Workshops taken and giving

Last year when I was in the US I took a class with Karen Hanmer at the San Francisco Center of the Book. The class was making a pyramid book made up of triangles. When I returned Val, who organises workshops for Papermakers of Victoria asked if I would run the class for PoV. That is happening Sunday Week 21 April out at Bundoora Stables, PoV's studio space.

Karen mentioned in her notes that the method could be used for other shapes like hexagons and squares so I have made up a model using hexagons, the first problem was getting an even hexagon. I tried using a compass to draw a circle then mark off the circle into six. This should have worked but didn't because my pencil slipped in the compass. Next trial I folded a strip of card in half and cut off a triangle at 60 degrees to the fold, I then used the cut side to measure the second side and cut another triangle at 60 degrees to the fold. I then unfolded and used this as a template to cut my sheets. I had already printed some etchings of bees onto some handmade paper so these became the backing for the hexagons.

Bee Hive 2013
Acetate etching on handmade paper 

The Hexagon

That leads into another workshop taken this year with Liz Powell. It was called Eco Friendly Etching and we used zinc plates and copper sulphate. I was quite pleased with my second plate that was a delicate line drawing but not that impressed with the first. I printed a few versions of both plates and made up a small book as suggested by Liz. She was a great teacher very patient. The book was formed with a concertina spine and windows in pages that were folded in half and glued to the concertinas.

some new leather bound books

My postcard for the Yabbers postcard exchange from our session of plant and metal dyeing

My contribution to the Contemporary Art Society Brooch show, all pieces around 5 x 10 cm

belated update

I have been doing some work this year, though you wouldn't think so from here, I am just not documenting very well. The first piece is one that I made for a show in Bulgaria as part of the Amateras Foundation's Sofia paper Art Fest, there are five panels each approximately 80 x 40 cm.

Signs of Life - Natural 2013
Various plant fibre pulps, pulp painting

A very good friend of both of my daughters got married recently and asked me to make the invitations. She and her fiance also invited us to the wedding so I made them a guest book in the colours of their wedding. The yellow pulp was left over from the invites and the blue from my Christmas cards. I decided on a concertina format so that several people could sign at once.

Wedding Book for Claire and Simon
Recycled paper with dye and digital print of a cyanotype
Unique state

My book Obsolete was shortlisted for the Libris Awards at  Artspace Mackay, the exhibition runs from 10 May until 30 June, I don't expect to win but it is good to be there, I very nearly didn't enter because I felt it was too expensive but I relented on the last day!

Obsolete 2012
mixed plant fibre and digital print,  tunnel book
Edition of two

My daughter Katy was keen to enter St Lukes Palette show again and talked me into it too. I was uninspired for along time then elected to make shaped pages and turn it into a book with the palette sawn in half for the cover. I kept seeing a face in the palette so called my book Oddbod. Katy has done a fabulous one based on Alice in Wonderland.

Oddbod 2013
Wooden palette, paper made from cotton nappies, abaca and recycled board, cotton thread and ceramic beads
Unique state

Oddbod 2013
Wooden palette, paper made from cotton nappies, abaca and recycled board, cotton thread and ceramic beads
Unique state

Katy Stiffe
Rabbit Hole 2013
Acrylic paint and fabric collage

Butterfly Book 2013
Book board, marbled paper, turning mechanism, black cover paper, New Zealand flax and other plant fibre papers.
Unique state

I have entered these two books in the East Gippsland Art Gallery 'Books Beyond Words - Revolution' Show. The Butterfly book is an extension on the butterflies I have been making for the last six months or so and it revolves when the handle is turned. I scoured our local op shops until I found a music box with a ballerina, I pulled it apart, removed the music and made a new box to hold the mechanism. The other piece 'Revolution' is largely the result of an etching workshop I did with Liz Powell a few weeks ago. In the workshop we used zinc plates and copper sulphate but at the end Liz mentioned that you could also use clear acetate and that is what i used here for the line drawings. I carved the letters for the word from soft cut. Each page is larger by one letter than the one before and I felt the need to have the book circular in format.

