She's mine!

At last I bought myself the Raskog cart from Ikea. I had my eye on it for a long time, especially the blue one, but I found the price a bit too high. This one is from the bargain corner and it's sand coloured. But hey, it isn't always about the looks. She holds my stuff perfectly. (I don't know why it's a she for me...)

bound book L.K. Ludwig style

While I was browsing the internet, I found the website of L.K. Ludwig. Although I have all her books I never searched for her on the net, strangely enough. On her site she has a free tutorial for making a book out of leaflets of paint manufacturers. She uses an interesting stitch: pearl seed stitch.

I wanted to experiment with this, because I hadn't made a book for a long time. So I ran (cycled, actually) to the nearest hardware store and stole (it felt that way for me) some paint leaflets (the ones that fold out).
At first you have to gesso the pages and then paint one layer (scraping with an old creditcard or something like that) and when that's dry paint a darker layer on top. Still wet imprint the paint with a foam stamp that is soaked in water. Leave for 15 seconds and scrape the paint of the page. If all reacts well, an interesting image remains on the page. My gesso was not that good, and my acrylic paint probably a bit too runny, but the result is nevertheless rather attractive.
L.K. has an extensive tutorial of all the steps you have to take.

For the covers I used the paper that I painted on. And because I used yellow cord for the binding I embellished the front with a very yellow sunflower. I don't have a plan for the inside of the book but regard it as an experiment.

stencils and work in progress

Recently I dusted off my spraypaint cans and made a few new papers with stencils because some friends of mine want to come to play with them in the near future. I hadn't used this stuff for a while and was amazed again how much pleasure it gave me.

Also I wanted to try to remake (a part of) the stencil work with fabrics. Below is a work in progress. There are such beautiful pieces of fabric at MooiZooi (a kind of recycling shop that sells remnants of factories and shops) that I can't resist to take them home every time I'm there. Although I never had a plan for them. But now I have!

Lino cut

Some more varieties based on the Utopia book cover. For these I made a new linoleum cut and step-by-step cut away more of the lino.
For the first prints click here.

 

Painting a bulb

I photographed a hyacinth bulb from up close and with the flash on and the photo turned out quite green, almost as if I had used photoshop. I thought the effect was rather interesting and felt like painting it. I'm not an experienced painter but I like the feeling of brushing with big strokes on paper and don't pretend to paint accurately to the original.

Maartje Korstanje

I saw her exhibition in the Groninger Museum and I was impressed. Her work took me by the throat. It is so primeval, so raw. I was alone in the museum rooms (except from a guard) and it was therefore  a very intimate experience. I like it so much when that is possible.

More paper-maché

Because I had a piece of plaster that had hardened in a plastic container in the form of a cookie ánd I had a lot of wallpaper glue leftover from the previous project I made myself a giant teacup with a cookie (painted with acrylic paint). After the first layers of newspaper paper I used two different wallpapers.
I used a mixing bowl and a big plate as a mould.

Paper maché bowl

With a group of friends we planned to give another friend a set of six plates and six bowls for her birthday. But because we also had a program for the day and that present was a bit too heavy to carry around all day, I decided to make a surrogate present we could give first. So from paper-maché I made a green bowl (the crockery was green) and also added strips of paper with all our names on it.

Playing with foam

Pieces of spraypainted foam in a cd-case.

These foam strips are painted with fabric paint (not the biggest success because the paint wouldn't hold). I then wound yarn around the rolled up strips.

Balls

These balls I made from painted cheesecloth (years ago! - I like to recycle). I made a template from cardboard and outlined it on the fabric. I discovered that the back was more interesting than the front, so I used that.