sparrows

Looking through my files at the computer I realized I've actually made a lot of sketches of birds before - but just for commissioned work. Tomorrow and next week I will make a concentrated effort to come up with my contribution to our project here (it' soon June) to be able print my image in May. Cross you fingers!

Thinking of yet more birds and fishes, this little creature came out. Have used it as a welcome for my webpage. It's a fishird. The odd mixture of a bird and a fish...

Schets van Caroline

Caroline has a brand new blog

Caroline has a brand new weblog, with lots of interesting projects and illustrations for books and magazines.
 Go take a look here!

Have been working on my image. This is an attempt to try colours and textures, before trying to print it with the Gocco. I'm also sketching some more ideas, I'll upload them later on...

sushi ready to eat

Came across this award winning ad and it reminded me of the sketches Juliana posted earlier.

Inge Koenen's mussel coat - 'Armour for the Weak'

I took a train to Den Bosch today to see Inge's new exhibition The art of Remembrance at Het Kruithuis. It is a group exhibition with 7 artists - each has a room of his own and there is a collective show in the main hall.

Inge's exhibition is about her experiences in Spain, earlier this winter. Her art is really conceptual. She takes photographs, invents installations, sews and paints and glues- she will work in whichever medium she needs to get her ideas across. (For our book she will do a photograph). Inge herself says she creates her own universe, in which everything has been made with attention, love and patience. Her handmade world is her reaction to the real world -usually a pretty humoristic one.

In the main hall of the Kruithuis she hung her wonderful and monumental mussel shell coat. It is entirely made of mussel shells...

...which she painstakingly drilled lots of tiny holes in, after which she sew them together with nylon thread. The mantle is called 'Armour for the weak'.
It drew a lot of attention.

Her Remembrance show, about her stay in Callosa d'en Saria, Spain, held many items, including many of the  the color photographs of Callosa that can be seen on Inge's Callosa blog, white cotton gloves that she embroidered with a map of the village.. or stamped with a date stamp every day of her stay there..

.. and (not for the faint hearted) a photograph of a skinned rabbit, for sale just like that at the market in Callosa - with tons of hand sewn and stuffed textile rabbits as a carpet in front of it.. Do we walk over them if we wish to see the picture?

This is Inge standing right in the middle near the pillar, listening to the opening speech of this group exhibiton, on till may 24 of this year.

Het Kruithuis at Den Bosch, a 17th century powder magazine of the army.

Fishes or birds?

3 fishes and 3 birds

I have not in any way come closer to what I'll make for our project, but it is not because of lack of trying!

beautiful bird

A while ago I came across this bird and I love it. It's made by illustrator and author Beatrice Alemagna

Silk screen printing.. We Have Been Taught A New Technique Today!

Finally came the day of today when Titi would teach Francis and me how to do silkscreens! I have been looking forward to it.

I was going to do some postcards - Titi had told us to keep things simple for today - but the letters weren't black enough so here I am touching them up.

 

Titi is placing the drawings we want to print on the lighting table. 55 seconds is all it takes..

The emulsion has been applied and the screen is now blown dry

..and I am rinsing the screen after the lighting

To align the paper we will be printing with the image on the screen, Titi fastens a strip of paper to the original drawing. That way we can handle it while the screen is pressed down over it and wiggle it back and forth till we know exactly where to put the paper. Then we put marks on the table so we can quickly change sheets.

Next comes the job of covering all parts of the screen we are not using right now.. and tape it up with water resistant tape

Francis is making the first prints. First you move the ink over the part of the screen you want to print, while the screen is tilted upwards, to ink the image. Then you lower the screen and pull the ink towards you with enough force.. and voila!

After a day's work the screen gets a thorough cleaning

And this is all we made in a day - Titi made a stack of business cards and I a stack of postcards. (Francis had already left by this time to teach a workshop). They are left out to dry on a rack, but they dry amazingly fast. We could have made more.. but we took a nice long lunch and we did quite some talking.

When we came out into the bleak sun again, it was half past four in the beautiful town of Kampen.
Thanks, Titi!

Kitty's tuna reminded me of an old draft...