Transparency

This is my latest venture into testing possible etching materials. May I present you : Rhenalon. It's transparent and flewible and very easy to work into with the drypoint. I want to do some tests with superpositions of plates as well. I'm curious about how it will turn out, but won't be able to find out for the next two weeks - the workshop is closed during the school holidays. *sad panda face*

Hop over to Kootoyoo's blog for more creative space !

Grump grump grump...

Today my creative space is grumpy. I have been trying out new materials for drypoint, as working on a shiny mirror kinda hurts my eyes. Yesterday's try-out was a "Schappa" plate. It's a kin d of platic, very soft, very bendable, with one smooth side and one matte side. The engraving was very pleasant, as you can draw in pencil on it and the drypoitn moves easily through the plastic. The printing however, was NOT.

The one problem with the plate is that it is BLACK. And the ink is black as well ! So I never knew how much ink I was applying or wiping off, it was a nightmare. Byt some miracle, the first print I made (the one in the center) is somewhat okay. I want to re-work it a little, spruce it up with a little bit of color. The others ? I almost threw them in the trash right away. I was SO angry. Next week I'm giving the material one more chance : I'll try light colored ink (yellow or white) on a dark background. And I still have to try the matte side of the plate as well... but still, I'm so [censored] that the print didn't work out... I really, really loved the design. In fact, I may re-draw it on another medium.

Hop over to Kootooyoo for more creative spaces !

Lack of inspiration

I probably have a weird creative process. I start from an idea of what I want to make, I start drawing and then the picture just creates itself, it tells me what it wants to become. Sometimes though, I get stuck, I lack the starting point. That's when I look at places like Illustration Friday or the weekly European Etsy Street Team for prompts. This time I dug up a challenge theme from a few weeks ago : stripes.

(Hard as hell to photograph, evrything is shiny on this !)
This is a good opportunity to show you a part of the printmaking process. This zinc plate has been polished and covered with a coat of protective varnish. I'm drawing on this with a metal point, scratching of the protective layer. When I put the plate in the the acid bath, the acid will attack the metal in the unprotected areas.
I started doodling and thinking about all the stripes one could see in a picture, about their regulatiry and imperfections, and about how rain is often represented by vertical stripes... This is a work in progress, it may well change again before I print it !

There are a few other things going on in my brain right now - actually, there are so many I couldn't sleep !
There's the sewing, and the writing about the sewing, and there's still this drawing in progress on the desk, and two knitting projects, and I have blogs to update, and at least three different plates I want to prepare before our next printmaking session...

I was totally going to stop here, but on my way to my blog en français, I stumbled upon this beauty by Criska.

I'm not usually blogging that much about other people's product, but this is just... wow ! I can't justify buying it for myself so please, let someone take it to a good home...

More creative spaces at Kootooyoo's blog

My creative space

Long time since I haven't shown you what's going on in here, he ? Let's see what I have...

What's this ? you might ask... This was, in its past incarnation, a 1892 woollen evening cloak, which I wore to a ball many years ago. But I don't like the shape, it's too wide on me to be wearable in everyday life, so into the recycling bin it went, and it is going to be remade into a man's rococo justeaucorps. Quite a change ! Unpicking all those decorative stitches was time-consuming to put it mildly.

This is more familiar... Black ink and colored pencils, we'll see what it morphs into...

Silly me !

While sketching and coloring, I'm also working on putting a third trial run tarot deck together. I worked on it some yesterday - well today - let's just say : last time I was awake before now. Then I let it dry overnight and went to bed like a good girl. Or so was the plan.
I made the mistake to go have a look at it during the night, to discover that it had gone awry. The wallpaper was getting wavy and all. After that, I unsuccessfully tried to get back to sleep, but my mind was just running in circles, I kept thinking about how to best fix this mess and other options to make that deck. So I got up again.
I *think* I am going to keep working with the current method. Half of deck #3 is now drying between stacks of books. Here's hoping it still looks okay in the morning.
Silly me although thought I had to go buy fixative. Turns out I already did last time I went supplies shopping !
Now I'm trying to get back to sleep, I need it, but I'll leave you with a little previwe of my "Enchanted Forest" sketch.

