Round One

print-making is something that's been on my learning list for quite a few years and I've puttered at it here and there but as one desire in a long list of them I've not managed much of it

this week I got the inks and brayers out and spent a couple of hours getting rather dirty and making a great big fun mess

as I mentioned in my last post I have been thinking about transparency and layers so I thought I'd give that a go first

didn't work out so well, I need a lot more practice figuring out the right amount of ink on the inking up plate, and the printing plate, not to mention the brayer

I did manage a few light prints I could probably use and then I just played with layers on one sheet of paper, trying to get some darker areas here and there, attempting to reduce the graininess

not trying to create something useful, just rolling practice

I admit I do kind of like the gritty nature of it though

my next hankering was to try some marks reminiscent of the calligraphy squiggles I did several posts ago, where I thought of a word, held it in my mind and then just moved the brush quickly, at random

using the brayer for that was fun though I did get some rather thick globs of ink here and there so before using my fine Japanese paper to pull the print I lightly touched down a piece of cartridge paper to dab off the excess

very happy with the dab-off!

below is the ensuing print

not bad... a bit dramatic with the bigger, heavier marks, less light and lively

still delightful

from there I inked up the printing plate completely and then used the brayer to mark it up, pushing and flicking the edges of it to pull ink off

this way and that

here and there

interesting marks though still grainy

another try at inking, this time printing on a smoother paper

trying to push the brayer with the pressure a little longer

it was a good time but yes, a lot to learn

so I'll just keep at it then!

take care,

Jillayne

sometimes...

 often the best way for me to gain insights into my work is through my hands

 letting them do the "thinking"

this week it was the other way around

my hands were busy enough, finding all manner of papers, photos etc. for the collage work I had planned

busy laying out different options

busy putting most away afterwards

by Wednesday I had two layouts to choose from... until I realized neither had the lichen paper in the mix

arghh - that was the plan that set this whole collage experiment in motion, to do something with the paper I had just made... so back it all came out again and I started over

this time, my head was more involved

considering colour, value, movement and so on

a day later I had chosen what you see below to start with

a massively cropped and edited photo of a rock, another of trees on a misty Yukon morning, two images of cloth I had painted, one shibori-style, again both highly cropped and edited, and another cloth I had transferred an image onto

I have a love for painting either cloth or paper and then photographing it, playing around with editing tools and printing the created image on fine art paper to use in my work - it certainly removes the fear of cutting into a "precious" piece of cloth or paper as I can print it over and over again

and, if I want a more cloth-like nature to a print I can employ the techniques of momigami, which is exactly what I did with one of the pieces of the lichen paper I made, first konnyaku starch and then the crumpling

, 

below, the edited rock image

nature does make the best marks

nothing is glued down yet but I have got to the final layout of the base

I love it though it is rather quiet  - quiet in my work is something I have always sought but I realized this morning that what I really seek to achieve is expressive quietness

there has to be something somewhat dramatic to elevate a piece from quiet ho-hum

I'm thinking the calligraphy I've been doing lately might do the jazzing up this needs... large marks, in black, thick and thin, beginning in the lower left

something done in a hurry, quick-like

I'm also quite intrigued by the shadow falling along the right side

some transparent ink, layered in like that might also be in order

so... I've spent the past couple of days working at learning to make larger more expressive calligraphy

and early in the week the aqua ink and roller will come out

there are two more layouts in the earliest of stages  that may or not get taken forward in the next while - a lot would have to change with these two, this is only the beginning of seeing how the elements might play together - I was more concerned with colour and texture at this stage than anything else

so far so good, but now the things that add the interest need to be figured out - what moves, what goes, what comes in

what's next

take care,

Jillayne

getting at it

the yukon is a land of tall, skinny spruce trees

blackened trunks, short gnarly branches of dark green 

the trees often grow quite cramped together, perhaps gathering warmth from their close quarters

leaning this way and that

and invariably festooned with a hairy black lichen of the bryoria genus

we called it "witch's hair", others referred to it as "old man's beard"

I've always loved it though I can't tell you why, perhaps it's simply that my first memory of it is at our family cabin at  marsh lake and everything I noticed and remember from that time in my life matters to me...

so many happy memories

fast forward then to sometime in the winter of 1986/87 when I first learned to make paper

though the paper we made in the class was from recycled papers, the instructor spoke of making paper with plant material and I immediately thought of the lichen 

