31st July 2009
My studio floor is covered in drying gocco prints. I did two different colours for my moon print; a bunch with a pink background (evening sky, or apocolyptic depending on who you ask) and a bunch with a dark blue night sky. It wasn’t meant to be dark but it is – and I don’t like it – so I have just ordered some pastel blue and will do a reprint when it gets here. Gocco is all a bit trial ‘n’ error for me but brilliantly fun regardless.
And have you seen Kirst’s quilt project? Have you signed up? I am about to work on an embroidery design for my square and will make it available as a pdf to download if you want to make something similar (though, if you are playing along on Kirsty’s quilt project you need to make yours unique).
Have a happy weekend – we’ll be glamming up for a black-tie event tomorrow night – I have my dress and now just need to fit into it. Oh dear!
23rd July 2009
After a huge amount of rain (for Melbourne anyway) in the last 24 hours we now have lovely clear sunshine spilling in our windows. The studio is especially good on such mornings – lots of light and floorboards. I have already done some gocco printing and now have to wait patiently for my new supplies to arrive next week. This week I have also been painting more wooden dolls (I am especially happy with the little traditional shaped doll in her red stripes) and sewing the skirts on rabbits.
I have hit a bit of a roadblock with the wooden dolls. I have used water based inks to paint them which is crazy, I know, but I have had previous experience with these inks (Art Spectrum’s Artists’ Pigment Ink) and they have always dried with a kind of plasticky, water resistant finished. I expected the inks to dry similarly on the dolls so I could coat them in a varnish to seal them and finish them off… unfortunately when I started to paint on the varnish (Atelier’s Satin Medium and Varnish) the inks ran… I am hoping I can find some kind of spray on finish which will help waterproof and seal the dolls. Off to the art shop for advice!
4th June 2009
I am taking part in Koo’s My Creative Space meme again this week and, as per the game plan, I have hidden a heart somewhere on my desk. For easier heart-hunting you can click on the photo for a bigger image.
My creative space is getting tidier this week. I have to clear the decks for a onslaught of gocco printing and bunny sewing.
Here’s my Paper Moon illustration, slightly changed to satisfy my inner (and outer!) critics. I am working on rescanning and making colour seperations this week, ready for printing up next week. Fun!
More creative spaces (with hidden hearts) at kootoyoo.
18th May 2009
I scanned in the inked version of my new drawing and have been playing with some colours in photoshop. Much fun. I have to work out how to deal with those big blocks of colour because I know that I am asking for trouble and blocked up gocco screens if I leave them as is. More work is needed.
- – - – -
Day 18: Wrote around 900 words today. It wasn’t a struggle really, but it was waffle. Feeling a bit lost with it at the moment – not quite sure if I am really saying anything worth saying at all. Hopefully when the heating comes back on, so will my enthusiasm.
17th May 2009
Yeegads – a busy weekend. I think I emptied a tank of petrol with all the running around we’ve had to do. Amelia and I dropped in on Christina and Paul for a cup of tea today and as usual we came away feeling very inspired (and warm! There’s certainly nothing wrong with their heating). Amelia came home and sorted all her Blythe postcards, and I’ve been working away at my Paper Moon sketch, ready to gocco-fy as soon as I can get some time to get to a photocopier. Does anyone know if there is a Melbourne gocco supply source or do I need to go back to Nehoc?
Tonight? We have a chick-flick and the rest of the Green & Black’s white chocolate to devour.
- – - – -
I’ve lost track of my days. I know I missed one due a packed schedule- and it’s way too cold to get up at 5.30 at the moment. Every other day I have managed to dash down somewhere between 500 and 1000 words, usually in the evening after the girls are asleep, so none of it is particularly good. I do like my 5.30 starts. I also really need to find a solid slab of time to write all my scenes down on sticky notes (a la Will Self) and rearrange the lot so the plot structure makes sense. I think I need to chop out a major subplot which means a couple of my favourite characters get the flick – but hey, this may be the book that ends up in my bottom drawer, and I can resurrect those characters at a later date in my BLOCKBUSTER. Yep.
2nd April 2008
WELL. I did it. I have a slightly stiff neck from the stress of putting up my first item, but my Gocco print is now for sale on Etsy. There are only 30 prints in this limited edition and my mum has one and we have another two so get in quick! (How exciting!).
6th March 2008
Sometime around 9am this morning the gocco and I made friends again and I finished my first multi-coloured print. Hooray! Thanks for all the encouragement yesterday.
Just in case you were wondering, the registration looks off deliberately. I thought that if I made the colours look as though they didn’t fit the outline as a stylistic choice then registration would be a whole lot easier. This was definitely a wise move.Things I must remember when printing:
1. Let go of the expectation that it will look perfect. As Jo and Sarah pointed out in the comments yesterday, all the weird stuff going on just adds charm and character.
2. Don’t drink two cups of coffee before printing. This only adds to the agro.
3. Don’t print on the floor if you are doing a lot of printing and you don’t have a particularly flexible body.
4. Don’t use 3 year old ink.
5. Don’t make six million prints because it’s fun doing the first plate.
Ok! Next up… this little number. I am going to try it as a gocco but then I am keen to make it in to a big embroidery / applique thing.
This is a happy image for me because Amelia decided she liked school when she discovered she could borrow a hula hoop at lunchtime. There have been no more tears in the morning and it has meant she finally left the classroom step and started to explore the playground. Much relief all round.
5th March 2008
Arghhh! I am having one of those days. Everything I touch seems to turn to poo.
This is my desk (for On my desk… on a Wednesday). I am in the middle of doing some gocco prints and it’s not going so well. The little spring which helps hold the lamp unit in to the gocco has gone, and all my inks look splodgey. Originals have been fusing to the screens and I am feeling like gocco and me were not meant to be.
This is my floor, where I did most of my printing yesterday (note splodgey ink). Today my neck, legs and arms feel as though I have been having a major work out so this afternoon I have moved it all to my desk. Lara makes it all look so easy… sigh.
