Geez, what a nag! However, putting up this "GO!" sign on the outside of the door to my studio (rather than putting it up inside the studio) is having the desired effect. A little well-placed guilt can be a good motivator - lol. I've yet to set up a schedule for my activities so I know I am not getting as much done as I could, but I have been snagging bits and pieces of time to follow up on things I've had questions about or do small steps toward a bigger project, partly because of that reminder on the studio door.
We'll start with this that I'd been curious about, one of the pieces of brown paper bag that I colored with Art Graf - a water soluble graphite - in my first attempt at faux leather. I wasn't happy with the way the Art Graf worked and couldn't get the blending I expected when a wet brush was applied. But never one to waste things, I pondered how I could improve it for use covering another book board. I settled on stamping over it randomly with a commercial stamp inked with a permanent ink pad. Nice! Even though the Art Graf is supposed to be permanent after wetting, it seemed to me that bits of it had a tendency to rub off. So now that it had been stamped, I could satisfy my curiosity of how it would look if I painted a protective layer of matte medium over the entire thing. I had heard from others that although matte medium is supposed to be "matte", it often leaves a bit of shine anyway, and that was true in this case (as you might be able to see some reflection in the lower left). I think I would try something else in the future; I'm not keen on the look or feel but it will be fine to cover a book board with.
With matte medium on my brush, it was time to move to another thing I'd wondered about. I'd resolved the issue with the 4 needle coptic book not closing, thanks to a tip from a member of the handmade book club I joined (wet the folds of the watercolor signatures slightly and weight under books again), and I've been eager to work in it, inspired by those pages of eco-printing. Encouraged by the success with crumbling dry leaves onto paper before bundling for eco-printing, I wondered if those crumbles would stick to a page coated with matte medium.
It did not work so well. The dry bits would only stick if pushed into medium and trying to do it with my finger only meant that many stuck to that finger rather than the page. I finally got enough arranged and tried dabbing more matte medium over them, only to find many stuck to the paint brush as they had to my finger. I eventually got them off the brush and on the page and let it dry. Only then could I get another layer of matte medium over them to pretty much hold them in place. But they did not make a particularly interesting page, so I went on to my next bit of curiosity: could I take a dried leaf and stick it to the page? I'd read that one could do that with a pressed leaf (but no guarantees that it wouldn't decompose under the medium), but my leaf had not been pressed, still had some curl in it. Well, slather on the matte medium and see what happens. The medium somewhat hydrated the leaf so that it became soft and pliable. I coated the page where the leaf would go and coated the back of the leaf, placed it down and used a brush to add more medium while flattening the leaf. It had some spring to it though and wouldn't stay flat on the page, so I placed a piece of wax paper over it, closed up the book and put it under weights until it was dry. Everything appears to be well adhered now.
I'd been removing tea leaves from used bags and had a small stack that I decided to adhere to various pages in my book. Ohhh, they look ever so good on this watercolor paper and continue the colors of the eco-prints. There were two large ones that could span the center of a signature so down they went with matte medium (and no shine).
I tore the sealed edges off smaller ones and set them on point. Something else will be placed over them probably. Maybe more leaves? Or maybe I will doodle around them or try some watercolor paints.
Really liking the soft edges left from tearing, I tore one bag into several strips for one side and just overlapped two bags on the opposite page. Then I adhered the squiggles that are the backing paper of fusible after cutting shapes for my Sailing the Wine Dark Seas duo. My thought was I'd use a technique by Karen Stamper learned during that Sketchbook Revival course where the next step has you drench the page in different inks and possibly remove strips like the squiggles to reveal the white page underneath (scroll down about midway to read about it). But I've rather fallen in love with this page just as it is and may set up a different page for the drenching.
Speaking of ink, I thought this book might be a good place to try yet another technique I've seen the results of and thought would be fun. Perhaps you have seen this or even tried it yourself. Very simple in that you take a string or piece of yarn, coat it with paint or ink, lay it over the page in a winding back and forth manner leaving a tail, close the book over it (or place another piece of paper over it) and pull the string out. I resorted to winging it here drawing on my memory of what I'd seen awhile ago on-line and found that there IS a slight learning curve. My goal was to end up with something looking somewhat like a tree, and yeah, my first one does, somewhat. But there was perhaps too much ink on the yarn I used, or I pressed too hard holding the book together when I pulled on it, or both.
Here's another one with the soaked yarn I used. Better but I kept ending up having to pull really hard most of the way through to get the rest of the yarn out, so again, probably holding the book closed too tightly.
So Much Ink! I kept going - waste not want not and maybe things would get better - until only faint lines were being produced. I'll go back into these - I have ideas for text over the inked parts on the darker ones for instance.
