Open Drawer Classes

I have been teaching a range of classes for Open Drawer in the last month and a half and it is the last class tomorrow. We will be making scraper paper and soft cut print blocks tomorrow, the first session we did nature dyeing/printing and the second session involved playing with indigo and rust. I had already made lots of books with the nature printing but since the indigo workshop I have made quite a lot of books with indigo and rust dyeing. The covers are scans of one particular sheet that I have printed onto bookcloth and each section contains one sheet that has been dipped into indigo or rust or both.

Last class we made paste papers and stamps and one of the participants asked what could you do with the paste papers so in the last week or two I have been playing with the papers and came up with a few ideas.

Two of the stamps I made

Pillow gift boxes

Gift box

Gift bag

Book covers

Yummy papers

Yummy papers

Yummy papers

Yummy papers

Yummy papers

Yummy papers

Picture frame

Lidded box

Lidded box

Japanese Name Stamp Workshop

Last Saturday I went with seven others to Ebisu Design, the shop and studio of Japanese Calligrapher Miho Araki for a workshop organised by Papermakers of Victoria.

We started the day by drawing thin and thick lines with the Japanese brushes the Miho came around with some ideas for our names, some of had plenty of options, I was able to chose from three options for G, two for AI and three for L (or ru). I ended up with 'myself, flow, great'. While we had lunch Miho designed our names that we transferred onto eraser and cut out.

A very happy group at the end of the day!

My stamp and some of the first sheets of lines.

We also painted lots of bamboo.

The final activity for the day was painting onto cards and positioning our stamps, the touch of red really lights up the card. Some of us got carried away and started on the envelopes as well.

I was so enthused that I bought some brushes, I already had a few and since we learned that the brushes need to be stored hanging down I needed a system. I went to the Op Shop and bought a wooden toilet roll holder with a flat top (for $2), then I started looking for something to sit on the top. At the second Op Shop I found a wooden plaque that also cost me $2. I came home and drilled a hole in the middle of the plaque and screwed it to the top of the roll holder. I then screwed some screws part way in spaced around the edge of the plaque so now I have my brush holder, now where to store it???