b mused: September 2013

September's Postcard of the Month
Sunny (and contemplative?) girls!

Once decided on theme for the month, the echoes were everywhere! I wasn't set on Sunflowers specifically, but I liked the appeal of similarly-shaped, cheerful flowers.

First, the Jerusalem Artichokes that survived the deluges of earlier months bloomed just as I was starting work on the cards:

Then, my dear old pal and once-upon-a-time housemate, Nancy McBee shared a photo on Facebook of this big-faced girl out in her Oregon garden:

And then, equally dear old pal, and ALSO once-upon-a-time-housemate - JoJo Vecchiola - shared HER spectacular Sunflowers photo from her Cabot garden:

I snapped a shot of this tidy garden out of the window of my car as I was stopped opposite, while in construction traffic on my way to the pool during the week:

Calendula that I planted next to the pool:

And then! While perusing my collection of greeting cards (mostly by other local artists), I this rediscovered This photo/notecard that my ALSO very dear friend (though never roomates!*), Elaine Manghi took/made of her summer garden:

This month - other than being infused with cheerful yellow flowers

(and attending to our dear old Lucy) **

- has been all about my new camera!! I've been rabidly taking photos - mostly to document my weeks' doings to show my mother when I visit her on Mondays - on my handy little cell-phone camera for a couple of years now. Handy indeed, but not such great quality. SO! >> For our anniversary (10th married/20th of day we met) at the beginning of the month, Mule gave me a NEW (nice and small) digital NIKON! Oooooo! It is NICE. And whadda ZOOM! I found that if I put in on "Food" setting, I can go in for some really close shots:

Re: Postcards - I slapped together a quick prototype:

Which I mostly liked, other than wanting to finesse the big flower a bit - make it look either more like a Sunflower or more like a Black-eyed Susan - something not quite as basic as this one. I will say though that the final postcards lack a certain zest that this more simple one conveys (to me at least!). These things are always experiments! I learn a lot (more) about the 'bleed' qualities of the various papers. I spent a lot of time mitigating transparency issues as they became apparent while working on the set of 21.

I have a few different colored sheets of these Lokta papers - September's sky's blue is one of them.

This vivid yellow Lokta paper (made in Nepal) - of which I had plenty -

became easily saturated and quite muted:

Shape of the flower I'm tracing for the cards is taken from Joanne's girls:

But! The very hot, sunny days - optimal paper-drying conditions (and Lucy needing TLC) - were beckoning me home, deckside, and so I decided to try to come up with my own vivid yellow - make some new papers.

LOTS of new papers!!

Towards my goal of intense yellow color saturation, Meg and Barb Willis (happily, now my close neighbors) contributed some powdered Turmeric, and I added some Saffron threads from a little box of Saffron that I'd brought back - SIXTEEN YEARS AGO - from London. Yup, London's just where you think of when you're wanting to buy some Saffron... ??!

The brew (I think this was the 4th, richest batch) looked wonderfully bright:

And it looked somewhat promising on the screens:

But, alas, the paper did not quite dry that way - 4th batch wasn't too bad though:

I also tried to come up with a densely sky(?)-blue paper, thinking I might use it for September's sky:

I didn't. I like the intense Lokta blue that I used in the prototype too much. End result of this paper-making bender: I need to better educate myself re: all sorts of aspects of the process, but color-fixing in particular. Like adding alum to set the colors. There's plenty of info and videos on-line, but a nice, local, hands-on paper-making class would be welcome.

Other production preparations went smoothly enough.**8

Some of the fixins:

And then, on the morning of the day that I planned to start production, I decided that maybe I could incorporate some imprints of yellow petals (mostly Calendula) into the collages...

And, thanks once again to the all-things-green goddess - my friend, Barb Willis**** - I knew a cool technique to do just this: Pound 'em. Taped face-down on fabric. With a rubber mallet:

So, I quickly pounded out these 10 little (mostly) yellow prints (and one Chicory). But when I got them back to the studio and started cutting small petal pieces, I couldn't see them integrating nicely... They'll undoubtedly show up in some future collage(s).

So then, I just set to.

What I've done the past few times in production is pick one of the 21 collages to construct first, and take step-by-step photos before I start the other 20. Thus I uncover a few issues needing mitigation - namely the loss of intensity of the big yellow flower this time. But there were others too. (I will elaborate via some step details below.)