Revolution 2013
Paper made from cotton nappies and abaca, acetate etching and block printing in posting tube.
Toji binding Edition of two

reinvented butterflies

It has been way too long since I posted, here it is almost the end of February and it seems that the year is just starting! I haven't been producing very much lately, seem to have been spending too much time on administration and on clearing out a room and a couple of sheds. I am only partly done on both those counts and we are in the middle of a heatwave so it is definitely a day for either staying inside or heading out somewhere that is air conditioned. We don't even run to a fan but our house is well insulated so it is still bearable inside.

I decided to reinvent some of the Butterflies that I made as part of the Yabbers contribution to Earthworks, the Papermakers of Victoria exhibition that was held last year so I went ti IKEA to buy some deep square frames and wouldn't you know it they didn't have any of the size I wanted. They did however have some rectangular ones and as it turns out they work perfectly. I will be submitting the set of three to the Contemporary Art Society exhibition that is on at Herring Island (in the middle of the Yarra river at Burnley) from 2 until 17 March, weekends only 11.30am to 4.30pm. I have called the piece Papillon in Three Parts, very original!!! The black is commercial card that I've hand cut and the colour is mostly New Zealand flax paper that has been dyed with Cartesol dyes.

The large stamp is my name stamp that I carved at a workshop with Miho Araki and the smaller one is an antique soapstone chop, I don't know what that says.

 Since Christmas I have made one batch of books using the papers that I dyed last year with rust and plant materials, the covers are book cloth that has a photocopy of one of the pages from the book. These were all done in a stainless steel pot with bits of rusty metal and the bundles of paper a la India Flint. I have since inherited an old copper and a cast iron pot but haven't had a chance to test them out yet.

Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

It took me a while to come up with the design for my Christmas cards and I needed to get them done in a hurry. Here is what I came up with. I had the yellow and blue pulps for some other projects (My cards for the Yabbers, Sabuda cards that I bought in the US and have embellished and invites for a wedding) and used stencils to make the designs in fine recycled pulp.

The full sheets an two variations

Noel on white card

Presents on white card

Stripe tree on white card

Spotty tree on white card

The mould with gaffer tape stencil

Playing with Eco Dye

 It has been so long since I posted, I have been away for about six weeks in the US, I went for the IAPMA Congress that was held in conjunction with Friends of Dard Hunter at the Morgan Conservatory. I spent a couple of week before the conference visiting New York, Boston and Washington, just as well for me that I went there BEFORE rather than after, so sorry to hear about the devastation caused by Sandy. I had a week where I visited Cincinnati and Chicago then flew to San Francisco where I did a class with Karen Hanmer on making a triangle book at the San Francisco Center for the Book. I met lots of papermakers and book artists in the last part of my trip (the first part was with hubby so limited to three visits) and visited many art museums and galleries, saw some fabulous art.

India Flint taught a pre conference workshop on dyeing paper with leaves and rust and I saw what the participants had done in class and many of my local friends have been eco dyeing so in between long bursts at the computer I bundled up a range of leaves and onion skins and cooked them up with a few rusty nails and bits and pieces. Here are a few of the resulting papers, not sure how I'll use them but I did find it addictive.

I arrived home in time to help set up the Papermakers of Victoria exhibition at Open Drawer (it is on until 2 December) and we hosted members of PAGE to a day of papermaking, folding and printmaking at the Bundoora Stables. This week I have started work on putting the IAPMA Bulletin together so needed a bit of a break from the computer, hence the dyeing (and cooking up some montbretia, pond weed, red hot poker leaves and yucca for my next project!) But I'd better get back to the Bulletin!

Dried bluegum leaves and some daphne and mulberry paper that went in the vat too

some of the sheets with gumleaves and onion skin and the thread used to tie all together

onion skin and fern