Eco Dying

On Thursday five artists got together at an eco dying meetup at one of the artists’ homes.  We used walnuts in the process.  Vegetation was picked from the artist’s garden or brought along for the process.  I made a double pamphlet stitched book to keep the pages together.  I love the single page pamphlet stitch.  I have been looking for a way to stitch loose pages together for a long time.  It works so well.  Thanks Keith A. Smith, book binding guru! Tomorrow I will find some time to try the process again using avocado pits.

The Dancer

The Dancer

I manipulated this figure in iColorama over a couple of days.  Worked on it, stopped.  Worked on it, stopped.  This morning I had one more something to do.  I did not like his lower left leg and foot.  So I kept experimenting until I got what I wanted and that was to  cover it up with something.  This application is really something else.  I highly recommend it.  There are online workshops available if ever decide you want to take one.  Also just playing around with the program is really amazing.

Work in progress

Work in progress

 I have been experimenting with paper marbling and mono-printing using the gelli plate.  I am in the process of collaging over the handmade papers.  This piece is not completed but is my auditioning of ephemera to complete the collage.

Today was a great day eco printing using plant material from the garden.  What fun!

Spider Book

Spider Book

I had seen this type of book years ago in a book arts resource book that I had and I never knew the name of it.  Recently while browsing through The Art of the Fold  Hedi Kyle and Ulla Warchol I found the directions on how to make it.  It is easy especially when one uses a score board.  When open the book lies flat.  As you can see the pages form the spider legs and the triangle is the spider's head. 

Twig Book

Twig Book (spine)

Twig book (cover)

Terry Garrett sent me a link for making this book about a week ago.  The link is:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsvnWO6z42Y   It is fun to make.  I added thread to the spine to strengthen it some.

Elongated Collage 16

Elongated Collage 16

This is the last of this elongated series.  It was total fun to do and a good exercise in creating fairly quick collages from just what was within reach of my desk.  It was also a good exercise for me because as I cleaned my studio I would find packets of ephemera that I had seen for quite some time. That opened up new ephemera possibilities.

Elongated Collage 15

Elongated Collage 15

I love vintage photos.  We have been encouraged to smile in photos.  Not so in the vintage ones.  Most people have very serious faces.  Perhaps it was a sign of the times.  Life was more for survival.  We have more leisure time now.  I started working when I was 16.  I think this boy started much sooner.

Elongated Collage 14

Elongated Collage 14

I am loving making the elongated collages.  This morning I finished the last of them for this particular book.  No. 16 ends this series.  On Monday I am going on a one day retreat with art friends to La Connor, Washington.  It is a beautiful town right on the water.  Our work space looks out onto boats and across to an Indian reservation.  It is just lovely.  I hope to start a new series then.

Elongated Collage 13

Elongated Collage 13

I have been getting quite a bit of ephemera in the mail along with the ATCs and APCs that arrive.  Most of this new ephemera is piling up on my desk.  The elongated series is using many of the pieces that are in the pile.  I don't have to reach very far to find interesting ephemera for a collage.  I particularly like how this one turned out.  One could comment on the subject matter extensively. 

I have been listening to YouTube speeches of many of the democratic candidates for President.  One candidate in particular has been having trouble with minority groups.  I hope voters listen very carefully to candidate responses.  There is telling information that is important for our future.  There is one candidate that should not be ignored.

Elongated Collage 12

Elongated Collage 12

What is better in the morning but a cup of tea, the morning newspaper, a bit of time on the iPad, and then settling into creating?  That is what most mornings are for me.  I put in my hour of sorting through papers in my studio.  It is really unrecognizable from when I started weeks ago.  I can't just work on sorting and tossing until it is done.  There are more important things to do like making books and collages.  Being disciplined to spend an hour a day is it.

Elongated Collage 11

Elongated Collage 11

Busy day visiting an art friend, having lunch, and looking at art and more art.  Totally fun!

Elongated Collage 10

Elongated Collage 10

I completed three more books this morning making it to 200.  I am going to San Francisco mid September for a month to take workshops at the SF Center for Book Arts.  I am trying to decide if I am going to take materials along on the journey to make more books or am I going to try to make 165 books before I leave.  Hmm!  Maybe that is too much of a challenge with all the other things I have to do.

22 Japanese Stab Binding Books

22 Japanese Stab Binding Books

I made my 22nd Japanese Stab bound book today.  So I thought a photo was opportune.  I have three more ready to bind tomorrow morning making the total to my goal of 365 at 200.  Gosh that is a lot of books since May.

More Japanese Stab Bindings

More Japanese Stab Bindings

I readied five Japanese stab binding books this morning.  All good plans but I only completed three of them.  Time and adventure away from home got in the way.  Still I love the papers that I used and the bindings were great to try.  Sometimes one has to see the books in hand to really appreciate the actual binding with the beautiful papers.

Elongated Collage 09

Elongated Collage 09

Scanning prior to adherence of the collages into the journal is the best plan.  I still need to make sure the collage will fit the page though.

A few days ago I received some questions from the same person.....

First did you pick that specific book to hold your bound book open? Is there a “message” in the book-collage-tablecloth combo?

This was in reference to choosing a book to hold the Japanese stab bound book open to a certain page.  I did not spend one second choosing.  I just grabbed and went with the first choice.

Is there a “message” in the book-collage-tablecloth combo? Or just happy accident? And are you filling each bound book with collages? Collaging onto the book page? Or binding collages together by theme? 

