Tuesday 12th April - Printing, and posting, and other news.

 I turned the dining room table in to a card-making factory this morning

I though the cards with their black edges tooled a little sombre, and used some of the first tries for experimenting. 

Water colour worked a treat, until I discovered that although the stamp pad I used for test prints used waterproof ink, the actual printing ink was decidedly not! Colouring pencils will be the way to go. Something along these lines. 

The first six reached the post box this afternoon.

My 'bonus treat' when I am lino printing is to use up the last ink on the tray to make mono prints. I lay a sheet of A4 printer paper directly on the ink, and draw with a pencil. The pencils lines pick up the ink, transferring the design. You can get a more textured background by lightly smoothing the paper onto the tray. Next time I might skip the lino printing stage and go straight to mono printing! 

   

On Sunday evening I finished the jumper that I started back in December. It lay untouched for several weeks at a time, sometimes because I had more urgent things to complete, other times because I needed to work out how was going to solve the problems I met along the way (wrong yarn and gauge for the pattern for a start!)

I have been wearing it all day yesterday and today.

   Noah's Ark

Palm Sunday was always going to be a donkey! I learned an interesting fact on Sunday; donkeys were not thought of as such a humble ride back in Old Testament times; when kings arrived in a town they would ride a donkey to show they came in peace; horses were saved for war. If the king arrived on a horse then you could be sure his intentions were not peaceful.

"Lo, your king comes to you, triumphant and humble is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey."   Zechariah 9.9 

Monday - hares; "You shall not eat the hare, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs."      Leviticus 11.6

Tuesday - "Spoil was gathered as the caterpillar gathers."  Isaiah 33.4

So not a butterfly then!  

   
  

Monday 11th April - Oh no! Scheduling Error

Easter is this Sunday, and I realized I had 19 Easter cards I would like to send. I don't have any Easter cards at all. Oh. 

At first I wondered if it would be possible to make some deep theological reflection upon Easter if I reused the 2021 Christmas Cards which I still haven't recycled yet. You know, 'this is how it all began'.

I thought better of that plan, so, now for plan B.

I had spent a couple of days last week looking at Easter cards and pictures on the internet, and then started drawing;

This was quite time consuming to draw if one increases the scale, and my card blanks are about 12.5 cm square. The only way I was going to be able to make enough cards in time to post them on Tuesday or Wednesday, was to print them. I suppose I could have printed them off on the computer, but, Aha,! A chance to do some lino printing!

First I tried several drawings, all to scale;

I drew the design onto the lino, and after lunch took everything out to the garden to start cutting.

Cutting the design took most of the rest of the day. I needed a break after half an hour or so to straighten up. It was soothing and absorbing process, most of the time, once I got the rhythm back. You have to keep your attention on the job; I was discovering that once I had made a cut, the next cut would have to be slightly altered to take into account what had gone before.

After about an hour or so, I inked up some of the block and printed it to see how it was turning out... 

Eventually, around five o'clock, I finished cutting, and could make some test prints. I was using a small stamping pad, dabbing it over the surface of the lino, rather than getting out the printing ink and roller. I did some tests on sheets of paper, and also experiments with colouring the paper first. I should have let the paint dry before printing, but I was only looking to see if I liked the effect.

Finally I tried a print on a spare card; the right hand image on the card shows what it will look like, the left hand image on the same card was to check how to make it line up on the card.

Tomorrow I shall cover the table with newspaper, and my clothes with an apron (!) and set up a production line. They will need to dry, and hopefully I'll get them in the post first thing on Wednesday.   

Another Friday already - 26th February

 Getting back into the groove of piano teaching was a bit of a shock, but I have made it so far. My teaching week ends on Saturday morning, with Friday usually being a non-teaching day.

It's been a fairly busy week in a slow sort of way; when I write down everything that I have done at the end of the day then I realise how much did, or didn't get done.

When was the 23rd February? Last Tuesday? That's when I spotted that all the little tete a tete narcissus were looking very enthusiastic. I drew a rough sketch on the corner of an envelope of a letter to a friend;

They have been in the garden since January 2016; when my mother was in a nursing home that winter. I used to buy several pots of them in bud, and put them on her windowsill. Once they had gone over I would replace them with new pots, and just plant the old ones along the back hedge. I think this is the best they have ever been.

I also refiled all my fountain pens with various inks on Tuesday. I find it such a messy job. 

I started a linocut of daffodils on Wednesday; first I drew the design on the lino with a Black Prince pencil - I remember those from my Kindergarten Days - they were slightly thicker pencils with a shiny black lead. How I have ended up with one now, I have no idea, but it is perfect for drawing on lino. My big problem was remembering to LEAVE the black lines uncut, instead of cutting along them.   

This is how it ended up when I did a rough test print. I love the way lino prints can look as though everything is in motion. I can see a few places where I want to carve a leettle bit more, and a few places where I wish I had carved a leetle bit less - isn't that always the way, though? 

I'm also having a trial run through a pattern for a tea cosy. It is in traditional fair isle, knitted entirely round and round like a tube, Then, the dangerous magic happens; you CUT a slit on either side for the handle and the spout and do something to stop it all coming to bits.

I've got the proper Shetland yarn to knit the one in the picture, but while I was waiting for the smaller needles to arrive, I thought I would make one to see how it works, using the wrong wool in the wrong colours on the wrong size needles. It's a good job it doesn't have to fit a person, just a teapot.

I'm a bit further on; it looks ok on the outside but the inside is a knitter's nightmare, full of loose ends from the colour changing, and loose ends because the wool I am using is from some other jumpers and I have discovered it is all in shortish bits, about a yard or so long. 