(yes, I know it's not a plant but it came to mind anyway, I suppose because it hangs out on one)

this week I finally gave it a try

I had picked some last summer but couldn't find it so when a friend came to visit me in November I asked her if she could bring me some

she brought me a small bag of it, gathered from a couple of trees in her yard

the paper-making learning I've been doing for the last few months has involved using linters (cotton and abaca)  and/or plant material (reed canary grass and corn husks) and neither the course I took nor my paper-making book cover lichen so I was on my own

I weighed the lichen and into the pot it went with tap water to cover and then some

it sat for a few minutes and then was brought to just before boiling on medium heat...  a bit of soda ash stirred in and finally the heat was turned down a bit and I let it simmer some more

two hours later I turned it off and let it be overnight

the next morning I gave it a stir and found the lichen had lost it's "hairiness" and become a lump of black goop

I didn't know if I should be delighted or mortified and though I had no idea if it would work I gave it a go

so, so glad I did

the first sheet was bolstered with a small amount of cotton linters, you can see it on the left below

(the darks are darker than they show here - I've taken photos of it for two days and no matter what I try I can't make them look as dark as they are)

after that initial sheet was pulled, I added abaca linters instead - abaca is a stronger plant fibre than cotton and I wasn't sure how strong the lichen would be

when I blended the lichen pulp I did it in two batches -  the first batch literally disintegrated in a heartbeat so the I didn't blend the smaller, second batch, just dropped it in the pulp/water vat and stirred it in

that's what made the larger dark spots

so glad I did it that way, they look beautiful, and in some cases have a navy cast to them

yesterday and today I spent some time laying other papers and things alongside the paper, thinking about whet I'd like to do with it

with some work done in one of Karen Ruane's classes a few year's back  

also, I had two sheets that were almost identical in weight and value so I took one, coated it with konnyaku and crumpled it 

"momigami", the Japanese call it

those two sheets are laid side-by-side below

although these papers are incredibly special to me I'm itching to use them and have almost completely upended the studio looking for any and everything that might look good with them but after several hours of trying things and thinking I got nowhere

I simply couldn't decide what to do, where to start

frustration started to build... I know how this story goes... I can't make up my mind so I pack it all away and move on to the next thing I've always wanted to experiment with

this time I had a back-up plan though, a way to push myself forward

two actually... one is a 12' x 12"  floating canvas in a black frame

the other is the same only 6" x 12"

two collages then

no excuses

next week I will have at least one to show you

(that's back-up plan #2... make a commitment!) 

take care,

jillayne

new year, old(ish) work

a new year, still brand new and somewhat shiny

I can't help but feel the same excitement at the turning of the year that I felt as a child, watching my parents planning New Year's Eve parties or getting dressed up to go to them, talking of "resolutions", hopes and plans

there was something enticing in the joy of the prospect of a fresh start so I took that feeling of enticement for a walk and yesterday I did a big sort out and tidy up in the studio, finding new ways to organize things so I was finally able to get the stacks of current work off the floor and into boxes, baskets and trays that are easily shelved and no longer a tripping hazard

my list of what to continue working on and what to experiment with is rather long and growing and I'm excited to begin to move some ideas forward whilst also working to improve skills such as watercolour painting, paper-making and calligraphy so being organized seemed rather important and a good place to begin

today I got to spend time in a tidy serene serene space - well worth the time and effort

in the tidy up I came upon a small bowl I crafted back in November using papers I had made as well as commercially made Japanese papers I had printed with some of my newly edited photos, all things I learned in Karen Olson's "Focus & Flow" course by Fibre Arts Take Two

in addition to teaching ways of editing and how to make paper Karen also taught doing sculptural work with the paper using Jin Shofu, a wheat paste that is said to be one of the smoothest adhesives there is

for my first attempt at sculptural work with the paper I chose a bowl, mostly because I had several good options to use for a mold

papers torn, cut and layered over a form I had wrapped with cling film

working upside down had me thinking of the bowl from the inside out, the first papers laid down would be the most visible on the inside, the last papers, the most visible on the outside

not wanting to overthink it, I pushed away thoughts of a desired outcome and simply focused on a somewhat balanced placement of the graphics as well as working to ensure an even thickness

the cling wrap didn't turn out to a good idea, the bowl didn't want to release from the form and I finally had to give it a good yank, tearing it slightly

remembering seeing pottery mended in France using bent wire I grabbed my stapler and fixed it in a jiff

three petite brass staples... they add a little air of rustic elegance I think

 vessel #1 taught me a few things and whilst I don't have a hankering to continue much with making bowls there are a few other things I can think of that have sculptural qualities that I've got on my list but first up is another foray into making paper

and so the adventures continue...

