In Stitches

When we left off I was finishing up with the last bits of the small iris prints.

Then a few tulip prints crept into the mix:

And got a bit of the postage stamp treatment:

Then I carted them upstairs to the sewing machine to see if my idea from the last post to add stitching had any merit. First, I gave blind stitching (no thread in the needle) a go. On the amber background the lines of tiny holes really didn't show. You might be able to just spot them in the photo below. So then I tried with black thread. Ugh... too heavy and busy.

But the stitching itself was enjoyable. Fooling around on some scrap cardstock, I got this:

Now, to me, this has possibilities. Not sure where it will lead but I have a tickle of an idea -- stitching over a monotype background perhaps? I love the landscape aspect I'm seeing in the stitch lines. This is how it looked with thread:

Hills! Right? And how about a big winter moon?

Two weeks ago I started with a file folder of iris prints and this is where it took me! I have no idea where this will lead. It could even fizzle to nothing as many notions do. But the journey is so engaging! I'll meet up with you at the next bend in the road. See you soon!

The Little Clean

What started out to be the big clean of the studio quickly became a little clean. Instead of continuing on with sorting and tidying I spent my time playing with the small iris prints I’d unearthed. In a matter of minutes, the just-cleared work bench became this:

When attempting to restart an old project (this one began in May 2019) I sometimes discover I have moved on. That’s what happened here. The original plan, if I remember correctly, was to print a plain background on 5x5-inch card, print imagery in the same ink colour with hand-carved stamps on old book pages and then work those images into a seamless collage that would give the appearance of a single print. This January I continued on with that idea and made about a dozen cards. Here's a sample:

I liked the one below. It came closest to the look I was after.

But, largely, I was losing enthusiasm. I still had tons of fodder in the file, so I challenged myself to see what else I could make.

I had a pad of textured pastel paper in coordinating tones on hand and cut several sheets down to a standard A2 or 4x5.5-inch card. 

The 98lb/160g pastel paper was a little light so I also added a flyleaf insert to give the card more weight. And to attach it I used our friend the pamphlet stitch (covered in this post).

Now my interest was perking up and I cut some heavy white cardstock down into 4x6-inch postcards. The common advice to makers seems to be to work in a series -- make a whole bunch of something at the same time. Moving from one piece to another can energize you and you're free to take risks. After all, if you wreck one you've got a dozen more to carry on with. So I gave it a try. 

Using whatever prints I had left and an assortment of old postage stamps I worked fairly quickly on several postcards at once. I moved things around until I liked the composition and then glued everything in place. (Sorry for the reflection of my studio lights -- too chilly to photograph outside!)

Using an alphabet set, I stamped "postcard" on the back, but then got the idea stamping on the front might be interesting.

Here are a few close-ups:

Working in a series is great advice! I tried to move quickly and not agonize over the composition and produced 15 post cards in an afternoon. Some were duds but a few, like the one above, "clicked" for me.

Often I try to spot what makes a piece work for me -- most times it appears to be a spareness in the composition and a limited subtle range of colour. I could even go as barebones as in the piece below and be happy.

By having a go with another small series, though, I could see what happens if, say, I went with a more more vibrant palette or built up more layers in the collage. Or added additional media like coloured pencil or graphite. Or -- and this just occurred -- sew across the card with an unthreaded needle in the machine and see if the line of tiny holes adds anything. How about I  experiment with the duds and get back to you?

The Big Clean

I was planning to jump right into a new print project but nothing much is gelling. But there's nothing like a studio clean to stir up at least a trickle of interest in making something. Might have something to do with the siren call of those emerging horizontal surfaces!

Since I like to incorporate collage into many of my prints -- and every scrap of paper seems a good candidate for something -- my paper stash quickly becomes a disorganized mess.

Here I'm tackling reams of hand-stained and printed tissue paper.

Slowly, this becomes this...

And this:

I try to divert what I can into the recycle bin but I often end up retrieving stuff!

These are index pages from a discarded world atlas (old books often have wonderfully absorbent paper -- good for printmaking), punched full of holes and then used as masks and stencils for overprinting even more atlas pages. As enticing as they are, so far they've managed to remain in the bin!

The clean-up typically unearths many bits and pieces that snag my interest and can't be tossed. They get set aside for some yet undecided project, creating more stacks of paper! Below, I'm liking how the patterns and colours in these two finds coordinate.

And then I came across a file folder of tiny prints on Asian book pages. I remember now I had a good day a few years back mixing ink to re-create the sepia tones of the book's photographs and also the red used in some of the text.

I admit, after this, cleaning came to an abrupt halt. Much more fun to play around with paper and colour than tackle the still overflowing storage tubs. If this leads to anything, I'll let you know!