Zentangles, Inktober and a Blank Journal

Definitely a productive week for a change. Something about following this current Zentangle series seems to have sparked a motivation to get back to drawing and being a little creative in general. This one is based on the Tripoli tangle and I must say, I deviated quite a bit in the use of materials. I think my triangles were quite a bit smaller than the ones on the example and my metallic gel pen did not leave as thick of a line as the Zentangle people got on their translucent smooth tiles. 

This made the step of outlining each stroke on both sides with an 01 Micron Pen a challenge, not made any easier by a shaky hand, eyes that didn't want to focus and the texture of the paper that made it even more difficult to make straight lines. By the time they got to the part about adding the pastel chalk inside the triangles, I was ready to go off on my own, especially since I didn't have the colors of Art Graf I wanted to fill the tiny triangles with. I continued to use the metallic gel pens to fill them in and the spaces in the flourishes - I forget what that tangle is called.

Here's another video to show the sparkling gel pens. In case you didn't know, you can click on the icon in the lower right to switch to a larger version easier to see. I noted this time around that some of the metallic sparkle escapes the ink and ends up on the page, much like glitter seems to get everywhere.

I thought I was done but at the end of their video, they flipped their translucent tile over and added the Paradox tangle inside each triangle, visible faintly from the front, especially if the tile is help up to the light. I already was thinking about adding a row of triangles along the bottom of the page and filling them with a different combination of metallic pen colors and if I made those triangles bigger, I could fit that Paradox tangle in them, unlike the small triangles above. I rather liked this.

And then the weekend came and it was October, time for #INKtober sketching if I wanted to give that a go. Last year I only made it a week before I lost interest and really wanted to spend my time elsewhere. This year I'd seen a preview of the official prompts and thought, yeah - I think I can work with these this time. So here are my first two, drawn with a pen that is new to me and primarily used for Manga Graphic Novels use, i.e. it makes some very thick lines if you are not careful. It is taking some getting used to. I'm not doing this drawing out of my head but referencing photos to guide what my mind envisions but my hand often fails to interpret without some help.

Finally, here's a very old unfinished project to add to my "finish more!" resolution for the year. When I lived by the lake over ten years ago, I was visited by a moose who eventually crossed the road and ambled down the bike trail, giving me ample time to take lots of photographs, some of which got printed onto fabric for padfolios. While experimenting with placements, I had several "rejects" that didn't work on padfolios, but never one to throw anything away, I could see that they might work for blank journal covers and one actually did.

This one which was sized a little big got as far as being fused to felt and WonderUnder fused to the lining before the two pieces were pinned to my design wall. You know, out of sight out of mind, and I figured this would be quick to finish up if I just kept it in sight. Well, not so. I added a little quilting to outline the moose earlier this year before it went back up on the design wall. I just wasn't up to adding as much stitching on it as I did the first one.

But now I wanted to finish it up as a thank you gift for one of the gals who helped me so much after my surgery and who I'd discovered liked to occasionally journal. And I wanted to see how things would go sitting at the machine as this one would require a satin stitch finish around the outside. I just had to trim the cover and the lining and fused them together before doing that satin stitching. Turns out sitting at the machine is not a problem. The signatures are sewn in with perle cotton and the closure is a button from my garndmother's/mother's button collections and an elastic loop.

And so I got the Peace quilt backing pinned to the front over the batting and set my machine up for quilting it with a walking foot. Lots of easy straight line stitching ahead whenever I feel like a sit-down.

One Down, One To Go

I had my first cataract surgery yesterday. As the date neared, I hustled to get as many important things needing good eyesight done as I could, knowing that there would be about a month between surgery one and when both eyes were healed enough to order up new glasses. They all promise me I will be seeing near perfect but for my best vision I will need some corrective lenses. I'm already astounded at how well I can see with my right eye without glasses, but being farsighted, deciphering things up close (like words on a page) requires getting the glasses on and some squinting as now the right eye isn't seeing well through the current prescription. I know some of you have already had this surgery so you must know what I mean. I had wanted to get a new blank journal made for myself as I had few pages left in my current one (used for writing prompts and yoga meditations). Well, I almost made it. I picked out fabric (I believe this is a hand-dyed fabric from friend Susan), fused it to felt, did some minimal quilting (following the textures in the fabric) and turned the excess along the edges to the inside for fusing. This makes a very soft cover and I found myself dithering over whether to fuse another piece to the inside for a little more stability. Still dithering. If you click for a larger photo, you can just make out white dots marking where I still need to punch holes with that awl for attaching the signatures. Said signatures are all folded and punched.

Which brings me to my fancy new punching cradle, made by Jim Poelstra of Affordable Binding Equipment. It wasn't cheap, which is why I've been putting off purchasing one, but it is beautifully handcrafted of sturdy birch. Sure beats making do with a catalog or phone book, and much sturdier than the DYI cardboard one I made. Punching my signatures was a joy instead of a struggle, and isn't that what we all strive for when plying our particular crafts with the tools we use to make them?

