Friday 23 December 2011

Festive spirit...... part 2

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

5 comments:

  1. Like your tree Anna! Mine is in my porch. Oh - I sent a load of beautiful Laura Ashley dress to Oxfam, long before I knew about vintage shops or the internet, I'm not a clothes hoarder, but.... I do think of them occasionally.
    Have a lovely holiday with your family.

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  2. Glad your son is home. The tree is great no chance I could make one had a sort out recently so no catalogues here! One of my regrets is parting with an Ozzie Clarke dress that I bought in the early 1970s and wore to a cousins wedding.

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  3. Anna,
    I tried to leave comments a couple of times the other day on this interesting post and was thwarted by blogger at every turn. I've come back to it today because I really wanted to say how much I like those printing plates of yours. The blackbird plate looks like it would be fab as a collagraph but they all work in relief. You cut such crisp, clean lines in your lino work, something that eludes me. Hope you've had a great holiday with your son home and here's to more creativity in 2012!

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  4. Congratulations on your handsome new press, Anna. I'm sure you will get lots of joy from it and already results are looking good!

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  5. I love the print. It has bold and intriguing shapes and designs.

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