Exploring Woven Concertina Books

At a recent meeting of Papermakers & Artists Qld, we learnt an interesting technique of woven concertina books.  I've also completed Helen Hiebert's online weaving course this year, so I've had an interest in the idea of using my old folio monoprints to create new images in a woven form.

For the upcoming Compassion exhibition (details below), I decided to make a small series of woven concertina books, using old monoprints, collagraphs and rusted papers.

The technique I used was to fold a long concertina and cut long strips through the middle (reserving the ends for covers).  Then weave pieces of another print for each of the concertina pages.  The result gives maximum contrast and interest to a couple of ordinary prints.  Most of the prints were double sided, but with those that weren't I added more strips of left over prints, some of them not even the same size.  I applied some glue so that the book didn't work itself loose and they look better without too many gaps.

I'm happy with the completed books....and my folio and print drawers are a little bit less full now :-)

These books will be on sale at the Compassion exhibition at the gallery shop.

Step 1 -fold concertina then cut strips along middle

Step 2 - weave strips of contrasting prints.
The width of each strip is equal to the
width of the concertina pages/

Finished woven books, showing prints
glued to create covers.

The weave.  This one is interesting - it looks like the
Magpie is walking past a Venetian blind :-)

The one weaves a feather monoprint with a brown collagraph.

Collagraph print as a cover, I love the scratchy texture
of this one.

This one has rusted paper with feather monoprints.

This is where they will be on sale.

Artist in Residence @ Curtin Springs - The Artist Book

Every arts residency has a goal, even if its to just 'think'.   My goal for my AIR at Curtin Springs was to complete an Artist Book.

However, as usual for me, it didn't go to plan.  I had a strong idea but was unable to resolve it whilst I was on site, so finishing my artist book was a priority when I returned to 'normal' life.

So its been a few weeks but I have finally completed the work, and I'm happy that it conveys the ideas that I developed whilst completing the residency.

Curtin Springs is a cattle station in Central Australia.  The current owners have been there since 1956 and so there's a lot of history retained on the property, particularly around the homestead.  A lot of used equipment is stored on the property for maintenance purposes, though the elements and nature have taken over and softened the rusted detritus.

To me its like a battleground, a skirmish between the man-made and nature.  Discards from the operations of the property gather red dirt and rust, with grasses pushing through the gaps.  My artist book was inspired by this disturbance, where things that don't belong gradually become part of the landscape.

My process started with rusty objects collected from around the homestead, and I used tea to stain the rust onto paper.  I also collected grasses and made collagraph plates from them, and printed them onto botanical papers made from those grasses (Curtin Springs has a wonderful paper mill).

The strips of printed papers run the length of the rusted paper concertina, wrapping around the covers.  The long format of the book reflects the view of the landscape, where the vegetation is relatively short and the view of the sky is from horizon to horizon.   The use of found objects gives a strong connection to the property's history.  Incorporating paper and prints made from local grasses recognises the value of the grasses to both the cattle operations and papermaking activities of Curtin Springs.

I'm still playing with a title for the book, but I'm leaning towards 'Colonisation'.  The rust can either be taken as a monument to life on the land or as a sign that nature is slowly claiming it back.

Grasses on the property - I love the
rich colour of the red sandy soil against the yellow grass.

Grass samples collected for making plates.

Rusty objects fighting nature

Rusting the paper

Close up of the rusting with tea bags.
The tannin in the tea makes beautiful
greys and browns, not orange.

Yummy marks!
Its tempting to move it before its dry.
Luckily its very dry air in Central Australia.

View of the Artist Book,
with handmade paper covers, rusted pages and prints
on handmade paper

There's some beautiful rusted marks on these pages.
I joined the concertina sections using a thin strip of
handmade paper.

Closed view showing the wrapped cover strip.

One of the pages showing the lovely rusted marks.

Adding to my art toolkit

In the past month, I've been adding to my art tool kit.  Not new brushes, inks or papers (I've got more than enough paper!), but adding to my printmaking skills.

Last weekend I hosted Jet James from Yeppoon for a workshop exploring creative approaches to collagraph plates.  He uses a PVC plate which gets around the problem of having to seal the plate with multiple coats of shellac as you would with book board etc.  It also allows the use of some ingenious materials and drypoint techniques.

