July

There is such a gap since my last post in December 2012! I have been working on a new book to the exclusion of all else - so below are a few highlights going back. I have solved the problem of registration for block printing on silk and linen for the covers of 'Printess & the p'. 

Look out for p's & q's Press in Marseille in October and at the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair in November! 

April: BABE

We had a great time at the Bristol Art Book Event at the Arnolfini. As usual it was lovely to see familiar faces and to meet new members of the book-loving public. 

Leonie showcased the first versions of her new books, 'The Modulars'. Examples of her recent explorations in a variety of print forms, they exist as multiple repetitions of an architectural unit, folded into a playful form. The printed and letterpress versions are due for publication this October. 

March

This was the beautiful bookshop 'Damien' recommended in 'Parenthesis' which I visited in Antwerp and where I hesitated and missed buying a book of concrete poetry. I recognised some images - big blue letters arranged as machines or cityscapes from something I had seen at The Schone Kunsten Museum on the site of Ghent's 1913 exhibition. Now I think it would have been worth learning some of the Flemish language - which is what had made me hesitate in buying the book.  

Despite language difficulties, thanks to a postcard and some research by my brother and his wife, we found the street where my grandparents lived before 1914. There was no number with the address but maybe a 'Marchand Tailleur' would have been near to the high street, and maybe they lived in something like this rather eccentric looking house. 

It impressed me as being rather showy like hats my grandmother Catherina Francesca and her friends are wearing in a postcard from the Ghent 1913 exhibition. Like the nameless book I saw in Damien, this remains in my head as inspiration until I can return and find out more. 

February

Here is the box I made, at last, and delivered to the British Library this month for their copy of 'Places'. The first boxed book is in the Buckinghamshire County Museum's collection. It was made to find out 'can artists ever work together?', part of 'artist's forum' at the Museum's exhibition in 2007 'Clear Skies and Dark Clouds', about different artists working together in the county between the wars.

We made each page with a print and a quote. Jean Mould Hart made this linocut with remembered episodes hanging in the landscape on a washing line. Heather Hunter's lino blocks were repeated to make the box. Christine Lock's page included a quote by Clare Leighton and a page that she cut out minutes before the book launch. This added to the exhilarating experience of making a new book together in such a short time. My place of inspiration is summed-up in the tiny wood-engraving of a tree I can see from my studio. 

Our answer to the question posed by the exhibition was 'yes' I think, although the geographically close artists in the exhibition only worked together very occasionally if at all. 

Happy New Year

These unsuitable princesses are work in progress for 'Printess and the p', a new artist's book for publication in the autumn. 

Books for 2013

Two new versions of books are ready to be looked at by vistors either here at my studio from February or at BABE Bristol Artists Book Event at the Arnolfini on the 20th and 21st of April. 

Inks

In these trials with similar pages for my next book it was hard to tell, even from close up, which was printed with safe wash inks and which with traditional oil-based inks, but they just don't handle in the same way. The greatest disadvantage with the safe wash inks when making books is that if the paper is too wet, colour seeps through to the other side. 

The safe wash inks are wonderfully bright. In 'Drawing lines' for the Big Draw this year, Leonie and I drew and printed with local schools. The results, 'Dreams inside our heads' and 'Lines beneath our feet' were hosted by Brothers Hair Salon in this most central spot in a town whose council is in the process of drawing new lines on the map. Bright colours were needed for the work to show up in a shadowy lane. 

The new colours glowed but could also be subtle enough for chine colle and layers of embossing to work. I sometimes make collagraphs with young people using Rowney/Daler watercolour inks, but the colours are not lightfast. 

Several workshops later, I know these oil-based inks are better for first time printers, with easy washing up and consistent results. Work continues on 'Printess' (or the invention of printing in one sleepless night) however with the traditional inks that took hundreds of years to perfect.