint has transferred in this version. 

You can see the lines of texture running across the piece, as the dye exhausts at different rates, allowing the texture to show through; whilst there are similar lines in Print One, they are by no means as obvious. 

So far so good.  It's when it comes to the top section that I changed my mind.  I wanted to have something unstructured up there, originally, as a counter to the structured stitching below.  I didn't want the colour or the stitching to stand out too much, so I selected a variegated green/white/blue.

...and as you can see, you can't see it.  It Just Doesn't Work.  Dammit.  I did consider increasing the size of the stitches...but that didn't seem to work any better, and then I discovered I couldn't find the original thread....so this stitching is Coming Out.  Sigh.  It's going to be replaced with this:

And this is so not what I intended...but I think it's what's needed.  A darker variegated thread, much larger stitches.  I had in mind light rain when I decided how to stitch it.  I think it's an improvement.  I suspect it might have been better if I'd been able to cover that whole area in those small stitches, first, but you have to work with what you've got...well, okay, I have to work with what I have, for a whole load of reasons that I won't bore you with. 

More stitching tomorrow, I think.  And if you want to read more about monoprinting, put monoprinting into the search box at the top of the post, and you'll find other discussions.

Another Rescue.

This piece really needed something... It started off as a piece of vintage tablecloth, which I'd hand dyed.  Two lots of hand stitch had added texture, but not a lot else.  I didn't want to paint into it; I felt that would make things worse, but my linocuts are far too small to be meaningful on this size of piece.  No, it's not that big...but big enough...

So, I found a piece of mountboard that was roughly the same size, and decided to make a monoprint.  The original colour I chose was a metallic turquoise blue, but there wasn't enough contrast for me, so I mixed it with some white, into two different shades, and added two more lots of pattern.  And here is the result:

Looking at it in an image, clears the mind... I'm going to trim the unprinted section at the bottom, and possibly turn it on its side...PSP says it might look a bit like this...

And then Yet More Stitch?  Possibly.  And I might paint into it, and/or add embellishments.

You can see quite clearly from the mountboard how the printing actually went...

On the principle of waste not, want not, I'm contemplating adding an watercolour wash to this, and then possibly using it as a base for a collage.  Textile, of course...

More Finds...

It's interesting, this little cache of work I've found.  It varies from manipulated and stitched photographs, like this one,

which I've stitched in two versions...

When I showed it on FB, almost everyone preferred the one on the top, the one with more stitch.  I agreed...but now, I'm not so sure.  Both are stitched with a dark variegated metallic thread.

And then, I| found this.

It's called Norfolk Fields, and it's a combination of monoprint and painting.  I love the Norfolk landscape, the huge flatness of it all, the long avenues of trees and the enormous skies.  It's stunning.  I'm reminded that landscape and things natural are really where my art is rooted, though it's not always immediately apparent.  It's just that I'm as fascinated by the inner landscape as by the external landscape that surrounds us.

Just to give you a closer look at Norfolk Fields, here are a couple of details...

My work has always been diverse, and I think these two pieces epitomise it.  Fortunately, I don't feel I have to choose between mediums, between methods; it's all expression, in the end, all creativity.  It is as it is.

More To Monoprinting...

...than meets the eye.  I usually monoprint with ink, fabric paint or transfer paints, but today, for some unknown reason, I decided to monoprint with transfer dye, instead.  In case you're wondering, the difference (as they used to say on a long defunct advert) is in the thickness; transfer paints are thicker than transfer dyes.  I'm really rather pleased with the results.  The paper I'm using is newsprint, my paper of choice for working with transfer dyes and paints, as it is thin and therefore doesn't hold onto as much of the dye as a thicker paper might.  And here are the end results, with one or two painted papers mixed in.

These are, as you can see, fairly large papers, so the monoprinting process was done, not on glass, or my favourite plastic, but direct onto the surface of a picnic table; worked a treat.  Here's a closer look at one of the prints.

Monoprinting has to be the simplest form of printing, and the most direct.  However, there is, I believe, more to it than meets the eye when you're working in textile.  The six million dollar question for me is, where is the stitch going to go?  There has to be room for stitch in your design; if it looks absolutely perfect without stitch, then it probably is, and you should leave it be.  If it's really ornate and fiddly, there might also not be room for stitch.  So I like to keep my monoprinting simple, and try to remember that this is not the end of the process, but rather, the beginning.

The other half-day workshop I'm teaching at FOQ is on monoprinting (Friday and Sunday).  I've been working on some small samples to show my pupils, and to hang on the stand, as well as making up monoprint kits to sell.  The workshop is called 'Monoprint Magic'.  So, what's the magic?  Well, that would be telling...you'll just have to come and take part, to find out!