Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Experiments and circles

Thank you for all the lovely words that have been shared as part of my giveaway.  It is filling my heart with happiness to read them  and to think about all the positive energy that is circling throughout the world, as we pause and ponder what to bring to our days and what to share with others.

Just so beautiful.

We were work-working in Melbourne last week and it was a mixed bag of activity on return but I grabbed a couple of hours in the studio to test ideas.

You know when you have ideas floating in your head, jotted onto scraps of paper, pencilled into notebooks and keep thinking - I must try that, I need to check that? Well I have been jotting and scribbling like mad and have just managed to try a few things out.

First of all I wanted to see how it would go to ink up some wood type and use the proofing press to print. I wanted to try inking in two colours and also test the pressure of the press with wood type.

I have learned that wood type prints quite differently to lead type; it retains more features of the grain, the sense of roughness (altho the type itself is usually so smooth).

I was so excited to get in and do it I didn't even lock it up in the chase; just tucked as much wood type in as I could and hoped. And it shows!

So yes, an absolute test print, but interesting and lovely in parts.



 And then I got to cutting circles. Years and years go I took part in one of those scrapbooking crazes and turned all my photo albums into artworks.  Some of the best tools from that time were these great circle cutters.  There are three plastic templates with two different 'tracks' or 'rails'; and three different cutters, each blade set at a slightly different distance. Which means that you can fundamentally create 18 differently size circles, perfectly cut.

I have used them in recent times to create openings in books; and have fallen in love with them all over again. And here, they even cut out plastic circles.



 Perfect circles didn't stop me doing another stutter print tho!


And the finish to a big day of work in Melbourne - more circles on the table; accompanied by a glass of wine...


2 comments:

  1. the circle cutters look like a great tool!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They truly are Mo - they cut perfect circles easily, and now I have done a full set of templates of sizes I don't have to check each time and wonder will this one work this way or not? Sometimes wisdom comes with age...go well.

      Delete

I appreciate your thoughts and comments; thanks for taking the time.