wishing all of you a  New Year that inspires and delights you, one filled with interesting adventures of your own

take care,

jillayne

continuing

a slash of colour, watery, drifting across the paper, then another...

the pencil draws a gently curving line

grey ink, words flowing up on one side, down on the other

more colour, faint

exaggerated letter forms, ascenders rising high through thin winter light

words as lost on the page as they are when spoken on a frigid winter day, frozen in mid-air only to fall back to earth, breaking into pieces and lying strewn on the ground

my sheet is slowly filling, each section adding something different even though the words all come from the same place, repeated over and over in my mind and with the pen until we are one

I love that I no longer have to think what to write... the beauty of repetition, and a single source; the pen touches the paper and the words flow, one tumbling after the other

many strokes are shaky, tentative, still trembling in the newness, unfamiliar

there is a sadness in the knowing that with dedication to a daily practice the hesitancy that creates those shaky lines will eventually be lost and from then I will ceaselessly be trying to recapture it

tape as resist, creates interruptions and interjections... calligraphy following the "rules" of spoken conversation

there is a joy, a freedom, to be found in making a mark as you please, sending a line down when it would go up and vice versa, bending them this way and that

pushing the limits of how far you can take a letter from it's norm and still have it be recognizable, though perhaps not necessarily immediately

it becomes almost a game, one with no rules nor boundaries

there are only four spaces left to be filled on this large sheet of paper and then it gets made into a book, the folding, tearing and folding again creating new combinations and hopefully yet more inspiration

this has been a lovely, thoughtful and methodical way to close out the year and one I have truly enjoyed

wishing you all the best for 2026, and may you also find that which fascinates and inspires you

take care,

jillayne

word play

another quiet week...

I took the luxury of spending four days in the studio, working on some calligraphy ideas from a course I took a while back

trying all sorts of interesting techniques and ideas, taking photographs as I went

this one illumined one of those "happy accidents" that occur every now and again where two sections, done days apart, seem to come together to make a scene reminiscent of trees, a field and lines of grass

intrigued, I decided to have a play with the idea a bit...

thinking of a winter night by the river,  and wanting something not completely pictorial I settled on an upright slash of blue for the river, intersected with a full silver moon

a bank of trees on the right, using the words from the "Spell of the Yukon" beginning with:

"the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming

and the stars tumbled out neck and crop"

and continuing on from there 

as this was a "working out the ideas" piece I chose a fairly heavyweight cartridge paper but it buckled under the silver leaf sizing

other observations:

the band of the river is too wide for the size of the moon

I'd like the moon to have more interest - more texture perhaps and a crater or two

a bit of tweaking here and there with spacing and shape of the trees...

the ground needs to change

even with all that I'm very pleased and think there's good potential with this

so pleased in fact,  it spurred me on to try something else; a line of blue again, darker, and this time with the writing on top of it

I like it very much though I haven't settled on what to do with the rest of the space

and so the work on the large sheet progresses though I do want to try things that are little more involved

 it's all a bit out of my comfort zone so lots of trials and writing practice are happening, 

along with being on the lookout for any other interesting combinations or juxtapositions that happen on the page as I go

they do make for a nice side-step into further investigations

take care,

Jillayne

in the quiet

in the quiet of the past week I've been puttering away at organizing my studio working space

I am forever dealing with an incessant array of paper scraps with scribbled notes on everything from creative insights to process revelations and everything in-between along with small stacks of supplies for works-in-progress

those have now been brought back under control and as the quiet days of winter are here I finally find myself in a place where its time to choose what I'm going to work on for the next while

so back to the river I go

I have a loose plan for the work I want to do, based on the same ideas I've had for many, many months, some for a couple of years, but as time passed I found some of those ideas had lost a bit of their lustre; they are now getting a boost from new insights

to feed that thinking, and perhaps take some of it a step or two further, I pulled out a sketchbook where I had worked through different ways of depicting aspects of the river in paper, cloth and stitch

organic lines, straight lines - tucks and gathers and random stitches became water, ice, current, drift wood

lace for the water froth at the rapids

marbled paper for a swirling current

and thankfully, all are fully annotated

(insert a smug smile here)

I think this next page of work holds a lot of potential, especially that piece of ragged grey lace

it has me thinking of the small channels that open up in the ice only to disappear again

over the next few weeks I'll be taking some of the ideas shown here and working them in to what I'd been doing and try to finally move some this work forward

and there goes the state of the studio again!

Thanks for stopping by,

Jillayne