I enjoyed the creative process of creating the plates using a combination of embossing, drypoint and collage, giving a variety of marks and textures.  The 'busy-ness' of imagery on my plate is what I really like when I'm doing my monoprinting.  I can see that I can combine my monoprinting techniques with these collagraph plates, and am looking forward to playing more with it in the coming months.

During the workshop, we also had a play with inking using more than one colour, which gave beautiful images but in a workshop situation of a group of 10 keen printmakers was very messy!

My bee print.  I've explored this bee image in drypoint and
lithograph, so its interesting to see it in a variety of
techniques.

Wren print, multicoloured inking.

The Wren plate and print in blue-black ink.

The chaos of multicolour printing.......

Show and tell at the end of the workshop.
Great prints, great group of people!

Collagraphs with Plants and Friends

This week my art friends and I did some playing with simple collagraphs.  We made printing plates where we stuck leaves and other found objects to thin card (mat board) and then sealed the plates with shellac.

We spent a fun day printing the plates intaglio style using my Akua inks and my Xcut machine.

We did some printing with 2 colours, but when dry, the prints can also be handcoloured.

Some of Wendy's plates, ready to print with.

Ngaire printing using the Xcut.
We had to keep adjusting the pressure for the different
thicknesses of the plates, depending on how
much material had been glued to the plate.

Ngaire's plate, revealing her print.

Ngaire's print on eco-dyed paper.
The subtle background colour looked beautiful with the blue ink.
2 of the leaves were glued to the plate vein side up
so their vein patterns were captured in the printing process.

 

Karin's print using a finely woven doily
glued to cardboard and sealed.
It was tricky for her to get the ink even,
but produced an interesting print.

Wendy's banksia collagraph on rusted text paper.

Wendy's 2 colour banksia print.
She inked up the background in blue,
then inked the leaf in black,
carefully wiping back without mixing the
colours too much.

Investigating the Gorge Part 3

Artist in Residence, Cataract Gorge, Launceston, Tasmania

I've spent a few days at the Kings Bridge Cottage printing monotypes using leaves I've picked up during my walks during the gorge.  The prints I've done are fairly formulaic for me, but its like therapy and its been interesting having to work with limited materials.  I only brought a basic selection of colours of inks - yellow, ochre, blue, red, black, brown and white - so its been a challenge to find the 'right' combinations.  I dislike using colours straight from the tube, so I'm always mixing or toning them down a bit so they're not so bright.

In my studio, I use an etching press for my monoprints (except when I do gelatine monoprinting).  I have a table top press that prints A4 but its pretty heavy and takes up a small suitcase on its own, without all the associated consumables like inks.  So for this trip, I invested in a Xpress die-cut machine after getting a lead from the facebook group 'Top Printmaking Tips'.  For more information about the machine: http://www.annieday.com.au/xpress

Using the Xpress die-cut machine, I was able to print my small collagraphs and monoprints.

I also purchased some lovely paper from the local Birchalls store at a bargain price, though I had to fold it to fit it in my backpack so I could ride home with it.  It was almost painful to fold a beautiful A1 sheet!

I've really enjoyed my 2 weeks at Cataract Gorge, the mix of urban and natural areas was very interesting and fits perfectly with my themes of the urbanisation of the natural world.  This site is particularly interesting due to its history and the manipulation of the landscape since the late 1800's. Its also been refreshing to be away from my daily routine, to wake up in the morning with very little planned except to walk, ride, read and create.  Heaven!

Printing in the cottage's kitchen with the Xpress Diecut Machine

Monoprint in progress

I donated an artwork to the Cottage,
this one's a monoprint using Dogwood leaves
found on the Duck Reach Walk

I found some fresh Kangaroo Grass but it was too green and fleshy to use.
Here it is squished on the plate after the first print.
The Kangaroo Grass at home in Queensland is dry and easy to work with.

Monoprint using local grasses

Investigating the Gorge Part 2

Artist in Residence, Cataract Gorge, Launceston, Tasmania

Its the second week of my residency, and I've become familiar with the gorge, its flora and fauna, the people and the CBD of Launceston.  Walking and riding my bike are my only way of exploring the area, and luckily the weather has been mild and quite sunny.