So even though I got this far just days before the surgery and probably could have eked out the time to sew in the signatures, I'm sure I can see well enough to do it in this time before surgery two in a little more than a week. I'll probably even be able to see well enough to write in it!

 

We Interrupt This Distraction...

Before getting all caught up in the opening of the Triple Threat Exhibit (see last few posts), I was busy making a linocut of a leaf cluster. I was about halfway through removing areas that will not print when I allowed another distraction to take priority. Another thing I've wanted to get to for awhile, another piece of fabric set aside for it - aside but not away, such that I wouldn't forget but instead be reminded whenever working in the studio, a nagging at my consciousness - another blank journal.

But as you can see, I actually have made two. While I will soon need another one for myself for my yoga journalling, I also wanted to make one as a gift for someone who has sustained a loss. A bit of tick tock on both counts, so it was time to get these done. This one received simple outlining of the sun-printed leaves, opting to keep the feeddogs engaged so the stitching would be nice and even. As always, amazed at how a little stitch can transform a fabric.

This is an African batik of sorts, another special piece out of my late friend's stash. Done on a slightly heavier and coarser fabric than what we generally work into our quilts, it is perfect for this sort of project. And it was about the perfect size, very little having to be trimmed off. I'm sure it started off as a larger piece, probably a fat quarter, but I have no idea what my friend might have used part of it for. I used to be more about what I could do with leftovers from my projects. Now I seem to delight more in having as little leftover as possible.

 

That fabric had been fused to a piece of eco felt cut the finished size of the cover - I thought it could use the extra stability the fusible would provide. A little trimming of the corners of the fabric extending beyond was all that was needed before turning them over the edge and fusing to make a firm clean finish. The other African batik fabric was even heavier so I just spray basted the felt to it and stitched along the black lines (another instance of the quilting not showing but definitely felt when handling the journal). Strips of fusible were added along the fabric extensions so they could be turned over the edge and fused.

Covers done, it was time to fold the signatures and sew them in. On mine, I used a #3 wt Perle cotton which glided wonderfully through the holes of both the paper and cover. On the other I used a rayon braid from an Oliver Twist "Two of a Kind" package and it was even better! I used that 1/16th hole punch on the covers for the holes near the edges but of course could not reach into the center holes with it and reverted to a large needle. I used fray check on the ends and knots of both as a precaution, even though they are made on the inside between the pages. Carefully chosen buttons from my grandmother's/mother's button collection and elastic loops provide the closures.

These blank journals still feel like I'm working through prototypes, frustrating in how long they take, how long I end up fiddling with them unlike the padfolios that I have down to a science. But I love them - the size, the feel of the soft cover in my hand, the variety of decorative thread or yarn that can be used in the spine, the lovely antique laid paper I'm using for the signatures. You know there will be more. But first, back to the previous distraction...

Taking a Deep Breath...

...or two or three. Just how many deep breaths do I need to take to proceed into the unknown? Quite a few, it would seem, as I check and double check and ponder and research - same old same old for me. At some point, I realize I have to jump in - maybe holding my breath - by making one or two decisions and then I relax and can move forward. Case in point - what to do with the gessoed food boxes when there are so many choices. Well, how about just adding a coat of acrylic paint as step one? I don't have that many colors to choose from, but there I was, dithering anyway. I've probably used the Naphthol red the least, so why not? It reads a beautiful Chinese red to me and was quickly followed by yellow oxide lightened with some titanium white randomly sponged across the surface.

Yowza! I not only love the sponged effect but the yellow reads like gold metallic. My squiggles of paper still are not showing up but I can't say I care much at this point. Viewing this close-up I noticed some of the box graphics do show through even though I thought the red had covered them thoroughly - they are providing that subtle shading layers can give. Thinking to add a bit more in black, maybe just some text, but for the time being, I set it aside.

Food box # 2 is slightly smaller and is not designated for anything yet, so I felt totally at ease experimenting here. Right after publishing that gesso blog post, Joggles.com's mid-week muse video landed in my mailbox - what timing! What Lies Beneath starts out with techniques for gessoed surfaces. I'd seen this stencil demoed in a previous video and fell prey to it. Now was my chance to use it to try out this subtractive method. Basically it's just laying down a thick layer of paint, placing a stencil over it and removing paint through the stencil with baby wipes.

Of course, I hadn't added any color to my gesso as in the video but I thought perhaps some of the color from the box would show through. Only if you look very closely. The brush strokes are also very evident in the gesso now. I think if I do this again, I would lightly sand the gesso. Some of the paint sticks to the stencil when it is removed and I wished that it had done so more evenly. But that's just me. This one will get more layers too.

Forgotten decorative paper stash yields possible addition - and maybe some washi tape along the edges?

