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?