My new studio!!!

The first prints being created in studio down....studio up is upstairs where technology is based....!

Pronto plate inked ready to be printed on Japanese  paper for the 'dream' book

Little shell book....we are thinking about titles ......

Litho printed Japanese paper with typed inserts on onion skin paper.

A maquette of book using the plaster cast paper shell

Plaster cast shells and Japanese paper

So we have  now tried three different kinds of Japanese paper on the casts

Two on the left with mulberry paper

Two in the middle with gampi paper

Two on the right with bib tengujo paper 

They each have their own qualities

I might try to varnish one and see if that increases the translucency......

Black and white prints

I had one of those black and white disposable cameras tucked away in a drawer, really old, and thought it would be a good idea to take it with us to Findhorn.  I am blown away with the results ...beyond any expectations they are stunning.  Just going to try and work out how to use them, they are so wonderful  it will be quite tricky.  The quality of them is so beautiful it has made me consider reviving my old Olympus SLR.  This is just a quick digital photo of the B & W photo, a taster as it were

Razor clam book

Another book reaches completion today, really pleased with this one as well...it is lovely to hold and flip through reading the beach haiku as you go

The pages ready, folded and typed ( on my old eastern block type writer) on Japanese paper

The cover and beautiful spine....

Some pages

The cover is mulitple layers litho printed 

Paper casting

During in our collaboration last year we went paper casting and made some fabulous casts with Stephanie Spindler and Alison Newman of PULP in Glasgow.  Yesterday we had a go at casting some Japanese paper in the plaster shells with great success ...I am really excited with the results especially the thinner more transluscent shell

This one is two layers of paper

This one is three layers of paper

When placed on a printed background the detail of the shell is more pronounced.

We are aiming to adhere the cast shells to the front and back of this book  ...

mussel book

Having had a fraught day yesterday with technology we drove to Dinas  Dinlle beach  and collected some shore debris for our project.

Today we are finishing off the first book from Findhorn...the mussel book

Looking at the entire page collection we have drawn to get an idea of what we want to work with

We divided the collection into two piles  each working from dark to light and stitched them....

The book with the pages

Madeleine suggested a black cover which worked beautifully with the shell/spine...

however we ended up using a litho print from our last collaboration of beach work, incorporating black and blue which echoes the mussels colours.

And here the finished book....really pleased with this

Yesterday Saturday 14th .....A Bit Of A Nature Day

First off I noticed a young seagull scuttering in the seaweed and the pebbles tossing a glistening herring like fish (the same body length as itself) till it got it at the right angle, head first then swallowed it down in three gulps....gone. It was awesome.  It then got itself a sip of sea.....

Then we met a Turnstone bird watcher......apparently you can tell the turnstones have arrived when you start hearing the noise of beach pebbles being turned....they too are amazing to watch.

I am in the middle about to embark on a very rough trip in search of dolphins who decided it was more fun to stay deep down in the sea...bit sad but saw a large seal colony close up.

Today Sunday we are about to close the studio and depart for Wales tomorrow ready for consolidation of our last two weeks of work.

Visitors to our studio at moray art centre

A few visitors came to the studio and we have had over 200 hits on our blog...please leave us some comments.... Although some one has mentioned they have tried and not succeeded ...or send me a comment via email....suecorr@btinternet.com

This is Fiona Byrne-Sutton, Gill Neish and of course Madeleine

Sue Corr...(me) showing the lovely and very enthusiastic Naomi our almost finished book 'resonant'

And Madeleine showing Geert our drawings earlier in the week.

The front cover of 'resonant'

On this 4 day collaboration we have been working with very limited materials.  It has been an interesting experience especially for Madeleine and I as we both incorporate and work with quite a lot of digital material.  Instead of using computer generated fonts and lettering we had to resort to hand drawing lettering.  Madeleine wrote a title page for us using carbon to create copies.  And many thanks to Gill for supplying the lovely Hahnemühle paper.

So we ended up with this wonderful handwritten cover ....

 

Day 4 the Final Countdown to our collaborative book 'resonant'

Documentation of all the pages....challenging weather conditions regarding wind and light.  Finishing touches to pages...the work is interesting and powerful .

Gill

Sue

Madeleine

Fiona

As Madeleine has discovered our original book format/binding idea is not going work due to thick paper we have a group discussion to solve the problem.  It is decided that we will make an exhibition book that will contain all the best work.  Our work practices are quite diverse and collating the pages meant we had to be aware what worked together and what didn't.  However this brought about some really interesting image combinations....wonderful.  We felt the book functions well, we were all more than happy with the result..

These are our best pages laid out to see how they look

Here we were working out the layout, it became a muliple folio pamphlet concertina back to back (phew) keeping aware of the balance of thick and thin papers. This format also seperated the imagery enabling it to flow in a coherent manner.

So there will be some adhesive used to glue the Hahnemühle paper back to back and some stitching of thinner papers inserted within.

Madeleine started sewing the pages together and we will paste the final binding together in north Wales where we have access to weights and more efficient tools.

The remaining pages were divided between us democratically by Gill who dealt them out like a game of cards.  The piles were numbered and then we each drew our number

So each one of us now will create our own book from these remainders and send an image for publication on this blog

As Madeleine and I have just recently created 'Blurb' books for the 'Unravelling Signatures' exhibition this was fresh in our minds and Madeleine suggested we create an e book of 'resonant',our exhibition version

Bark and other objects as a tool for printing

   The bark

The print

Seed pods as print making tool

Seaweed as print tool

Watch this space for the print....

Day 3 of the book collaboration

Work continued on the pages

Madeleine

Gill

Fiona

Sue

It's interesting watching the diversity of mark making.  What is also interesting is the sharing  of the accumulated experience, transferable skills and techniques.

Drawing with Clackmmananshire clay....Clach means boulder or rock in Gaelic.  FIona has told me how to make terra sgilliatta which Ancient Greek and Romans used to use...

Pierced paper making words...wonderful....Gill brought this into the book and Madeleine has drawn the title as we have no access to photo copier or printer.

My contribution has been book making methods and drawing skills

On an initial trial book construction we have realised that the Hahnemühle paper we have used is too thick and we are going to have to reconsider the binding...... Some of us have already made folds in the work  which we will now have to work round

Apologies for the dark photos today the light is poor this afternoon.