This is the last thing I tried while I was working with ink. I'd seen a tutorial using ink instead of watercolor paint to create a serendipitous landscape. Like some Procion dyes, some inks will separate into several colors when dropped onto a wet piece of watercolor paper. So first I created a sample page of the four fountain pen inks I have on hand. None separated into different colors, just lighter or darker. The black maybe did a tad but nothing like the ink in the tutorial. Still, stubborn as I am, I followed his technique on the bottom of the page with my green ink (because it fit the color theme developing in my book) before trying it for real. Ehh. The ink didn't want to move, maybe I didn't get the page wet enough. I fiddled. I decided to go ahead in the book anyway.
Not even remotely like the example in the tutorial. Seriously, follow the link above and see for yourself. Not to be totally thwarted, I plan to try again but using the black ink instead. Like I said, I'm stubborn!
More ideas, more to be curious about, more to come as I work in this little book and elsewhere.
With matte medium on my brush, it was time to move to another thing I'd wondered about. I'd resolved the issue with the 4 needle coptic book not closing, thanks to a tip from a member of the handmade book club I joined (wet the folds of the watercolor signatures slightly and weight under books again), and I've been eager to work in it, inspired by those pages of eco-printing. Encouraged by the success with crumbling dry leaves onto paper before bundling for eco-printing, I wondered if those crumbles would stick to a page coated with matte medium.
It did not work so well. The dry bits would only stick if pushed into medium and trying to do it with my finger only meant that many stuck to that finger rather than the page. I finally got enough arranged and tried dabbing more matte medium over them, only to find many stuck to the paint brush as they had to my finger. I eventually got them off the brush and on the page and let it dry. Only then could I get another layer of matte medium over them to pretty much hold them in place. But they did not make a particularly interesting page, so I went on to my next bit of curiosity: could I take a dried leaf and stick it to the page? I'd read that one could do that with a pressed leaf (but no guarantees that it wouldn't decompose under the medium), but my leaf had not been pressed, still had some curl in it. Well, slather on the matte medium and see what happens. The medium somewhat hydrated the leaf so that it became soft and pliable. I coated the page where the leaf would go and coated the back of the leaf, placed it down and used a brush to add more medium while flattening the leaf. It had some spring to it though and wouldn't stay flat on the page, so I placed a piece of wax paper over it, closed up the book and put it under weights until it was dry. Everything appears to be well adhered now.
I'd been removing tea leaves from used bags and had a small stack that I decided to adhere to various pages in my book. Ohhh, they look ever so good on this watercolor paper and continue the colors of the eco-prints. There were two large ones that could span the center of a signature so down they went with matte medium (and no shine).
I tore the sealed edges off smaller ones and set them on point. Something else will be placed over them probably. Maybe more leaves? Or maybe I will doodle around them or try some watercolor paints.
Really liking the soft edges left from tearing, I tore one bag into several strips for one side and just overlapped two bags on the opposite page. Then I adhered the squiggles that are the backing paper of fusible after cutting shapes for my Sailing the Wine Dark Seas duo. My thought was I'd use a technique by Karen Stamper learned during that Sketchbook Revival course where the next step has you drench the page in different inks and possibly remove strips like the squiggles to reveal the white page underneath (scroll down about midway to read about it). But I've rather fallen in love with this page just as it is and may set up a different page for the drenching.
Speaking of ink, I thought this book might be a good place to try yet another technique I've seen the results of and thought would be fun. Perhaps you have seen this or even tried it yourself. Very simple in that you take a string or piece of yarn, coat it with paint or ink, lay it over the page in a winding back and forth manner leaving a tail, close the book over it (or place another piece of paper over it) and pull the string out. I resorted to winging it here drawing on my memory of what I'd seen awhile ago on-line and found that there IS a slight learning curve. My goal was to end up with something looking somewhat like a tree, and yeah, my first one does, somewhat. But there was perhaps too much ink on the yarn I used, or I pressed too hard holding the book together when I pulled on it, or both.
Here's another one with the soaked yarn I used. Better but I kept ending up having to pull really hard most of the way through to get the rest of the yarn out, so again, probably holding the book closed too tightly.
So Much Ink! I kept going - waste not want not and maybe things would get better - until only faint lines were being produced. I'll go back into these - I have ideas for text over the inked parts on the darker ones for instance.
This is the last thing I tried while I was working with ink. I'd seen a tutorial using ink instead of watercolor paint to create a serendipitous landscape. Like some Procion dyes, some inks will separate into several colors when dropped onto a wet piece of watercolor paper. So first I created a sample page of the four fountain pen inks I have on hand. None separated into different colors, just lighter or darker. The black maybe did a tad but nothing like the ink in the tutorial. Still, stubborn as I am, I followed his technique on the bottom of the page with my green ink (because it fit the color theme developing in my book) before trying it for real. Ehh. The ink didn't want to move, maybe I didn't get the page wet enough. I fiddled. I decided to go ahead in the book anyway.
Not even remotely like the example in the tutorial. Seriously, follow the link above and see for yourself. Not to be totally thwarted, I plan to try again but using the black ink instead. Like I said, I'm stubborn!
More ideas, more to be curious about, more to come as I work in this little book and elsewhere.
