Uncategorized – Page 4

Carbon Footprint

By: Celia Wilson 2 December, 20152 December, 2015

Paint making workshops, Pigments, printmaking, Prints, Public Art, Uncategorized, Watercolour paintart, environment, MOOC, PrintsLeave a Comment

Handprint1

We’re all in the joke mood at the moment, that is if you are doing an assignment for Art of the MOOC. It has been a real battle for me to think of a joke related to a social issue or a social movement. My attempts just sounded so silly, but after going on line to find some, I thought mine were not that bad after all…

So how about:

When is a thinking person’s coal mine empty? When it’s mindful.

When can coal see? When it’s fossilised.

Then I thought, if I am making paint from coal (which was my intention), to sequester it, for example, I need a link to paint and pigment. Luckily, my brain caught on, and I came up with using charcoal (which is also carbon). Now, as there is a good possibility that prehistoric man also used charcoal to paint or draw with, aka cave paintings, I could somehow make a joke that linked carbon, pigment and paint. I do have some coal left over from when we had a coal fire (oops, but we only used it once and we had to travel 100 k to buy the coal)… but the charcoal came from the woodturning stove and the tree came from the garden and it did seem a little more environmentally appropriate.

So my joke for Art of the MOOC was: Was there a prehistoric carbon footprint? No, they used their hands…

I made a video of the paint making process which can be found on my Facebook page. www.facebook.com/celia.wilson.56 It is also on Vimeo https://vimeo.com/147520835, and I have a link to Twitter…

Screen Shot 2015-12-02 at 11.10.34 AM

Walks in the Waitakere Ranges

By: Celia Wilson 15 November, 20156 May, 2016

Garden plants, New Zealand native plants, Organic paints, Pigments, Uncategorized, Watercolour paintLeave a Comment

Have just found this draft which was started late last year, so I thought I should finish it.

In November I spent a week near the Waitakere Ranges just north of Auckland, and had the opportunity for some lovely bush walks.

Paddocks and regenerating forest – Manuka a nursery species. Ponga, tree ferns, Kauri alongside the track.

Close up of Kauri bark. Gorgeous!

Crossed this stream. Typical of the bush streams in the area. This one is near civilisation.

Definitely not in the bush! Planted at the entrance to a property. Looks like a Black Eyed Susan vine Thunbergia alata.

Kawakawa , Macrocarpa excelsum– lovely holes in the leaves from it’s friendly co-habitant, the Kawakawa looper moth caterpillar.

I managed to find some pigments – mainly hard clay, and some small clay pebbles, rounded by the running stream water. I’ve never seen these before, was quite a surprise. Because they are wet, the colour comes off on to your fingers, and you can easily mark another harder surface. I thought perhaps that could have started the use of clay as paint…

Hot Off the Press

By: Celia Wilson 27 July, 201527 July, 2015

Nature prints, Patchwork, printmaking, Prints, UncategorizedBoro, chance, mono print, Nature prints, patchwork, silk cloth, textiles4 Comments

Tomorrow’s Beginning

Boro

An Image in Search of a Title

Hot Off the Press; four printmakers showing at Arts in Oxford Gallery, Oxford, North Canterbury

This selection of monoprints is my first venture into exhibiting prints. I hope I’m keeping true to my art practice of using process and chance to make the image. I like to use recycled items, such as scraps of paper, cloth and plastic to print with. The scraps are either used as found or cut into shapes or patterns.

Through an interest in Japanese prints and making textile works I discovered the term ‘boro’. Boro is a Japanese word that translates as ‘rags or scraps of cloth, and the term boro is also used to describe clothes and household items which have been patched-up and repaired many times’[i]. The textiles could be passed down the generations and so also become holders of memory, in much same way as in old patchwork quilts.

In this set of prints I have interpreted this textile construction method by reusing the plastic, paper and cloth as the printing ‘plates’, integrating the shapes one on another to create an image that formed itself piece by piece. Would this go here? – What colour contrast will I do next? – the image in effect prompting a response from me. Memories (for me) are contained in many of the ‘scraps’ used.

The base of all the works is a found shape that reminded me of a kimono, and from this emerged the idea of boro as a process to create these images.

[i] https://furugistarjapan.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/boro-japanese-folk-fabric/

Object or Thing

Cannot add more to this piece of work. It sat there for a while, rolled up in the old bible box that my Grandmother used as a hat box (she had wonderful hats). Then the other night I finished off the bottom right hand corner. A little piece of family genealogy there, to me anyway…

Lying flat on the table, it is a thing. Nothing wrong with being ‘a thing’ – it seems things in our lives are interconnected with our brains and consciousness and make us what we are, allowing us to make new connections. Is it more interesting as a thing or an object now that I have fastened to the wall? Does it take on a new identity? Or has it lost its becoming and is now static – I won’t say dead. Its new persona invites new becomings, however.

Lovely design on the ‘hat box’.

