Pear Prints

I just noted that it is almost a year since I posted so thought it was time for another. It isn't that I haven't done anything in a year but there have been a few changes around here, the biggest is that my partner has retired. Last year I taught a few workshops and spent quite a bit of time making preparations and samples for these. So far this year I have three workshops scheduled the first was last weekend and it was making paper from denim and making books based on the accordion or concertina structure. In preparation I made quite a lot of denim pulp and a blank accordion that I thought I should add some prints to. I pulled out some old lino and MDF cuts and printed them onto some 300 gsm hahnemuhle that I had left over from another project.

I had a whole set of pear prints but at the same time we had lots of pears on our tree and the lorikeets were really getting stuck into them so we picked them all even though they were very green. I figured I'd try cutting one in half and printing from it and I had a lovely time and was pretty pleased with the results.

Then I made some collages and made some cards with pear prints.

My first accordion I filled with collages and pear prints.

The next two are blank inside and have pear prints and collage on the covers.

Happy New Year

It has been so long since I posted and even longer since I updated my website. I have done a bit of an update tonight although there is heaps more to do and somehow it isn't working quite how I'd like it.
I have no idea where 2014 went but here we are in 2015.
After cogitating for nearly six months I made a book in the last week in December. The inspiration was a visit to the Tilburg Textile Museum. While we were there an attendant demonstrated making a glove on a knitting machine, it took less than a minute to make a bright pink glove. An what do you do with one pink glove, incorporate it into a book of course! I made two concertinas, a tiny one with a picture of my partner holding up the glove that fits into the glove and another larger one that spells out Tilly Textile hidden in photos from around the museum. It seemed appropriate to include some fabric and I was lucky enough to find some gingham that was almost the same colour as the glove so I used that to back the images and had enough left over to make a bag to hold the book. The paper I printed on was made from recycled mount board, recycled hanji and cotton linter with fine silver glitter (left over from the books I made for Papermakers of Victoria Christmas book swap.

Christmas book when closed reads 25 Ornament book

Tilly Textile 2014

workshop prep

I am making some mock ups for the workshop that I'm teaching at Meeniyan on creating artists books based around the Concertina. We'll start with a straight concertina then do another book or two that incorporate a concertina of some sort. I'm giving everyone a set of photos to make a flag book so thought I'd better make a sample. I selected a group of photos taken at the same time of rocky beach and cliffs, I loved the light in these images.

The white backs of the photos looked a bit dull so I made up a haiku to fit (seven backs and seven words in the haiku, perfect!)

Seaside walk,

One summer's night,

shadows play

These pictures are of a very painful experiment, many hours cutting through photo and watercolour paper, ouch! When I was in Hobart last year I saw an exhibition where there were a series of tunnel books but they were just concertinas so I thought I'd try it with a couple of photos and here are the results. To view them properly you need to be on the same level as the book, but they sort of work.

Geelong Forum

I am just back from teaching at the Geelong Forum where I had the smallest class of all but we had lots of fun and my students produced some fabulous work. Now that I'm back I have to think about (and do some work for!) The IAPMA Bulletin and Newsletter and the Valda Quick Biennial Paper Arts Exhibition which I am co curating and need to print out the invites. The first posted piece arrived today, it is going to exciting to see the work as it comes in, I'm hoping to collect a lot on Saturday at the PoV meeting.

I've given up trying to pictures here after wasting half a day then loosing all I'd done so here is a link to some pictures from my class and to the displays of a few of the other classes at the forum. Carol Barton was also teaching there and she has some photos from the forum on her blog http://carolbartonstudio.wordpress.com/.
















My books arrived back from the Melbourne Show today and I discovered that the book that won the best in bookbinding was my Eastern entry, a concertina with feathers.

The book I made after the Glen Skein workshop got first in the art books section.

Now back to work! I still need to finish off a couple of pieces for the PoV exhibition though they are mostly done and I have a few more workshops to prepare for.

winter excuses

It has been nearly a month since I posted and I guess I haven't been producing much in the way of artworks. I have edited two magazines which has kept me at the computer a lot and since winter has hit there isn't much desire to head out to my open air workspace.
Here are a few pieces I made a while ago in preparation for a workshop I am running in July on using kozo and armatures. I have made a series of boats and other vessels, there is something special about the boat, it can represent so many things. I haven't named any of these pieces yet but I will get around to it eventually.

Bamboo and kozo dipped

Cane, thread and kozo dipped

Bamboo and Kozo sheet

Wisteria and Kozo dipped

Cane and Kozo, dipped and wattle sticks and Kozo also dipped

Chicken wire and Kozo dipped

Chicken wire and pulp painted recycled cotton paper.

I am also working on an altered book as part of a Yabbers round robin. The two people before me did boots so I thought I'd continue in the footwear vein. Here are some drawings on gessoed pages.

And an added page and some wax rubbing of soles of shoes.

At our last meeting of Papermakers we made concertinas by drawing a page then passing it on, we got the one we started with at the end of the day. I thought I'd connect the diverse images by dipping in my indigo vat, it did much up some of the images a bit by making them bleed but I like the covers!

Flag Books and Portland Class

Last weekend's class went really well. On day one we made hardcover concertina books covered in bookcloth with a window and a ribbon closure then in the afternoon a stab binding and an account book binding. You can see the results in the picture below. I had taken my tub of papers

and most used those for the covers of the oriental books.


On day two we did the exposed stitch books described in my last post, unfortunately I didn't get any photos of those but they all worked really well using the cloth from the upholstery samples. Before the class I'd played around with a few ideas for making book cloth, I tried pasting Korean paper on some pieces and painting the back of some with gesso but ended up settling for using the large roll of double sided tape I'd got for them from Reverse art. It took most of the day to make the exposed stitch books leaving only an hour or two for the flag book which I had planned to do. I tried to gear the workshop towards bindings that can be adapted for artist books. I used Wendy's idea of the postcards as the base and the excellent instructions given in The Bonefolder, Fall 2005.
I made up a couple of samples to show the class and I also took my 'Greetings from India' book which is a form of flag book. The first one pictured I made from postcards I had printed a couple of years ago of my book 'Dark Side of the Rose'. I love the way the book moves and particularily the view you get from above. I had some wrapping paper that matched pretty well so I used that for the backs of the cards and for decorative elements on the cover and other places.

The book below I made from free Avant cards by Jess Brown