Fairy Queen

I'm assuming that you are also participating, or at least know of, the next monumental puzzle print - the babe of Miss Maria of the Monumental Mysteries.  You will recall that the last such endeavor was the City of the World, in which my contribution was a playground for children.  I used a photo of my oldest granddaughter, Grace, on the monkey bars in a park in Madison, WI,  for my inspiration.  I think she was about 4 yrs. old then - now she is an old woman of 15.

The theme for this year's Monumental Puzzle Print is a Fantasy Garden.  The puzzle piece I received reminded me immediately of a butterfly.  But, I thought there would be plenty of butterflies and I should do something that would reflect my younger granddaughter, Camille.  When Camille was around 4 yrs. old she was your ultimate faery queen.  Upon arising in the morning one of her first demands was, "Where is my crown?"  As soon as she located it she whipped on her wings, donned the crown and was good for the day unless they had to go out and then the wings would have to come off in order to get the jacket and and car seat accommodated.  It didn't take long for me to decide that every garden needs fairies - especially ones who carry on long conversations with lady bugs while the fire flies light the night.  (Camille loves bugs!  She thinks the baby leeches are just the cutest things, as they crawl up her arm...)

It will be great fun to see all of the other contributions to the Fantasy Garden and I'm looking forward to the next day and night Printing Party!  Meanwhile, I've decided to take violin lessons and see if I can play it after a hiatus of roughly 60 years.  My poor, long suffering, instructor will be here momentarily. 

BTW, I forgot to mention that Ms. Maria forbids us to proof our blocks.  They do unpredictable things having to do with humidity and lack there of when they have been inked and cleaned and then go to Las Vegas where she resides.  In order to proof both of these blocks I wrapped them in foil, put them through the press, inked and printed them very carefully.  Once they go to Maria they are pretty much gone forever - until she arrives with all of the pieces glued onto their matrix and ready to print the  w-h-o-l-e thing. I believe she said there will be 6 sheets of paper to complete the image - maybe it was more. I know there are a lot of us involved in this project. Printmakers have the most fun!!

Change of tune

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I change my tune every time I turn around.   And here we go again.  No sooner than the last entry had been posted I had changed my mind about the imagery to use on the heart.  I'm sticking with the girls dancing through the woods releasing birds with reckless abandon, but they will be more on the order of Procession of the Birds:

 And, somewhere along the line, probably on the reverse, will be some expanded version of Keepers of the Flame.

Both are small intaglio prints I did last year using Solarplate™and inking ala poupeé.  Way back at the beginning of time I made little daubers from scraps of an old chamois stuffed with a cotton ball and secured with twine.  They look like simple little dolls in long dresses, which is the translation of poupeé: doll.  They are used to dab the different colors of ink onto the plate before wiping very carefully.  These little dolls have served me well - and, I trust, will continue to do so.  They sleep in an old coolwhip container when not in use.

It will be interesting to see how these women translate into painting.  Well, we should be finding out soon!

A little distraction

Flags have had to go on hold for a couple of days.  A deadline of Apr. 15 descended upon me with gusto - no, not taxes this time, but another project.  The Peace Health Southwest Medical Foundation is conducting an auction to raise funds to add space and upgrade imaging equipment for their most fragile heart and vascular patients.  25  three foot fiberglas hearts will make their way to Vancouver and corresponding artists studios where they will be painted and towards the end of summer be put up for adoption by the highest bidders.  After that some of them, if not all, will be exhibited as public art around the city.  The sketches of what I plan to do with my giant heart are due tomorrow and never wanting to be ahead of a deadline I have valiantly upheld my tradition of being right down to the wire.  As I was singing along and getting ready to scan the images and printed forms and actually send them off A DAY EARLY, mind you, the scanner won't work.  I've tried everything: turned everything off and back on a couple of times (this is my cure-all and generally works, but not this time), downloaded a driver, tried to re-install the software, kicked, screamed, cried - well, not cried, but almost.  Nothing works, I just keep getting a notice that says, in a very cranky and irritating tone, "this is no longer supported --".  Can they do that?  Just order their machines to quit and not give a person any notice?  Probably yes, because they are the Computer Gods.  I have a call in to my favorite of all time Guru, but he is out of town until tomorrow afternoon.

There was no choice, well - truthfully, their was a choice - I could have bundled this all up and trooped down to Kinkos and had them scan everything, but I chose to photograph the sketches, write the little bio, and send that much off today with a note that the thing I really need to scan will follow tomorrow, one way or another.  I'm really, really, hoping that my Guru will tell me to click this and click that and the scanner will work again.  If I have to buy a new one I am going to be a wee bit upset, (translation: mighty pissed.)

Anyway, the sketches I submitted were:  my dancing women and children - kind of an old stand-by that I've done a million ways if I've done it once, but it is still fun to do:

The plan would be to have the girls dance all the way around - birds and butterflies in abundance and frogs and turtles, ladybugs and snails in the foliage.  Pure fun everywhere.

Or, I could do this - a kind of Remedios Varo type of image.  I've always been fascinated with her work and have many sketches of my own versions of which this is high on the list of favorites.  I could see this on one side of the heart with the tapestry going around to the other side where the rivers and oceans would be made.

 Unless someone makes the decision for me I will vacillate from now until the moment to actually start painting.  Which do you think is the more interesting?  Please help me decide!