En parallèle avec mon travail de dessin, je fais des essais pour la troisième version d'essai du jeu de tarot. J'y ai bossé un peu hier - enfin aujourdhui - disons : la dernière fois que j'ai été réveillée avant maintenant. Puis je l'ai laissé à sécher pour la nuit et suis gentiment aller me coucher. Enfin c'était le plan. J'ai commis l'erreur d'y jeter un oeil quand je me suis relevée cette nuit, pour constater que ça n'allait pas du tout. La tapisserie se mettait à faire des vagues, ack ! J'ai bien tenté de me rendormir après ça, mais impossible, mon cerveau surchauffait à se demander comment réparer ça et s'il n'y avait pas de meilleures solutions pour fabriquer le deck. Donc retour au bureau.
Je *pense* que je vais rester sur ma méthode actuelle. La moitié du deck numéro 3 est en train de sécher sous des piles de livres, en espérant qu'elle sera toujours présentable demain matin.
Ma petite tête de linotte était aussi persuadée de ne pas avoir de fixatif. Sauf qu'en fait j'en avais acheté lors de mon dernier passage chez Arteis !
Ce coup-ci, je vais essayer de retourner dormir, j'en ai besoin. Mais je vous laisse avec un petit aperçu du croquis pour "Forêt enchantée".

Automne

A little sneak peek of what I'm working on this rainy Thursday - yay rain ! Autumn is finally coming and I *love* autumn. It inspires me, autumn colors somehow always work out right on my drawings. Not to mention the heat was a bit hard on me, and being able to open windows and go out again is a bliss.

Un petit aperçu de ce sur quoi je travaille par ce mercredi pluvieux - youpi, il pleut ! L'automne arrive enfin, et *j'aime* l'automne. Il m'inspire, les couleurs automnales sont celles que je dompte le plus facilement sur ma palette. Sans parler du fait que la chaleur était un peu dure à supporter et que c'est une bénédiction d epouvoir de nouveau ouvrir les fenêtres et s'aventurer dehors.

And there was much rejoicing... err paper-cutting

Today was the day of paper cutting and card making. I'm pulling hairs on the Manesse deck trying to find the best way to make the printed cards sturdy and usable for tarot reading purposes. I know how Lady Fi proceeded with her deck, and am trying to adapt her modus operandi. I want to get the same organic feeling and the same sturdiness for our cards.
I also finally finished the ATCs for the costumer ATCs exchange. I moved away from my first concept and went with linocut prints.

Aujourd'hui était le jour du découpage de papier et de la fabrication de cartes. Je m'arrache les cheveux sur le deck Manesse pour rendre les cartes imprimées solides et utilisables pour la cartomancie. Je sais comment Lady Fi a procédé pour son propre jeu et j'essaye d'adapter le processus. Je veux obtenir le même feeling et la même solidité pour nos cartes.

From start to finish : I went from a personal drawing inspired by some millinery drawing form the 1890s. Drew it on lino, trying to get a feel of how the print would look like. Promptly noticed my design was a tad too intricated for my carving skills. Printed about three times as much as shown here to get the needed number of correct prints. Am now wondering what I can do to salvage the "oops" ones... Ideas ?

Du début à la fin : je suis partie d'un croquis inspiré d'un dessin de modiste des années 1890. Je l'ai repris sur le lino, en tâchant de voir à quoi l'impression ressemblerait. Je me suis vite aperçue que mon design était un peu ambitieux pour mes talents de gravure. J'ai du imprimer trois fois la quantité nécessaire pour obtenir le bon nombre d'épreuves correctes. Et maintenant je me demande que faire avec les ratés. Des idées ?

Fatum

Ce soir je voulais ressortir un projet du fond de mes cartons, en attendant de retrouver l'inspiration sur ma vendeuse de ballons. Seulement au fond de mes cartons, je n'ai pas trouvé ce que je cherchais... Du coup, bien obligée, j'ai fini par exhumer ma plume Atom et par encrer la vendeuse en question. Et il se pourrait même que j'ai une idée de comment possiblement la continuer...

Tonight I meant to work on some old project until I found some inspiration for the balloon seller. Except I couldn't find the old project I wanted. So there I went, dug out the Atom quill and inked said balloon lady. I might even go as far as having an idea about what to do with her next !