If at first...

 Every time my chum Sue phones me her opening line when I answer the phone is usually 'why aren't you in that shed working ?'  Well, I was up there before I went to Oxford for a few days, getting on with preparation of an aluminium plate for some saline  etching. A post on Jac's blog a couple of weeks ago reminded me of an image I'd put together 18 months ago from photos of a mistle thrush in the garden with some text I fiddled about with in Photoshop. Jac had been using the gum arabic transfer medium for getting her image on to a plate prior to etching and I decided to pull my finger out and do mine too after all this time.

So, the day before I headed off to my course I took my photocopies , inked them up and tried to get them centred on an 8x6 aluminium plate. Easier said than done but I was happy enough with one attempt to give it a try. I didn't heat the plate up to dry it out, just left it in the window until my return. Of course by then, six days had passed and the ink was rock hard and although it etched well enough I couldn't get the original background ink off the plate... and as I'd used burnt umber, the wiping was hardly a roaring success as all these proofs on the shed wall testify to. I was printing with Payne's Grey and could not see where I'd wiped and where I hadn't.

 During a phone call this week Sue suggested trying to get the ink off with Brasso and then my husband suggested TCut which was a success! Why didn't I think of that? So, I cleaned it and then I printed it again, trying a couple of two plate options as well. I can see all the things that are wrong with it but I like the image so I'm going to sharpen it up, try to eliminate the errors and do it all over again.

 And whilst I had some left over ink on the slab I printed a collagraph that I made last year and for some reason never got around to printing. Its about 8 inches square and I think I like it in the grey/black so might frame that one and see what it looks like in different orientations.

 I've spent two days in that shed this week doing all this and I wonder why I don't have more to show for the time but it's not important. Sometimes I need to remind myself that it is all about 'doing the work' and who knows what will come out of it. I have so many ideas in my head at the moment that trying to remember them and filter out the wheat from the chaff is a real challenge but onwards, ever onwards eh?

Summer School

 I've been away for a few days this week at the annual Oxford Summer School. I found out about it last year but far too late to get on the course I wanted so as soon as the brochure landed on the mat this time around I was booked on Experimental Drawing with Claire Christie Sadler.

Not only is this lady a fantastic artist, she is a great teacher too. There were 12 of us in the group and it has been one of those workshops when everything was 'right'. The summer school was buzzing with all the different classes going on and everyone in the room just got what Claire was encouraging us to do so we cracked on with trying out lots of materials and then did painting, rubbing, ripping, sanding etc to either verbal or musical stimuli. It was huge fun and I will definitely be going again. Such a well organised and diverse event.

Whilst I have been quiet here in the online world I have been busy this summer and now have even more ideas percolating for the next month or so. Aside from a family wedding August is commitment free so I intend to carry on playing and just 'doing the work' to see what evolves at the end of it. 

What goes around comes around

 It's a couple of years since I wrote a blog post highlighting the book in the left of the picture above. This used a fabulous childrens encyclopaedia that I found, to make a book which is either described as a carousel book or a star tunnel accordion. Every time I put it on the timetable to teach, events conspired to remove it but its turn has finally come this week. So, you can imagine the dismay when I tried to find my star sample and couldn't find it anywhere!

Now, many years of bookmaking leads to lots of crates of samples but it was conspicuous by its absence despite many searches. I was bereft, thinking I'd left it in a venue on display somewhere so I asked my husband to search for it..... and he found it in the first box he looked into....

 After passing through quite a few hands it had lost its ties and needed a bit of TLC so I have repaired it and fallen in love with it all over again. It is one book I could never give away despite its flaws and I am excited to teach it on Friday and see what my group come up with for content.

Because I thought my sample was lost I quickly made a couple more. I usually have blank books in the various 'making' stages for my workshops but always like to have one special one, fully formed, for ideas and discussion. Now I have three.... and lots of ideas for a few more so I am making a couple more samples today but wanted to give a sneak preview of my two new samples......

 I always try to use up materials that are to hand, so one is using silvered card which creates a great mirrored effect. I've had this stuff for years and can't believe how long it has taken me to use it effectively so it will now line up with my new Andy Pandy book made on a whim after a chance comment by a friend the other day about the TV of our childhood here in the UK.

They are time consuming books to make but can look great with a good idea. Andy has now joined my encyclopaedia book in my 'favourites' pile and I'll try to remember the camera to show you what the group conjure up on Friday. Looking forward to it!

Just drifting along

Isn't it proving to be a gorgeous late Spring, early Summer?  Lots of sun but tempered with soft breezes. The light is wonderful and the garden is very lush. I love it in the early morning or evening best and this year we seem rabbit free so lots of plants that usually get decimated seem to be thriving
The swallows have long returned to our little pig cott and are flying and twittering everywhere. I even saw swifts flying overhead yesterday, a first for our little patch.

The garden is teeming with bumble bees and the weather indicated it was a good time for a moth trap so we had one the other night. Numbers were good but not significantly so for this time of year and some of the usual suspects were conspicuous by their absence. If the warmer weather continues we should see some bumper evenings in the next few weeks so we'll keep trying but another first for us came in the form of the Leopard Moth in the final photo. It was so large that it did not go into the trap. I found it resting on the corner of the shed and popped it into an inspection pot for a closer look. It was gorgeous and then it sat on my hand for a few minutes warming up before it flew away. It made my day. A good reminder to appreciate the natural wonders around me.