5 Flags All In a Row

It seems like ages since I've posted, and that's mainly because it has been ages.  The blocks are all carved, the flags have been printed and hemmed and I'm ready to do a little hand embellishment and string them onto a cord.  I also picked up some wooden beads to intersperse.  These definitely are not your traditional Buddhist Prayer Flags - they have mutated into Sharri's Version Prayer Flags.  I hope they will work the same way and the blessings will still waft their way along the wings of the wind.

Printing went very well.  They were printed with black etching ink with quite a bit of gold metallic powder and transparent base mixed together.  I printed them exactly as you would on paper with the fabric laid on the block using a registration jig so I could get things where they belonged.  If I had laid the block onto the fabric as the Tibetan printers do I would have had totally blind registration and I seem to have enough trouble when I can see what I'm doing.  Then I used a rubber blanket and zipped them through the etching press.  Clive says he has a Tee Shirt printed with letterpress ink and it has lasted for years, and come to think of it, I have a sweatshirt in the same condition.  However, it has not hung out in the rain and sun for any of those years, so this could be a different game.  We'll see!

As soon as I get these babies strung they are going either into the garage or outside where I can spray them with a UV protector.  It must be highly toxic stuff because they tell you to do this outside. Guess I will wear my respirator mask when I do that... it has a haute couture look, if you're a bug.

A friend had some flags in her garden and they gradually disappeared.  She had no idea where they were going.  One day a squirrel nest fell from a tree and there were her flags, they had been shredded into nesting material.  We are wondering if I spray them with Varathane if that would deter the squirrels.  Yet another thing to try.  We will be ready for our totally random and uncontrolled lab trials in a day or two.  So far there isn't any hurry for the UV trials as it is cloudy, rainy, with sudden flashes of sunlight between showers, and very much April in our corner of the map.

 The flowering trees are blooming and the bulbs are signalling that Spring is on its way.  We are swamped (literally) with daffodils of every persuasion, fritelaria (not sure how you spell any of these) and bergonia.  I hope you gardeners will recognize these phonetically and correct my spelling!  However they are spelled they are uplifting and gorgeous.  And, hopefully, flags will be performing the same miracle shortly.

Flag Progress:From paper to fabric in one easy motion -

If anyone out there knows of a better way to do this - please! Speak up! Share your knowledge.  Meanwhile, I continue to stumble down the Flag Road left to my own devices.  Since the intended design involves two blocks there is a little matter of registration.  The problem has been how to get the fabric down onto the registration jig in the right place since it is floppy, you know.  So, I went back to when I was doing the large hanga prints and managed to get the floppy paper down by using a carrier sheet.  But, how to get the fabric onto the block with a carrier sheet.  My solution is to use an easy tack adhesive, intended for moving paste-ups and such around.  I sprayed the carrier sheet with the Easy Tack:

So far, so good.  I can flip this over and the fabric doesn't flop to the counter top.  I was able to get it down on the jig in good form.

And, even through the press, using the wonderful little rubber blanket which the PIP printers gave to me.  If you are in the market, I'm sure any printer would be happy to donate a sheet or two.  I just wish PIP used bigger blankets.  A splurge to buy one may be in my future.  We'll see....

I'm pleased!  None of the actual flags will be on purple fabric and this piece is all wonky-wishy.  It is a remnant I found in the bottom of the left-overs box and was a solid color so it was immediately drafted into service.

The fabric ink I had ordered does not roll on and print satisfactorily.  Nor does it paint onto the block and print satisfactorily, therefore I am back to good old oil based etching ink.  It does not stiffen the fabric one iota and should be tough enough to withstand the elements.  I will be trying these out in various parts of the country - if you would like to be a tryer-outer, let me know.  So far, I have one desert dweller and one Northwestern gardner (me).  They will be subjected to blazing hot sun and horrendous hot winds on one side and deluges of water, algae and moss on the other end.  Should they survive one season of this menu I will consider marketing them - otherwise, it is just a fun project and I want them for my garden, anyway.

The Great Border Debate

No, not the Northern border, although we do have to watch for those Canadians, and not the Southern border either - but the prayer flag border.  That is the problem.  One should never mess around printing anything more than one way.  It almost always leads to distraction not to mention being stalled on top dead center not knowing which way to go now.

It greatly surprised me that I was drawn to the gold border.  It had looked way to anemic on its own, but add the mum and somehow - the wonder of color theory, I suspect - the central image pops forth, where as in the black/gold border the central image is being controlled.  So now, do I want to pop or stay within bounds.  That is the question.  All opinions will be gratefully accepted.  Please.

Unfortunately, this is a rather poor gold proof, but it was what I had left, having screwed up one way or another on the other 3 or 4 I had ready to go.  I had a devil of a time getting the press set to the correct pressure.  My planets must be whirling around every which way because they are definitely not lined-up properly.  By the time I solved the problem of the press, and the problem of the brayer that was not inking in the middle, I was too spent to print more gold borders.  Bear with me, this may take a while.

However, I did knock 'em dead at luminosity this afternoon when I took a break.  I was a lot younger then.

Mum Proof

Today was proofing day on the mum segment of the flag project - here's a sample of the days product:

 I'm happy - there's minimal clean up -

But, then I messed about with the border, thinking I wanted something gold-ish.  The first is black with gold:

And the next is just the gold alone:

I thought I would want the gold alone, but now I'm not sure.  The black with the gold looks pretty rich.  Tomorrow, time allowing, I'll put them together and see which is better.