One of the down sides of participating in the event as an artist is that you don’t get to see other spaces. I was lucky in that I shared an auxiliary space, the Fell Building, with nine other artists. For those of us who don’t rent the studio spaces within the building, it meant that we needed to set up a space that mimicked the one we work in at home. Having the other artists in the same building meant that we could see what each person was up to and share some wonderful discussions of our work in the little downtime that was available to us. It is a great byproduct of an event of this size and I was able to really take advantage. Below are a few images I was able to snap at various points in the weekend.

Doug Sanders, Netsuke Carvings (miniature carvings)

Emily Bogard, Made from Ties

Lori McDonald, CharmHouse

Mary Hambly, Paper Art Quilts

Due to a conjoining event on Saturday, we even had a parade come through the studios!

[you can click on all of the images to better see what is going on]

(rooster drawing)

I’ve read about and seen acetone transfers done before but didn’t think that would be appropriate for my needs. The image does not always transfer in a clean and consistent way as it relies on rubbing the image to transfer. I also wasn’t sure how it would react to my hand rubbing over it so many times during the cutting process. Since my original drawing was with a pencil, there was potential for much detail to be lost.

I set to looking online for more options. I came across the acrylic transfer method on the Golden acrylics website. Since I already had some clear gel medium I thought it wouldn’t hurt to try out the method.

I scanned my sketch into the computer, adjusted the image so that it was just a black line drawing, then printed it out on regular computer paper. The image was brushed with the gel medium (twice) and left to dry completely.

Once dry, it was turned over and dampened with water until it was uniformly damp. Using the tips of my fingers, I rolled the paper off of the printed image. It came off more or less in strips until I got close to the image. I made sure to be careful as I came close to the toner.

Here is an image of most of the paper peeled away. This is still the “back” so what is seen here are the remnants of the computer paper fiber, then the toner, and keeping it all together is the gel medium.

Here is the same thing viewed from the front (the shiny gel medium is now on top).

Here is the same thing after it has dried. It lost some of its transparency because I didn’t get rid of all of the paper fibers. If I had spent more time with it, I imagine it could have been even more transparent than this.

The acrylic transfer is now on the left and a printed out rooster on paper (what I started with) is on the right.

I glued the transfer into a sketch book to keep on hand for the future. I determined that an acrylic transfer would not work as a means to transfer an image to a block because you are left with the layer of medium on your block and after cutting the block, you would have to figure out how to get rid of that. I wasn’t interested in that challenge so it will be added to the pile of potential surface treatments.

However, I think there is great potential for this method. Knowing that no matter how much time I spend rolling away paper fibers, there will always be some left over. With that in mind, I can use a colored paper or tone the paper before printing out my image. This way I can tint the remaining fibers to match the surface it will end up on or it could be made to stand out with a contrasting color.

To begin, I have opened an Etsy shop where you will find some things I post about here and some things that are completely different. I dabble in all sorts of things and now some of them will be available for purchase. You can visit the shop by clicking on any of the images on the right side of this page or search for “SpringLeafPress” on Etsy.com.

The other new development is I now have a Facebook page. It will be an extension of the information found here, focusing mostly on updates and my activities. By finally joining the social realm, I hope to get more connected.

Take a look around!

The last few months have kept me very busy and it is time for some serious work. There is much to come, and I will be posting about it all here. Stay tuned!

Fantasy and Nonsense is a book of James Whitcomb Riley poetry letterpress printed by Tryst Press. The fun and quirky poetry is accompanied by really wonderful wood engravings, by Berrot Hubrecht, that match the mood of the poems perfectly. I was eager to submit an entry because not only was this book fun, but James Whitcomb Riley has strong roots in Indiana contributing so much to Indiana literature that he was deemed the “Hoosier Poet.”

I immediately started reacting to the text as I read it. I went through several sketches playing around with the imagery generated by the poems and engravings, almost giggling because the content was so fun. The poetry incorporates creepy crawlies and creatures that conjured the same image over and over in my head: eyes peering out of the darkness. I remember spooky tales from childhood always involving pairs of beady eyes that blink from inside a dark forest or shrubs. In his poem “Nine Little Goblins,” the goblins are described as having green glass eyes which contributed in a great way to the design.  It is this feeling and scenery that I wanted to capture for the cover.

Once again I returned to paste cloth so that I could customize the imagery with paint, but also to accommodate a new element to the binding. In order to achieve the “glass green eyes” LED lights and a programmable chip were embedded in the cover beneath the cloth and disguised so that when the LEDs are off you can’t see them. Another post, in the near future, will outline how all of the components were put together. Below is a video of the book “in action.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

The clamshell box is covered in Navy Iris book cloth and the title is painted on the front. I created a stencil from the title page and enlarged it to fit the box. The book is powered by a single battery, which is enclosed in a compartment accessible by a small flap in the back cover. Since batteries have a limited life, the clamshell box has a compartment, like the book, that holds three additional batteries.

click on image to see larger

PAPER CRAFT. This past March-April when I had the privilege to go to Japan, I picked up this paper craft model of Toji, a five-story pagoda in Kyoto. Paper craft projects consist of several pages of punch out parts that are then glued together to create an object, creature, or in this case an architectural landmark. (The image on the right is one that I received from a friend a while back. The chickens peck when you turn the handle!)

