The best part of this Christmas is having my son Will with us, even if it meant leaving here at 4.25am yesterday to meet him at Heathrow!! Great time to go of course and we were home by 6.30. It's good to see him again and I'm glad he's ' boomeranging' back here before some more travelling.....maybe....we shall see.
I made this tree from the tutorial on Lesley's blog...
It worked out well and I would make another if I'd kept all those Boden catalogues but I have been seriously clearing 'stuff' out over the last year or so... very therapeutic for me....my god daughter who now deals in vintage clothes can't get over me sending my Laura Ashley dresses to the charity shop!!
Anyway, I digress! The John Lewis catalogue looks good so no need to add paint or glitter.... thanks Lesley!
My present to myself is a beautiful, old, very heavy....
book binding press. It's a long story but briefly I bought it a few months ago and recently a friend kindly took me up to Shropshire to collect it and my strong young builder has now added putting a book binding press together to his CV!
The postman brought parcels containing inks, barens and brayers and yesterday I made a start.
My cardboard cut blackbird inked up and ready to print... and the first print...
Not bad but I can see that using different inks and press I will need to experiment with inking up and the amount of packing sheets. I took a few lighter prints to hand colour later...
I then tried one or two lino blocks...
and with a bit more experimenting got a good guinea fowl feather print...
You don't get the same 'touch' as with the presses at the Curwen but no doubt I will develop a feel with this press - and some good muscles!! It's going to be fun being able to work at home when I feel like it, and maybe hold classes here next year? The long term wish list is a baby Albion press and an etching press (small one!) but this is a great start!
HAPPY CHRISTMAS