Jan Miller workshop

 I have just spent three wonderful days in the company of six other like minded women enjoying a workshop with Jan Miller. I have come home with a head full of thoughts gently planted there by this lovely person. It has been three days of revelation about what I value in my work - or more about  why I don't value it enough. I have a new regard for the overlooked and discarded. I see the joy in seemingly unrelated things being placed together and have a new regard for processes I have tried and so say 'moved on' from. Hmm. I need to retrace my steps with a few things I think and re-evaluate.

I stayed away from textiles unlike the others who dyed so much fabric in the tea bath that it went black with the amount of iron and tea bags that kept being added to it. It ended up like treacle but they produced some stunning results.

I have to absorb in workshops. I make mental notes and take photos. If I close my eyes now I can see the table laid out with some of Jan's treasures - calligraphy tools made with found materials, smudge sticks from sage tops, tree bark lined with vintage fabrics, folded boro like textiles and long, landscape textile 'maps' with simple, exquisite stitches detailing Jan's movements around her allotment.

I opted to work with paper and with books. I often call it my default mode. almost apologising for not thinking of anything more original, but as of now, I am stopping that. I have come to accept that making books is what I'm about. It's not the only thing I do but it works for me to cement all the ideas from a workshop and I made three yesterday that I love and want to do more with.

I fell in love again with waxing paper this weekend. It's been too long since I did this. So simple yet so satisfying. I'm even eyeing that bag of linen and rusted fabrics I've been hoarding and rumour has it that I might even take up the needle......

It was one of those workshops when everything seemed 'right' and I feel incredibly lucky to have been a part of something so special.

Workshop frenzy

 I think 'workshop frenzy' is a misnomer for the title of this post but one of the photos I took of last Friday's workshop shows Gill working like a demon so it seemed apt! Thank you to the group that came and raised funds for the charity Hands Up for Uganda. Let's hope we bought a few more bricks to build something much needed. In return they got a notebook to record the process - so they knew I meant business from the off - and all the materials to walk away with both a soft cover and hard cover version of a coptic stitch notebook. Not everyone finished both books but I know they will be completed at home and all of them were wonderful. I also know they will make more and I love a workshop when you know that everyone just 'gets it'. It really was a lovely day in great company despite snow in Shropshire in late April.

 ..... and just because I want to.... I met a lovely girl at a recent workshop I taught and it was mentioned that she made jewellery related to butterflies. So, I asked if she did moths and she said no but she was up for the challenge. This photo does not do justice to the scale and detail of these two moth brooches I am now the lucky owner of. I sent my photos and this is what Martha came up with. The Elephant Hawk Moth now adorns my printmaking apron (an idea I nicked from a friend!) and the Garden Tiger is waiting for its moment in the spotlight. Guaranteed that if I wear certain pairs of earrings people always stop me and ask where I got them from. If I was wearing these two in the street I think I'd be inundated and would need to ask Martha for a set of business cards! Seriously, this girl is talented and if you have a commission contact here her.

Explorations

 Well, I don't know where March went. I know I was busy but I hadn't realised how tardy I have been in posting. I have even been slow to keep up with others so I value your patience if anyone is out there still reading these random thoughts.
There were a lot of book workshops happening in March and I even fitted in a solar plate workshop for myself which was very interesting. I have plans afoot to push this print technique further this summer. It needs UV light to work so either an exposure unit or the sun is required. Hmm... the sun eh?  I'm writing this at 8.00pm and we have just had a snowstorm. I heard a rumour that it was Spring in the UK but obviously not every day as yet, just the occasional one. It was cold enough for snow today so I suppose I'm not surprised that we've finally had some.

And yet last week, we had a couple of beautiful Spring days, which thankfully coincided with a visit to Wales by Fiona and Barry. I have long been a follower of Fiona's blog and we've shared some lovely exchanges of books and prints over the last few years so can you imagine how excited I was when she suggested that we meet up whilst they were on an extended break to the UK? We had some good fun whilst I did the tour of Pembrokeshire  for them and when we said goodbye I felt like I had known them both forever. It was very special and a friendship I will treasure. Over the years I have met and made friends with some lovely people via this blog so I must treat it with more care and lavish a few posts on it every now and again!!

 And if you're wondering where this is leading and how come the photos seem to have no relevance to the text, I ended the week with a three day course with Bobby Britnell. I've left Bobby's monthly drawing group for the summer to concentrate on getting some of my own ideas formulated. In a group with 7 others we explored themes and ways of working all through the weekend. I am the only non textile person in the group but that's fine by me. My source material - top photo - is actually the drain cover outside my back door coupled with the marks left when I moved the barrel of herbs right next to it last autumn. This is not what I expect to be working on but it was a starting point and sometimes the oddest things throw up the best ideas.

I did lots of drawings, painting, printing, sgraffito into gesso work and graphite rubbings etc. I loved it and have a head full of ideas but they'll have to wait. I am teaching a book workshop this weekend followed by a print workshop so my stuff will have to go on hold but I am raring to go. We all meet again in August and that seems so far away, yet I know that if I lost March, I could easily lose May,June and July unless I stay focussed. So, I'm making a timetable and hoping to stick to it. There's lots of coastal path walking involved in my project so let's hope, as I look out on snowy ground in April , that Spring morphs seamlessly into Summer and that I have the perfect weather for it.
I'll keep you posted. I promise.