Today has been a lovely sunny day, if chilly in the shade. I've been able to spend quite a lot of time outside. Even the cats have been out and about. 

Leo prefers a nice stagnant buck of water to the fresh water in her bowl. Of course. 

Sunday 22nd November - Stir up Sunday

Having finished all my 'work' (I think - there's always something overlooked) I had  lazy day today. Which also meant no words chalked up outside the house.

And, in spite of it being 'Stir up Sunday' I didn't get around to doing any stirring, not of cake, or puddings, or trouble.

The cat and I shared a peaceful morning upstairs. She slept, and I read, listened to music, and did some Christmas card thinking

Though how I turn these into lino cuts is another problem. I've had a go at using the narrowest blade, but I find it very hard to control.

I started carving this one out yesterday with the fine blade, but soon changed to a broader one which has made the lines coarser than I wanted.;

I made a very rough trial print using coloured felt tip pen instead of getting out the proper ink which is why it is so faint;

but it is enough to show that the white lines are thicker than I wanted. More practice - live and learn. I'll have another go tomorrow, maybe. 

Saturday 20th November - The Shed

 

Everyone needs their own shed.

Not just the one for storing stuff, but another one to be a sanctuary, a personal space that they can furnish and use exactly as they please. I laughingly refer to 'my' side of the dining room as my shed; it has a Windsor chair with cushions, a standing desk, the piano, half the dining table and two dining chairs and just enough room to wriggle through. 

I have a tray for watercolour paints and brushes, a box for lino printing equipment, and space on my table for writing OR painting OR using the laptop OR lino printing; the box and paint tray and laptop play an eternal game of musical spaces throughout the day. I have become adept at making whatever activity I am engaged in fit into a space the size on a A3 sheet of paper. Yesterday it was lino printing; 

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I am ridiculously pleased with these lino prints; I followed the instructions that go with the kit I bought last month (only last month - I have no sense of how time passes at the moment). I have cut out and assembled two of the three prints I made last night, and stuck on one the rose bush next to where I chalked up today's word. It has been raining ever since I went out to write on the damp brickwork, so the letters will all be gone now.

One of these little log cabins would make a perfect shed. I have spent a little while furnishing my imaginary shed with sofa and fairy lights, desk and chair, rug, heating and lighting, of course... where would it fit in our small suburban garden?

Today is a remarkably dank and cold and seeping damp day. I was feeling bleah and decided to retire to bed for the afternoon to sleep it off. However Best Beloved has appeared with a cup of tea and ALL my tech - tablet, phone, laptop. and I feel revivified enough to stop hibernating and write a blog post.  

Once I have pressed 'Publish' I may well continue to browse for pictures of perfect sheds...

Thursday 19th November - Don't Panic

 

It is not my birthday and I won' be 19 years old, or even six years old.

Today's word was prompted by the arrival of an email with this picture in it;

and the question 'would I like some?'

Cake????

Of course!

I've just had a slice while sorting out stuff on the internet and it has cheered me up immensely. The Very Good Friend delivered it an hour ago, and I handed over mincemeat and also advent tea lights and the remains of the mincemeat fruit cake I made yesterday. 

I think we got the better of that deal.

I didn't manage a walk today - by the time I had got up and sorted myself out there were other things to do and then it was lunch time.

I did cut out some lino print leaves, and print them on a background that I had prepared earlier;

very happy-making. I just created three leaves, and then splattered the printing all over the page.

I've also started ordering Christmas presents...... oooooooh and a new pair of shoes because my old faithfuls have stretched into boats over the years. Horrors! It appears that Hotter gave up making this style about three years ago and the only pair they have left in the recesses of the warehouse are size 7 extra wide... I was tempted, but sense prevailed and I have ordered a similar style (fingers crossed) in chocolate (it was that or black - my other shoes came in blue or red or burgundy or green or boring brown or black - sigh) and in the proper size (5E, if you really wanted to know).

Lots of deliveries to look forward to!

 

Sunday 1st November - More stars

 I managed to ink up my linocut

I am SOOOOO pleased! 

I shall want to redo them, no that I have tried out using the cutting blades, and seen how they turn out.

The two fuzzier prints are monoprints which I made at the end to use up the left-over ink. I shall save them to guide my thinking when I redo the lino prints later.

I also chalked a star onto the path outside our house;

I'm hoping to keep this up through November. A friend has given me a tin of chalk stubs from her craft cupboard to get me started; I'm hoping a couple of boxes of pavement chalks will arrive soon.

It has been raining for the past couple of hours... that patch of tarmac should be all cleaned off by tomorrow. 

 

Sunday 1st November - so it starts with a star

Here we go again with http://nablopomoguideunofficial.blogspot.com/

Aim - to post to your blog every day for a month...

I've decided to create a list of hopeful and positive words for every day this month, and today's word is 'star'

specifically this one, which overlaps nicely with #inktober, as it is the first of an Advent sequence that I started yesterday

I also started lino cutting yesterday, having been turning over the process in my mind for several weeks, from design to cut to print

It's very much a 'learn as you go along' activity - you can read and read and ponder and imagine, but in the end you have to make a star-t.

One tutorial recommends making rubbings of the design as you went along which is an Excellent Idea. Already I have discovered that I needed to have done quite a lot of things differently - like not transferring too many designs at a time as they just get smudged, and not placing them so close together in an effort to make the pieces of lino last.

Never mind. I'm looking forward to creating the first prints in 50 years. 

November, even with the lock down, is looking to be a month of adventure.