I’ve seen several of these paper craft projects in various places, but this one especially hit my geek button. While this is certainly an excuse to procrastinate, I still find myself learning from the paper structure. The pattern is simplified so the structure can be assembled by a person of unknown skill while maintaining a level of visual complexity, which can only be achieved by skilled paper engineers. It is worth my time, I swear.

REPAIR. On a more serious level, I am also working on a few repair items. The repair work I receive on average is usually of two sorts: academic materials with monetary value needing stabilization, and books that have more of a sentimental value that need a little tender care to help them survive the use of future generations. The above photo shows some of the paints I was using in order to tone tissue to match the unevenly aged paper on a book cover. This work may drive some people to the brink of insanity, but with the right approach, it can be fun. With a lot of practice, the process doesn’t take nearly as long as you might expect.

BLOCKS. The latest creative endeavor of mine is a book of wood block prints. As the photo suggests, it will pertain to bugs. I spent a good deal of last month composing drawings of bugs, viewed way too closely, which will be the central characters of the book. That stack of wood is getting my attention this week. A larger sheet was cut down to the size of each image block (with my new Japanese hand saw!) and, today, the rough edges were sanded. I hope to start cutting the blocks with the imagery by the end of the week.

NEARLY EVERYTHING. During the moments with the paper craft, the intricate details of repair, and sanding wood blocks, I am accompanied by a great audio book. If you have been looking for a good studio mate that is both interesting and enlightening, Bill Bryson is the guy for you. His book, A Short History of Nearly Everything is a great way to stay focused. Drenched in science and history, Bryson makes the miniscule components of our planet as interesting as the mysteries of the oceans we still know surprisingly little about. Having a way to become a little smarter while I toil in the studio really rounds out my day. Thanks Bill!

I had been first introduced to screen printing a few years ago in an Introduction to Printmaking course at IU, one of the greatest studio courses I have ever taken, thanks to the instructor. The image making process is straightforward and has so much potential. Screen printing can be done simply and cheaply with barely anything: sheer material, an embroidery hoop, glue and some paint. It can also be a highly worked print using multiple screens that build up color to make a complex design.

Of course, there is always the risk that the satisfaction of finally purchasing a pined over tool will leave you falsely satisfied, and the tool sits around unused. For this reason I was intent on quickly finding a subject matter to print that was simple, but also something that I would enjoy looking at throughout the relearning process.

So I turned to literature. After asking a friend for his suggestion of a fun and interesting novel to read, I was turned on to The Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. I had always heard of his novels but, until then, had never picked one up myself. To my delight, I finally read one and it was a really good read. It opens with a great introduction (at the bottom of this post) about the nature of beets and it is the beet that I decided to print.

I wanted to do a two color print of the beet, and the first step was to start with a drawing. I found an image of beets after a quick image search online. Since my tendency with sketching is to draw too much detail, I took the image into Photoshop, did a cut out filter and played with the settings until I achieved a simplified image that I could draw.

Next, I split the drawing up into two colors with some overlap for creating a “third” color. I used a frosted Mylar that allowed me to see how the green and red would overlap on top of one another. You could also use tracing paper, etc. Whatever you use, this is a great way to plan out your images. (click on thumbnails to enlarge)

green color on mylar

red color on mylar

green on red with mylar

I have a screen that is about 10 x 14 inches and would accommodate both color runs on the same screen. It made registration a little bit more finicky, but it was nice so far as the filler was concerned. I was able to use drawing fluid to transfer both images to the screen then fill the whole screen.

When it came time to print, I just blocked off the side I wasn’t using with a piece of paper and masking tape. Below are the results of A Most Serious Vegetable. There are some imperfections, but it wasn’t a bad reintroduction.

First Pull: Green

Second Pull: Red

Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.

The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip…

The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.

The beet was Rasputin’s favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume 

When I was contemplating the thought of “horizons” I eventually realized that I literally walk a horizon line nearly every day. Inspired by the hike I take in the woods near my house, I decided to illustrate the path I walk, a place I physically go to in order to work out the intangible.

I began the process by making several sketches from the photos I took while hiking the path. Using a tan colored Rives BFK, I used a nib dip pen and India Ink to make the black line of the image. Once I had all the images drawn, I thought more about what I wanted them to feel like. I decided that there needed to be a feeling of depth and space that the black line didn’t achieve on its own so I added watercolor to certain areas. Still not satisfied with the simulated dimension, I chose to extend the image on to another page below it (this meant that each page would have imagery on two sides). This was the first step in deciding how the series would be bound together.