It was a total happy accidental collage.  I have finished 192 books toward my goal and my plan is to fill all of the journals eventually with collages.  My plan is now to add collages to each page after I finish the collage being aware of the needed size.  I am happy now with the scanning and photography of the collage first with it out of the book.  There actually is a theme to each of these collages.  Can you discover an similarities?

Elongated Collage 08

Elongated Collage 08

I did a image capture on my iPad two ways today.  This was the best of the two although I am still not sure about photographing in the book.  Maybe tomorrow I will not glue the collage into the book and just photograph or scan it flat on a piece of white watercolor paper.  I do like experimenting.  I just do not want to have to rebind the book in order to get photos or scans.  I think I might have it.

Darwin

Darwin

This collage was a collaboration with my artist friend, Elsa.  She started the collage slightly adhering the background with the boys in the booth.  All I added was the monkey and the stamped numbers.  I love how it worked and I love how the title, Darwin, seems perfect.

Elongated Collage 07

I used my iPad to photograph 07.  I like the result better than the scan which was problematic since the collage was in a stab bound book.  The problem this time was that by using a book on the left to hold the page open caused the right side to lift off the table.  In a way this photo is a collage in itself with three elements.....the table cloth, the Japanese stab bound book and a paperback.  The second photo below was adjusted in Photoshop.

Elongated Collage 06

Elongated Collage 06

Scanning collages after they are adhered into a Japanese stab bound book is not easy.  It is either a two person job or I have to run like hell from my computer to the scanner where I apply pressure to the book so that a better scan will occur.  I think today after I finish making several more collages I will just use my iPad to photograph the collages to see if this will be more acceptable.  The grey on the left only exists in the scans and not in the actual collage.

Elongated Collage 05

Elongated Collage 05

It is not easy to scan a collage that is in a bound Japanese stab bound book.  That is the grey shadow on the left.

Elongated Collage 04

Elongated Collage 04

Four elements again.  Quick to do but really works for me.

Yesterday I visited a little town near the Canadian border, Lynden, Washington.  What a charming town!  I felt like I was in the Midwest as it is a farming community. Great main street, good food!  It was definitely middle America.  It was originally settled by Dutch settlers.  There is a windmill and several of the buildings looked directly out of Amsterdam.  Speaking of Amsterdam, they had a tornado yesterday!  That never happens in Europe.  I guess everything is possible with climate change.

Elongated Collage 03

Elongated Collage 03

I am having a blast with these elongated collages.  They are about two inches by five inches.  The ephemera is coming from the what seem like endless baggies of collected papers.  I am going through them all and discarding what I do not want.

Elongated Collage 02

 Elongated Collage 02

This five element collage mostly came from a piece of mail I received last month.  I love using scraps of this and that and it was a fun challenge to use snail mail pieces.  One thing that was quite interesting about the envelope that I did not include is that the sender tore the stamp into four parts before adhering it.  The postal service accepted the mail. :-)

Japanese Stab Binding plus Elongated Collage 01

Japanese Stab Binding 

I was cleaning my flat files this week and found a piece of paper that I had created many years ago.  I guess it was just waiting to be turned into a Japanese Stab Binding.  I kind of forget how I made the paper but I do know that the white streaks are from correction tape.

Elongated Collage 01

As I mentioned previously I am cleaning my studio.  As I clean I am setting aside pieces of ephemera that I might use in collages.  This collage, Elongated 01, now resides in the Japanese Stab Binding journal above.  It is only four elements plus some graphite pencil.

Dancing Day and Well, Whenever

Dancing Day and Well, Whenever

This is the first of a second collaboration I am doing with yet another artist playing card artist who lives only about two miles at the most from my home.  Elsa and I also met online but we have met many times in person as well.  Elsa is like these dancers, full of joy and vitality.  She started the collage and I added the dancers and the stamped numbers.

Stuart

Stuart

Stuart is a collaboration with Cheryl from Kirkland, WA.  We met online in the artist playing card group and we have tried to meet but it has not worked out yet.  Cheryl sent me four cards with one element.  It is my job to work on what she sent.  I thought I would remain minimalist and only do one element in return.  Stuart is the first of hers that I have completed although I have ideas for the others.

The reason for calling this piece Stuart is that it reminds me of the book Stuart Little.  Do you remember that E.B. White book?  Stuart is a mouse born into a human family.  Well perhaps this monkey is a cherished family member of the family on the left of the collage.  I love the body language of the woman leaning forward.  So proud!  I am calling it done.

Japanese Stab Binding - Handmade Marbled Paper

Japanese Stab Binding - Handmade Marbled Paper

A few weeks ago I made ten sheets of marbled paper at a workshop.  This was how one of them turned out.  The binding may look simple but it was not.  I am going to take it out in the morning and do it again to commit it to memory.

Japanese Stab Binding - Zigzag Stitch

Japanese Stab Binding - Zigzag Stitch

I don't know if this binding is really called a zigzag stitch but since it looks like what a sewing machine can do I am going to call it that.  I may have told you that I am in the process of cleaning my studio/office.  This means that I have to free up space in the garage for many items.  I was going through my flat file drawers and found many papers made many years ago.  I am using them left and right to make new books.

Japanese Stab Bindings

Japanese Stab Bindings

Great binding day....three new Japanese Stab Bindings.  Fun to figure out and to complete.

August 2019 Artist Playing Cards

August 2019 Artist Playing Cards

It is that time of the month when the artist playing cards are ready to be sent out.  I am just waiting on my list of recipients.  This month I decided to hinge two playing cards together and include a popup when opened.  I used washi tape to decorate the cards this time.  The hard part was getting the popup airplane to pop when the card is standing as it is.  It is much easier when the card is more horizontal.  Thanks to my friend Sally who came up with a suggestion.