My days have been spent walking through the gorge, then returning to the cottage to work on my art.  I also have joined the LINC library so I can research the history of the gorge and the cottage.  At the library I found an interesting book 'Paper Tiger' by Carol Freeman which looks at how colonial imagery of the Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) contributed to its elimination by humans and eventual extinction.  Its given me a few ideas about how visual imagery can impact on the lives of animals and plants.

At the Queen Victoria Art Gallery in Launceston CBD I viewed an exhibition of etchings and linos by Udo Sellbach.  The distorted human imagery in his work is quite confronting, but I was impressed by his artist book "And still I see it", displayed alongside a digitised version of the book I could view with a touch screen.

I've got a few artwork ideas that I'm working on based on my residency.  One of the major projects is an artist book, inspired by Udo Sellbach's book.  My artist book will use the polaroid photos that I've been taking as I've explored the gorge, looking at both natural and man-made features, for example, the rocks, the river, signage, rubbish, graffiti and people. I also plan to include text from heritage reports and newspaper articles that I've found at the library.  I've got some wonderful scans of a report on the 1929 floods, the language used in the report is quite poetic with flowery descriptions, not as formal as we would expect from documents produced by current government committees or tribunals.

I've also been creating a series of collagraph plates using ferns I've found on my walks.  I've glued the plant material to mat board, and sealed them with a few coats of shellac.  I plan to print these plates in groups, using a variety of colours.

I've got a few more days left here at the Cottage, then we head off to Hobart and Bruny Island for another week.  Of course, there'll be more time for art and exploring the local natural environment.

One of my small collagraphs

My inspiration wall is growing, you can see all the polaroid
photos there - recording my experiences of the gorge area.
These will be the basis for my artist book.

Artist Book "And still I see it" (with digitised version) at Udo Sellbach's exhibition

One of the page spreads from the digitised version of Sellbach's book,
I used the touch screen to 'turn' the pages and zoom in to read the text.

This swan family is a regular visitor to the gorge

Views over the gorge, on one of my walks

Sigh....the view from the cottage balcony

The cottage at dusk, looking up from the track

A new Artist Book is 'hatched'

After doing a series of bee monoprints a few months ago, I had a lot of pre-cut paper stencils of hexagons and native bees.  So I decided to use them to create a collagraph plate, which is a printing plate made of cardboard with things stuck to it.  After sealing with shellac, I used the plate to emboss some toned printmaking papers, and these have become the pages of my latest artist book, titled 'Brood'.

The book structure, once again in that typical honeycomb/hexagon shape, alludes to the structure of a bee's hive.  The embossed imagery is of the brood at work - worker bees tending to the eggs and larvae of the next generation.  The book needs to be fully opened to see the imagery, which mimics the action of the beekeeper opening and inspecting a hive.

The embossing was done using the collagraph plates on dampened paper, no ink, using my etching press 'Thumper'.

The Collagraph plates and resulting embossed 'print'.

The closed book - the covers are made of box board and some
beautiful gold and black paper I had in my stash.
I thought the paper colour was like the rich gold of honey.

'Brood' - you can see the honeycomb like structure.

Its hard to see the embossing in the photo.
Viewing the book will be an 'up close and personal'
experience, inviting the viewer in for a good look.

Collagraph Plates and Prints

Fellow artist Joanne Taylor and I are collaborating on an artist book for our joint exhibition "Big Smoke Little Smoke", opening at Tambo's Grasslands Art Gallery in March.

For the book, we have each prepared 2 collagraph plates.  Collagraphs are bits of cardboard and other materials collaged with glue onto another piece of cardboard, then sealed to create a printing plate.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon printing the plates multiple times in blue, black and brown colours. When dry, the prints will be sliced up and attached to a Venetian-blind style artist book to be hung on the gallery wall.  The book will be approx 60cm wide by 150cm long.

The book's title is 'Viewpoint' - referring to the idea of looking out of a window and seeing the landscape.  From Jo's viewpoint, its the landscape of wide open spaces, gidgee trees and her local wildlife.  From my viewpoint, its fences, buildings and geometric patterns.

The book will come together in the next couple of weeks.... a very basic technique to create a unique artist book.

One of Jo's collagraph plates in progress

The collagraph plates

Inking up one of the plates

Printing Joanne's plate

Joanne's Emu Feather print

My Studio Etching Press - a Hill Dav, I
bought second hand a couple of years ago

The finished prints...now just have to wait until they dry before
I start assembling the book!