After extending the imagery down to a second page, I had decided that the binding structure needed to allow the “top” page to stand up. This would help the illustration on the bottom facing page invite the viewer into the book. It occurred to me that it wasn’t enough to invite the viewer in, but also to make the viewer feel like they were viewing a private space alluding to a private experience. So, I added a perimeter of marks with watercolor and ink.

The next step was to determine the method of binding. So far I decided the book should have the ability to be propped up and the imagery should fold down towards the viewer so that the images could be revealed in order. With a few ideas in mind, I made several mock-ups of a wrapping cover that could fold back on itself with spare board. Once finalized, I had to figure out just how the single pages would be sewn together. Remembering the woven structures of Claire Van Vliet, I decided to weave tissue,  through horizontal slits in the pages, which were toned to match the color of the Rives. The image below shows the woven tissue before it was matched to the surrounding marks.

Next, I set to making the material for the cover. Again, I turned to paste cloth. With the interior of the book containing drawings and watercolor painting, I thought that the cover material needed to be complimentary to the marks inside and fully customizable.

I used a piece of cloth cut in a T shape to accommodate the portfolio style wrapping cover. The surface design was built up with several layers of paste and paint, then decorated with lines drawn in the wet paste with a stylus. Spattered ink was also added while everything was still wet.

Just before assembly was finished, I decided that the book needed a few lines of text to set the tone of the images that were to follow.

A fog on the meadow obscures our vision
The horizon tempts us fading in an out
A path guides us through the haze
With the new perspective it becomes clear
The horizon is always out of reach

Below is the finished piece beginning with the book closed, a few of the spreads inside, and and ending with the book open so you can see the cover structure opened upright.

The first is the Guild of Book Workers Horizon exhibit entry. With a wide open theme, the exhibit allowed for a huge array of interpretation on the subject “Horizon.” I deliberated over the project for quite a while before finally deciding on the direction I would take it. I am happy with the result. It didn’t end up in the exhibit, however the book took me on an exploration of my methods and I am glad for the opportunity. I learned a lot about what works for me and what doesn’t. I’ll post more on the project soon, but in the meantime, it was a lot of drawing, painting and miscellaneous solutions to a binding style I had never attempted before.

The other event during the month of March was a trip to Japan. It was a time to visit family and see sights…really a fantastic time, not to mention an endless supply of inspiration for future endeavors. Below are a few photos from my time there.

Finally, was the Midwest Guild of Book Workers (link) annual meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This was my first time the attending the annual meeting as the Midwest Programs Chair which meant aside from participating, I had to make sure everything went smoothly. Lucky for me, everyone who came made that easy. More on that later but below are a few sneak peak photos.

I began my paper selection only after I realized that I wanted to play with the way that paper absorbs ink and paint. Since I knew I would be getting the paper wet and possibly soaking it, I decided to use a heavier handmade paper that would stand up to the moisture with a limited amount of movement while drying.

The hope was that I would get some dynamic bleeds across the paper that simulated an organic growth similar to clouding. I sprayed the paper before setting them in the black ink in hopes that it would encourage it to spread more readily. I was pretty happy with the first results. There was a lot of variation in each paper…some ink stayed towards the bottom, some of it reached across the width of the page. I was only disappointed that there was not more saturation of color, which I am sure was due to the amount of water I added to the ink.

I was hoping to achieve a richer decorative pattern so I decided to soak the other side of the paper in a colored ink, orange. My thought was that a color on the other side of the page could create an interesting action if the two were to meet. Again, I was happy to see the results. The orange spread in similar ways as the black ink did but still there was something missing.

So I dipped each page in a diluted green watercolor bath and dried them on some screens. What I got was not saturated, but it was more interesting. They almost looked like mold growths going through the pages. I was fine with the result as I was looking for a shape that could have occurred in nature. Something that wasn’t exactly planned but I figured might happen was a grid pattern that resulted during the drying process. The green watercolor ink pooled in some places causing the pattern of the drying screen to remain after the pages dried. I am happy with the effect. It speaks to an attempt at controlling the nature of things…sometimes not coming out successfully.

Next, was to determine the binding method and cover materials. I had been given a lovely rust colored flax paper that I knew I wanted to used for the cover. I knew I wanted to sew the pages onto some sort of leather tapes that matched the color scheme of the pages too. I ended up using a piece of scrap leather that was cut to fit the sewing stations providing two tapes for support.

Using a Japanese screw punch, I cut out pieces of the leather to make it match the blotchy interior pages. It is kept closed with a wooden peg made from a shaped and cut Popsicle stick.

Overall, I think the book gives an earthy, damp and active feel. However, I think that my response to the book will change according to the mood of the viewer.