And there were LOTS of steps! Way more than I got photos of! I forgot to shoot a few steps towards the end, and then I did some further tweaking of the Sunflower (after it fully 'cured' - between steps 44 and 45).

I also didn't go about the rest of production as I usually do - assembly line fashion/each card gets their piece before moving on. I worked in various phases as things progressed.

And there were steps that I completely eliminated when it came time to do the rest of the cards.

In the end, they all achieved a (relatively) uniform look.

Have you spotted the guinea pig?!

THE STEPS

Well, here they are. Buckle up - it's a long ride! FORTY-FIVE (documented) steps.

Step 1

Step 2

I used to have a sheet of black paper with gold squares that I liked a lot, and used right up.*****

I haven't been able to find it again, but I did pick up a large sheet of the dark green version a while ago, and thought this would be a good time to use some.

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7 - I eliminated this dark grey-green triangle at Step 10 - it just looked stuck there...

Step 8

Step 9

Step 10 - In removing the dark triangle, my sky's bleed still shows the shape... oooops.

Step 11

Step 12

Step 13

Step 14

Step 15

Step 16 - Some of my own paper!

Step 17

Step 18

Step 19

Step 20

Step 21

Step 22

Step 23

Step 24

Step 25

Step 26

Step 27

Step 28

Step 29

Step 30

I thought I'd like this added rusty/orange 'shadow' that I added in the next 2 steps, but I didn't - I found it distracting. So I ended up taking it out at Step 44, and the rest of the postcards never had these added.

Step 31

Step 32

Step 33

Step 34

I started to add real flower petals in the next couple of steps (Calendula petals seemed a good size), but I didn't like the affect with the rest of the papers.

Step 35

Step 36

Step 37

Step 38

Step 39

Step 40

Step 41

Step 42

Step 43

Step 44 - Replaced the Calendula petals.

Step 45 - Added a few more paper petals to try to regain that vivid yellow.

Fin. (of the postcard part)

*I was, however, Manghi's Bread's first baker! 30 years ago! :)

*We were trying to rig a doggie wheelchair for Lu (new, they are mucho $$$, which we have been reluctant to spend, not knowing whether she would even have the energy/ability to adapt to one...). She is one tough old girl. Still with us, as I finish writing these notes...

***Before I started production, I had a lovely collaging interlude: I led an afternoon collage workshop at the facility where my mother lives in NH. Photos/notes are Appendix I, down below.

****Barb Willis had a business for a few years called "Natural Imprints" - Imprinted fabrics, clothing, lampshades, tables, napkins, etc.. And, she was also once my boss. ;)

*****Winter XV, 2008:

Appendix I - Collage Workshop

I prepped for the workshop by amassing a huge basket of flowers from my garden, as well as contributions from Barb Willis's garden, my friend Marcia Levison's,****** and Elaine Manghi's gardens:

I set vases of the flowers around the Activities Room:

To use as "Still Life's", if anyone wanted to go that route. Which they did!

And I brought several of the Postcard of the Month postcards, and hung up the large Chicory collage that I just finished as examples of the 'painting with paper' collage option:

And I also had a few examples of (old!) collages done using images cut/torn from magazines.

I brought this one up from my mother's apartment that I did for her in 1978:

Sarah Bernhardt collage (1977):

And I had loads of papers and magazines on hand to play with:

The room filled right up, and participants (mostly) tackled their various approaches with lots of enthusiasm. One ambivalent participant spent the first half of the session saying that she wasn't going to make a collage, and, "I better get going while the going's good".

And then she quietly made this:

Here are a few (of nearly a dozen) that were done:

My mother's scissor work (and my father's elbow):

When the workshop was over, I brought all the flowers back to my mother's apartment, where I took my favorite photo of the day:

I'm booked to go back again in November and lead another 'Winter' collage session. :)

******She is also my boss. At the Richmond Food Shelf & Thrift Store.

Appendix II - Cards

I love to do collaged cards for people who are important to me on significant occasions in their lives. I tend to work fairly quickly, and use a lot of the detritus from other projects. I try not to think a lot, and keep things playful. They are often some of my favorite collages.

First was a b-day card for my raking-in-the-ribbons GMHA Champion horsewoman sister: