Australian Connections Update

I have continued to work on my Australian Connections workbook that I showed you last month.

Sorry this is a bit blurry.  I've tried several times to photograph the pages and this is the best version.   The left hand page is about my dad from birth to the age of 6.

The right hand page is about the family coming back to England.

This is the start of a page on our visit to Stuart Street in Bulimba in 2008.  This is the house that was built in 1940 on the site of the house my dad lived in at some point in the late 1920s.

I started trying out some collage and stencilling.

I printed out the 4 songs I mentioned in my last post and stuck them into the book.

I have no idea where this is going.  But onward and upward!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Summer School 1

The theme of this year's Summer School at Littleheath Barn Studio is Buildings.  If you've read Getting Ready you will know I was struggling with choosing between in canalside redbrick buildings and the beautiful architecture of Venice.

I chose Venice.

We started with making marks on fabric.  I used stencils, thermofax screens, procion dye and white acrylic paint.

I also tried marking making with hot wax.

And drew with charcoal procion dye. I also used a screen for breakdown printing.

All the above photos were taken whilst the fabric was wet.

My usual complaint when I've washed out my dyed fabric is that it is all too bright or too dark.  Not this time!

Very washed out!

One side

The other side

When I get back to the second set of two days of the Summer School I think I may make more marks on the two very pale cloths with fabric paint.

I also need to decide what I am making with these fabrics.  I don't want to make hangings and if I make a book it needs to be different from all the others I've made lately.

Watch this space!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

A Venetian Return

I found this blog post by Jenny Marples on the Paper Artsy blog.   It spoke to me.  I loved it and had to have one of my own.

But as I followed along I realised that actually I don't like things to look like something.  I don't 'do' realism.  But I started off the way Jenny suggested.  I put gesso on A4 watercolour  paper.

I used my gel plate to print on deli paper

printer paper

wet strength tissue paper

I glued whole pieces of the painted papers onto the watercolour paper that will be the covers of my book

I tore up bits of the painted papers and glued them on.

However everything looks a bit too green. And there's possibly too much gesso!

I moved on to using stencils and rubber stamps.

I used an Inktense Charcoal Grey water soluble pencil to suggest stonework and added water.

I added a piece of something I found in my stash - I'm not sure what to call it but it's sort of string!

When I'm working on something like this, I tend to do little bits to each page rather than work only on one page until it's finished.  In addition, I will stamp or stencil or whatever I'm doing on each page and then go away and do something else.  Usually Facebook or read a book.

It maybe several hours or even the next day before I come back to it.  And frequently the pages go through an ugly stage when I don't like them at all.   However I know I can always gesso or collage over a bit I don't like.

At the time of writing this blog the pages look like this:

In an attempt to stop everything looking green, I used some blue paint.  Which is too blue!

The next two photos show the inside of the covers.  I used a heavier weight watercolour paper for the covers.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Adding layers

Last Autumn when Liske was able to run workshops we started on Text, Texture, Textile.  These are some of the fabrics I dyed and printed at that time

Last week we were at last able to go back to the studio.  I hadn't really taken to the fabrics I had printed which is why I hadn't done anything with them.  So last week, I added more layers of text and shapes using thickened dye through stencils and thermofax screens.

I'm still not totally in love with them.  But I suspect they'll be fine cut up into smaller pieces.  Or I could put another layer on using fabric paints.

I've also wondered about over-dyeing them all with one colour.

Watch this space!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

A Sketchbook from scratch

In Simply Create I have been showing folks how to make their own 15cm square sketchbook.  I started with nine A4 sheets of cartridge paper from Hilary Beattie’s £10 paperpack.  I used 3 sheets of 100gsm, 3 sheets of 140gsm and 3 sheets of 220gsm paper.

I found some painted papers and various music papers and text papers. I began by ripping up bits of the papers and gluing them onto one side of the 100gsm paper. I used gel medium underneath and on top of each piece.

I trimmed these sheets down to cut the random edges off.

I painted all the sheets of paper, whatever gsm weight they were. On some I used a sponge and others I used a sponge roller. I used acrylic paints to colour my papers.  I randomly stencilled on all the papers.

I cut along the long edge of the paper to reduce the width to 15 cms.  When folded this would make a 15 centimetre square book.

I set aside 3 of the folded papers to be the outside of each signature.  I cut different sized pieces off one end of each of the other 6 pieces. Using double-sided tape, I attached one of the cut pieces to another of the painted papers. Because I had used the same colour scheme on every piece of paper the new pieces match in some way the original but disrupt the flow of the page.

I made covers by cutting 2 pieces of cardboard just slightly bigger than the closed folded pages. I painted a thin line round the edge of the cardboard on both sides.  I stitched the signatures together - there were 3 folded papers in each signature and then assembled the sketchbook with the covers.

I decided to use Florida as a theme for my sketchbook. I collected together bits of papers, photos etc to do with this theme. 

These pages have images from paper napkins.

The collage is made from the inside of an envelope, a piece of scrapbooking paper and a word. The writing from the previous page shows through. I drew dotted lines with a black pen on the white stencilled shape. And sketched round the paper napkin shells with a black pen. I used a white Posca pen to put the dots in the orange swirls.

I hope you have enjoyed how I put this sketchbook together.  Full details of step by step instructions on how to do this are available at Simply Create.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice