You may remember that I have been going through my supplies and other things here; organizing and compacting. One of the delights has been ‘finding’ things, with all the memories still attached. Here’s a few:
These are from the printmaking portion of ‘Introductory Studio’. It was a first year uni class designed to help young students decide which art stream they were most interested in. I was a returning student and I had the most fun! For this print, we made a collaged self-portrait, inked it and wiped it, then ran it through the press with watercolour paper. You can see that the first one has too much ink left on and the second, while better, still had too much. I liked the third (sadly upside down, I see!) best and by then I was well and truly hooked on printmaking! A couple of years later I took a class with a practising printmaker and this is one of the prints I did there; it’s called “Gleaning the Mourning Tide”. It’s a unique, watercolour print and I love the texture achieved with this technique:
A Random Harvest 
I remember doing printmaking at College, it’s a lot of fun and so diverse in the different effects you can achieve. I love your self portrait!
Thanks! I like it, too. For a first try, it was ok. I wish I had the ‘plate’ here; then you could see the materials that went into it. The previous week or two, we students had worked on drawing, including a self-portrait in charcoal where we worked from our image in a mirror. To make the plate, we copied our drawing onto a sheet of heavy cardstock, then glued various materials over the drawing to make a textured collage. For my hair (worn in a bun on top of my head) I used some lovely greenish ‘old-man’s-beard’ moss; I used fabric, bubble wrap and more. Once the glue was dry, we used more glue over the whole sheet to create an inkable surface. The week of printing , we inked and wiped off; then we lined up for the press. We were to make two impressions, but I had previous experience, worked fast and got in three! I like painting, drawing and other media, too, but if I could only do one thing in art, it would be printmaking. I like working with a press, but they are pricey, so a few years later I was very excited to learn there are ways to make prints without a press.
It might be in French but that’s what Google Translate is for…”WOOT!” 🙂
Click to access crochetsewingcrafts.htm
I am most interested in print making. Especially silk screen printing and the idea of getting Steve to make me a screen keeps surfacing and then bobbing down again. I might have to reserrect the idea after seeing your beautiful work :). Did you go to art school? I was studying to be a teacher way back last century but the sudden arrival of my son put a bit of an end to that ;). I was more interested in having fun at the time (they shouldn’t send 17 year old country kids off to the big city without a list of instructions tattooed to their foreheads 😉 ) and didn’t appreciate the true gift that I had been given. I am making up for that blatent swipe at education now :). Lovely work from an amazing woman 🙂
Now THAT is spineless! Add that to the crocheted flora and you could have a gorgeous diorama; then one would need insects, snakes, birds . . .
Narf7, thanks for the link. You find the most amazing sites!
They find ME Linne ;). I just make myself receptive to them and its like that ballpark…”if you build it, they will come…” 😉
I know what you mean . . . I keep checking out links on blogs I like (I found you from rabid’s site!) snd then I have new friends with new links and I check out . . .
I have done a bit of silkscreening, too. If you buy a set of wooden canvas stretchers (intended for making a support for oil psinting), you can easily make your own screen. If you need instructions for stretching the silk, let me know; I’ll be happy to share.
It wasn’t art school (when I went to uni, at 19 (and a very young 19!) I didn’t know anything about myself. I was in education to become a primary teacher. My parents encouraged me to be a teacher; I was always making my younger sibs play some form of school where I was the teacher. I even invented words and taught those! Poor sibs! A few years ago, career aptitude testing (too late, but interesting nonetheless) suggested, among other things, that I teach at a college or uni level. I’d never thought of that, but it would have been a good fit (and an entirely different life); I like discussion and debate; primary would have been fun, but the debates would have been at a different level 😉
But it’s all academic now. In one way, I’d love to go back to school, but I don’t want to work ’til I’m 90 to pay off the fees; and here it’s only getting worse. If I could, I’d go for a BA majoring in Arts, English and Music (and this is just dreaming; I don’t play anything beyond a few guitar chords and very simple flute bits; I haven’t played for a while, either!), then I would go for an MA in Transpersonal Studies, concentrating on Art and Dreamwork. In another life, perhaps . . .
You are right about sending young country girls off to the city and uni; the culture shock couldn’t have been greater if I’d gone to China! But it all went to make up who I am today, so it wasn’t exactly wasted time. I dropped out, then floundered around for a while. A couple of years later I was on another path, being a young Mum and moving into an alternate reality . . .
I forgot to say: it wasn’t art school, it was a college. The course was Introductory Studio and exposed students to a wide variety of media; sculpture (in clay), a swipe at architecture (building a structure of a certain size from cardstock and string; it had to support a two litre bottle of water AND was meant to be aesthetically pleasing; the students from Japan were the only ones to accomplish both! We also drew a still life and a nude model; used charcoal, pencil, watercolour, pastels and more. The most fun I ever had in a class!
We sound like we were living similar lives. I didn’t move to an alternate reality but I just hopped onto my first husbands ideals and let him steer for 15 years. After 15 years I looked out the window and suddenly thought “I think I took a wrong turn at Alberquerque!”. THAT is when I decided to move into an alternate reality ;). I agree with you about it not being wasted time. I might not have been “me” much prior to 34 BUT I am certainly making up for lost time now 🙂
Yes, no lost time. We are where we are and we change ehen we change . . . We sure have a lot of synchronicity going on, don’t we? 😉 gotta love it!
I look back and see where things might have been different, but it’s just an observation. It’s all like learning to walk, to me; take a step, fall down, get up and take s couple steps, fall down . . . then one day we’re running effortlessly and no longer thinking about it (now we go: run, jump, trip, fall down; get up, run, jump, jump, trip . . .)
All part of growing into our cosmic potential.
I think I got “bent” on the way! 😉 I am developing crooked bits 🙂
Narf7, you DO realize that ‘crooked’ can be read more than one way, don’t you? ;-P
But, I do know what you mean . . . I have plenty of ‘bends’, too!
Narf7, I’m not sure anyone is ‘them’ much prior to 34 or so . . . I wasn’t, either. Takes time to get to know oneself, doesn’t it? I’m still discovering stuff about myself that surprises, but it’s all good. I’m also making up for lost time in some ways. And there is so much still to learn . . .
Didn’t tell you: some of my silk-screening experience included helping my sons’ Dad create wall-paper for a small bookstore. It was on the walls there for years, but I’m not sure if I ever got a picture of it. We used a wallpaper that had a silvery avstract pattern on a white background, then printed it with a pattern of scattered, geometric, small black shapes
Sounds like fun! I have all kinds of crafty desires. At the moment they run to getting our poor long suffering food trees into the ground. We will be planting out chestnuts, walnuts (more of them 😉 ) and a hazelnut grove. I also have 5 avocado trees, 2 mango trees and 3 figs that need liberating but I need to ensure that they don’t get his by frost so they might just get repotted into bigger pots till next spring. Horticulture is art with plants and a most amazing type of art, the kind you can eat and that also feeds your soul :). After that I want to read some good books (that is what winter is for) and get crazy with crafts. You have reignited my crafty desires singlehandedly Linne and I thank you :). I wouldn’t have gone trawling for crochet if it wasn’t for you and now all sorts of crafty ideas are floating around in my head. Thank you 🙂
Narf7, I envy you your budding (well, maybe not budding exactly, but I’m sure you know what I mean . . .) orchard. You better hope they delay the public release of the StarGate! You might find an old hippie camping in her tipi in the midst of the lovely wee trees . . . waiting for something to fall into her hands . . . I do love everything you are planting out; how long do you think it will be ’til you have at least a token harvest? Do post some pictures so I can see the size of young Sherwood Forest . . .
Glad to have set you on fire, so to speak LOL and with winter on the way, too . . . There is so much to do, make, learn . . . you know, I was bored once in my life; when I was in my 30s, I think, and then I noticed that I was bored and started thinking about how interesting it was to be bored for the first time ever, and then, of course, I wasn’t bored anymore! I doubt you get bored, either . . . at least it sure doesn’t sound like it. And now you are busy with designing stuff. I can’t wait to see what forms your ideas and work take. Now to set a few others on fire, or at least fan the existing flames a bit . . .
I have a surprise coming up soon and will post a sneak preview later tonight. ;-P