While taking my time with the food boxes, I've been considering how to attach my text blocks. I've gone my own way a bit, should be no surprise, in choosing this kind of cover for my Creating at the Speed of Life art journaling exercises, so the book's instructions might need some adjustment. It has you securing the individually sewn signatures together with tape and then wrapping sticky canvas over them for the cover. I could probably attach my cover in a similar way. I consulted other sources and ran across one that suggested sewing the signatures individually with the pamphlet stitch to make them easier to handle when attaching to the cover with the other way I was considering - the long stitch. That made sense to me as the watercolor paper readily available to me was a heavy 140 lb. The more I looked at my food box cover and what else I thought I might want to do to it, the more I thought it might be a bit too fragile to be handled over 30 lessons and that I didn't want to hold up the journaling process while I finished it. I knew I'd be fussing about getting paint on the cover or damaging it, and nearly abandoned the idea of using it for this. But if I sewed together individual signatures to work in and sewed them into the cover once all the lessons were complete - well, that seemed the perfect answer to all my questions and misgivings about my bulky little journal. Now there will be plenty of time to decide how else to embellish the cover.

And so with my mind settled on these little details, there was one more deep breath over hole placement and thread, then go! I sewed the signatures today and am ready to start the lessons anytime. I know, I know - I'm spending too much time getting set up, no doubt. But it's simply not in my nature to just dive into the unknown. I like lots of specific instruction and when they are lacking, I tend to freeze up until I get enough info to make me comfortable. I'm feeling much more comfortable now... 

 

Photos on Fabric

I've been working up a journal to give my hair stylist for Christmas. She's an avid huntress who did not have the best luck this year. I'd told her about the issue I ran into when thinking to use my moose photo on a padfolio with the nose ending up on the flap and...oh no - the moose's rear on the front cover. She laughed and thought that might actually be fun. I came up with a different solution and this moose on fabric has been hanging around the studio ever since, waiting for a place to be used. It was sized almost perfectly for a journal cover and I knew if I gave it to my hair stylist, the moose's rear on the back cover would only make her smile. And perhaps she could use it to keep track of her scouting and weather, her successes and failures. Using the same formula as here, I added a strip to the bottom to make it long enough and fused it to craft felt. This was printed out on muslin and lacked the extra stability that the heavier waxed batik had. I was hoping the fusible web would rectify that. And because I didn't have the extra I did on the other journal cover, I planned to satin stitch the edges. If you click on the picture, you should be able to see I've started "quilting" by outlining the moose in dark brown thread.

Because it is fused, I can get away with less quilting. And there's a limit to what I want to add. Some might go whole hog and thread paint over the entire moose, but that seems redundant to me - why would I want to cover up the detail on a photo that printed so clearly to fabric? I settled for adding some bushes which because of how heavily the snow was falling did not show up much in the photo. But a couple did - and they really were red - so I extended them across the piece. I also used the alphabet function on my machine to customize the cover.

The cover still was pretty flimsy, so I started looking for a fabric to line what would be the inside cover cutting it twice as long as needed so I could create a pocket front and back. Again, I used fusible web to adhere it to the felt, then turned up the excess, pressing the fold at the bottom.

Then the top was folded back down even with the bottom to create perfect pockets. A little basting glue along the edges held it in place for the satin stitching of the edges all round.

Since making the last journal, I've picked up a few tricks for low-cost bookbinding tools. You can buy or make a piercing cradle - a v-shaped contraption for holding your folded signatures while punching holes along the fold. Or in a pinch, you can use an old phonebook to cradle your signatures. And you need an awl to punch those holes (and if I were making lots of books, I'd no doubt invest in one), but you can also use a push pin or a long thick needle. I have some doll needles I bought for thread basting on someone's recommendation, but they turned out to be too big for that. I'd been thinking about trying one for piercing although the needle might be tricky to hold onto. Then I ran across a tip that suggested protecting the point on an awl by sticking it into a wine cork before putting it away. Hmmm - could I embed the other end of my needle in a cork to make a handle? Indeed I could! A champagne cork has a comfortable rounded top that feels good on the palm of my hand.

So here's the finished journal, with signatures sewn in with the long stitch again, using an off-white/grey yarn (you can see some of it along the left in the pic above). If I'd had the right color of red, I might have used that but I think I like this more unobtrusive color better. The button is out of my several generational collection and has a woven patterning that makes it a little more special.

There's a lot of discussion currently about the use of photos in quilt art, including the same issues being brought up about wholecloth painted quilts. Why print a photo on fabric and add stitching instead of printing it on photo paper? Why paint on cotton and add stitches rather than paint on stretched canvas or watercolor paper? I've always been conflicted about the use of photos on fabric. I've seen it masterfully done, where the photo is first manipulated or where its image us used much like a patterned fabric might be. But untouched photo to fabric incorporated into a quilt? I think there has to be a very good reason, and that adding of stitch can be quite tricky to pull off well. Which is why this moose never made it into a quilt for the wall, although I'm sure I could have surrounded it with pieced blocks or an appliqued extension of the landscape and on some level it would have worked. However, used as a journal cover, with accents of stitch, makes a certain sense. Still, I rarely do this, feeling more comfortable using manipulations of my photos rather than realistic images.

Where do you come down on this issue? Do you use photos printed on fabric in your work? If so, I'd love to see how you do it.