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.

Printing...

one of the books that I'm planning around the theme of shields and spears.  I've now carved a couple of lino blocks for that, with a couple left to do....enough for now, I thought, even though one of them was only partially finished. And, just to prove I've learned my lesson, note my (relatively) tidy work surface...

I decided to use acrylic paints this time, combined with a medium that delays the drying time, so that the ink doesn't just dry on the plate.  For once in my life, I followed the instructions; I was a tad alarmed by the idea that too much medium might mean that the paint doesn't dry at all.  It's one thing to get the ink from newspapers on your fingers; entirely another when the visual art comes off on your hands...  \I mixed my own colour, a combination of three paints.  Someone once told me not to use paint straight out of the tube; it was important for an artist to mix their own colours.  And so I have found it.  It's a meditative thing to do, and allows you to really think about the effect you're trying to achieve, and the colour that will do that for you.  It took several tests before I was happy with the colour, somewhat warmer than the dark brown out of the tube.

 The blocks are too small for a double page, and besides, other than the central spread, they aren't seen like that within the structure of the book, so I needed to select elements to print on each individual page.  I started with the partially carved block; here's the test print.

The bit I hadn't thought through was that the whole thing would print, not just the leaf.  Fortunately, I liked that result...if I hadn't, there would have been a lot more carving to do before I could have used it.  I may well cut one of the remaining blocks in half, and carve a block specifically like this, to use in the future. 

I started to print the five pages that make up the signature (the technical word for a combination of pages, if you haven't come across it before).  I wanted a random combination of images, but started with the central motif.

It became obvious quite early on that I couldn't print on both sides of the pages; lutradur is semi transparent, so the print can be seen on the other side, though, as it is printed, not dyed, it hasn't come right through; it's like having a shadow.  And that was okay, because I intended to stitch, so the shadow would be supported by the stitch.  And, without overtly thinking it through, that had been my intention from the start.  What I hadn't realised, though, was that I needed to vary on which side of the lutradur I printed, so that there would be an interesting visual mixture of strong and weak prints.  I only managed to do that once, though... a combination of getting carried away and brain fog...sigh.  I'll be more deliberate about it the next time I make a pamphlet book in this way.

I struggled with deciding what to do with the cover.  In the end, I decided to print the same thing on both front and back covers, and here it is.

I think that works well; the image is a strong one, an eye catching way to present the piece, I hope.  When the ink was dry, I folded the book and combined the pages, mixing up the different images to avoid having the same thing twice.  The joy of working with semi transparent material, is that you get more than you usually would, when you look at the open pages.  Here's a look at that central page again, this time combined with the rest of the pages.

That effect will be something to consider in the future.  And now I'm stuck.  I want to stitch this with the machine, and I still don't have it back (hopefully this week).  Overall, though, I'm pleased with the way it has worked...for once, pretty much as I thought it would.  It needs a poem...I have two of three lines, but one refuses to come.  It'll doubtless arrive in its own sweet time...words are not as biddable as paint.

Slowly, Slowly...

...may well catchee monkey, but when it's the only speed you've got, it's a pain in the bahookie.  I want to make another book,  a series of books, really, and decided it would be interesting to do it in lutradur.  The semi transparent nature of the cloth, and its natural stiffness in the heavier weights, make it an interesting choice.  And as luck would have it, I found some precut pieces in the lutradur box (this is lutradur 100), offcuts from the kits I used to sell. A bit of judicious trimming, and they were ready to take some background colour.

I chose Naples Yellow acrylic, in the end, a slightly dusky yellow that provides a good contrast to browns, but not overly dark.  I watered the paint to a watercolour consistency because whilst I want the colour, I don't want the semi transparent nature of the cloth to be hampered by the solid nature of undiluted acrylic paint; that will come with the prints I will add to the pages later.  And that's pretty much the extent of my activity today.  Fortunately, however, whilst I doubt I'll be able to do much more, I can at least think (well, for a while, anyway).

My process has always been to turn up at the empty page, or piece of cloth, and do what seemed necessary according to my inner artist, unconscious mind or whatever's in charge when I work.  That doesn't seem to work well with a book.  The writers among you (hi, Ann) will not be surprised by this, given the amount of planning, writing, rewriting and editing necessary to produce either a novel or a piece of non fiction (and don't start me on poetry...).  With a visual book, it's even more important that one's intention, at least, is clear, because, unlike a novel, the sequencing is not clear.  My intention for this particular book, is to use the spear/tree, shield/leaf motifs that I've been cutting from the lino (here's the one I'm working on just now)

And that's as far as I've got.  Because whilst I know these motifs are important to me, I'm not sure exactly why...and the why is the core of the art, both visual and poetic .  I'm not stuck, exactly.  I can poddle along with the mechanics of the making, the carving, the printing, the assembly.  I know what the centre of the book will look like, though not the cover (apparently this one needs a cover, who knew...) or the sequence of images before and after it.  And it needs a poem.  I think.  Or maybe it doesn't.  Maybe it needs random words, for now, and the poem will emerge over time.  I suspect that it's not one of these very short pieces I've been writing for the books, but rather a longer piece, that will extend across several books.  And perhaps those books will need their own case.  Or bag.  Yeah, bag.

And this is how my creativity works (you may have noticed).  It doesn't really matter if I can start with nothing, or not.  What's important, is that I keep asking myself the questions, and make, in response to the answers. 

Working With Metaphor

Remember this piece?  I talked about how it developed here and here

It's called Spear.  I talked with my friend Ann Godridge about its meaning.  My original intention was to create a semi abstract tree, with a leaf shape and a rectangular shape that didn't seem to have any meaning at all.  And yet it ended up feeling as if it was a spear and a shield.  I talked about how that seemed important to me, because I felt I needed some sort of defense, mainly against the attitudes of other people towards my illness.  It's not easy, having a physical illness that is dismissed as 'all in your head'.  Or when friends disappear, for whatever reason, other than the illness.  Or when I become invisible in a wheelchair.  It all hurts, and I need some sort of defense against that pain, until I get used to it all, grow a thicker skin, get used to having no friends other than the virtual ones.

I think this is the ideal example of an experimental piece turning into an expressive piece.  Playing about with those elements in an experimental way produced an unexpected depth of meaning which pleases me, and helps me to understand things better.  So I started to play around with the spear and the shield, with the intention of making a series of linocuts.  I recently bought a load of softcut, expecting to teach a workshop which was cancelled under me,  so I had a lot of 'stuff' to use, and the shapes of both spear and shield seemed to lend themselves to linocut.  So... here are three variants on this theme :

I could have made the leaf/shield shapes solid, but chose to work them as if I was making a stencil.  I think it will add a little visual interest.  I think the triangles within the leaf shapes might be too solid, but I won't really know that until I cut them, or possibly until I actually print with them.  I think it's important to remember that I'm not making prints as prints.  Rather, I'm making prints as a base for stitch.  The stitch will ultimately be more important than the print, so I want to make sure that there's plenty of room for it, and also that no single element of the print will dominate the piece.  There's a danger of that with these triangles, so it's something to watch.

I had a hospital appointment, so that was the ideal opportunity to sketch some more.  I said that I don't usually use sketchbooks to develop work, but linocut is a definite exception.  This sketchbook is exactly the same size as my blocks, so working out how the different elements will combine is useful.  I find that marks on softcut don't erase all that well, so I like to work things out properly before I mark the design. 

I think I like the bottom one better...the top one may prove to be a little cluttered.  Nonetheless, when I've got the size of the shields right, it will probably feel more balanced (one side is clearly larger than the other). 

These sketches aren't perfect; I didn't have a ruler with me, so the division across the blocks is approximate, for example, not to mention the wonky spears...  I also discovered that it's not easy to draw in a wheelchair, even in a hardback journal; no flat surface.  At home, I have my legs up on a footstool, which makes them level; they are on a slant in the wheelchair.  Don't think there's anything I can do about that, other than work in a smaller journal, which would be easier to handle.  Lugging a work board around really isn't an option....but I digress.

You can see how straightforward it is to take a couple of elements and combine them in different ways to make different images.  I have at least one other to try out.  I did have a day of panic when I couldn't find my lino cutters, which, unlike the missing felting needles, would have been expensive to replace (they're professional quality, as I really couldn't get on with the wee cheap red handled things).  Fortunately, though, I found them this morning, in just the place I thought of at three o'clock this morning....insomnia has to be useful for something.

So...more development and some cutting.  Wish me luck.

Oops, I Did It Again....

I jumped to a conclusion, too quickly.  Or rather, I was lazy.  I thought there was something not quite right about the spear/tree piece, but I ignored myself.  And then my friend, writer and fellow textile peep Ann Rawson piped up on FB... 'not so sure about the bottom leaf shape, she said.  Damn.  So...
being lazy, again, I didn't want to detach the leaf, because I'd never get that stitching again...but I did want to have some sort of extra space in that shape...so, reader, I cut into the leaf.  And not happy with just that, I cut into the rectangle, too...

On reflection, should have left that rectangle alone....but the leaf is right.  And it's finished now.
Unless I stitch into that rectangle, where I cut it... but I might not.  And no, I'm not doing *another* blog post if I do... so you may never know.  Ann's a crime writer; I'm sure she'll appreciate the suspense.  And thank you, Ann, for the gentle nudge.  I needed it today.

Changing My Mind, or Stitch Changes Everything.

So... remember that red velvet piece?  Yes, this one...

Remember I said that this was it?  Reader, I was wrong.  And why was that?  Well... it was stitch.  Stitch changes everything.  I started to assemble the piece, as you do, with that top left lutradur element.  It said, I want irregular stitches....and that's what it got...

And what's more, I liked it.  Most of the other elements, however, Just Didn't Fit.  Sigh.  So... I came up with this. 

I'm still using some of the elements from the last version, but somewhat adjusted, with that leaf or blade type motif added at the top of the long vertical, one of the shorter verticals removed, and a second, larger blade or leaf on the bottom left.  It now has a completely different feel.  And then I added stitch, which was the point at which I contemplated giving up...

...more random stitch, including a couple of renegade French Knots.  I always struggle with them, and whilst I think they add something, I'm not sure why I bothered, given the fuss and the time it took to do what really ought to be a totally simple stitch.  I'm contemplating some beads in that upper section, but that may continue to be a contemplation...not sure if I know where my beads actually are at present...sigh.

This looks better in real life, I have to say, but I'm still not convinced that it's anything more than a sketch.  Not a bad sketch, you understand; I feel that the tree/spear thing (I'm pretty sure it's a tree, in my head, but there is a definite reference to spears going on in there somewhere) is worth developing further.  I've always had a thing about trees...but that's another conversation entirely. 

So...what do you think?  Was it worth the effort?