Green dye from Black Turtle Bean

By: Celia Wilson 5 April, 20155 April, 2015

Black bean, Dyeing, Organic paints, Pigments, Solar dyeing, Uncategorized, Watercolour paintartists books, cotton, dye bath, mordants, Plant prints on paper, silk cloth, solar dyeLeave a Comment

Following on from the previous post about black bean dye –

The next day, bicarbonate of soda was added to the Black Turtle Bean solar dye. Colour changed to green and this colour transferred to the un-mordanted silk and cotton scraps.

This test needs to be redone; the bicarb was added to the original dye which was probably a bit tired – the beans were ‘going off’ at the time.

I also added to the solar dye pot some rolled-up paper, but the green disappeared into a brown-green when applied to paper. Something in the paper which is photocopy paper reacting with this dye. Where the pools of dye were deeper the green colour is just apparent. This paper is stuck onto the test page and covered the swatches in the above image, hence the change of page direction!

Kozo Tea Iron

By: Celia Wilson 30 January, 201530 January, 2015

Dyeing, Eco printing, Eco prints on paper, Uncategorizeddye bath, dyes on paper, eco print, Kozo paper, Plant prints on paper, Prints, rust, seed pods, Seeds and seed pods1 Comment

This latest experiment was about getting a contact print through an immersion in a cold dye, in this case tea. I used two strips of dry folded kozo paper that I had previously drawn on with sumi ink; one piece was held together with a metal bull dog clip. A stack of dry printmaking paper was interlaid with leaves and seeds, then sandwiched between two sheets of perspex and clipped together with paper clips. All three packages were immersed in the tea dye container for a few hours. The darker dye (caused by the metal clip in the tea) remained in situ around the bundle while the liquid was motionless. As I removed the papers I could see the reaction of the iron on the tea slowly take place over the rest of the dye and turn it completely black.

The kozo paper was squeezed in the hand when taken out of the tea dye to get the lovely ’embossing’ (the photo does not really do it justice). I am very pleased with the abstract nature of the results, even though the plant material left little in the way of images on the printmaking paper, but there are some impressions – a trace of the leaves on some sheets. There are also a few traces of other colours from the plant material. Some of the seeds left a darker spot on the paper.

There is a tension here (freedom and control) between allowing enough moisture into the stack and the pressure required to achieve images of the plant material. Perhaps the paper in the stack should have been damp which might have allowed more wicking of the dye. Needs more investigation.

Some of the tonal variation occurred as the printmaking paper was removed from the stack. I tried to restrict disturbing the remaining dye but some of this did happen of course! The printmaking paper has much value as a base layer for further work.

It’s a Plane tree

By: Celia Wilson 16 January, 201516 January, 2015

Garden plants, Nature prints, UncategorizedPlant prints on paperLeave a Comment

I went out to find the tree – it is what I know as a London Plane tree – and it seems to be known under various botanical names and I won’t bother to list them. Glad that little problem sorted… See previous post.

Dyeing Scraps with Tea and Rust

By: Celia Wilson 8 January, 20158 January, 2015

Eco printing, eco prints on fabric, Eco prints on paper, Garden plants, Uncategorizedchance, cotton, dye bath, dyes, dyes on paper, eco print, plants, rust, synthetic lining fabric, Tea bags, Wendy Feldberg1 Comment

Being a Jill of all trades, I was prompted to have another go with metal and tannin by an article in Wendy Feldberg’s blog Threadborne. I am switching from researching, to seed collecting, to sewing up clothes and soft furnishings, to printing, to photography, to collecting more rocks for pigments, to drawing and back again with great rapidity at the moment. So this dip into dyeing is yet another experiment. Making the invisible visible through chance.

My intention for this project was to get some pieces of cloth that I could use in my art work. I had one bath with just the tea and tea bags, and the other with the metal and tannin. I tried to combine the two dyes, moving some bundles from the tea to the metal bath and leaving part of the bundle above the dye so it was just dipped into the liquid.

The results from the dye session were good, better than expected. It was a simple process compared to other dye sessions I have done that took much more of my time – or I should say – my presence, watching and checking. I used some new squares of light weight cotton with a glazed surface on one side, together with some old sheeting and clothing. The glazed side accepted the ‘dye’ the same as the unglazed side. I am thinking I might try printing on this fabric…

Cloths were rolled or folded, then bundled, clipped and tied. I actually had two dyeing sessions, refreshing the initial brew with more tea, tea bags and vinegar. The metal was rusty scraps, coins, bulldog clips, an old metal zip, and some aluminium foil (don’t think that did anything) all in a plastic ice cream 1 litre tub. Once out of these cold dye baths – one was overnight, the second one day – the cloths were rinsed, then left for a short while in salty water, then washed with Ecostore hand wash liquid soap that sits in the laundry. I was very lazy, but really I only had machine washing powder as the other option. And I felt the hand wash liquid would be softer on the dye. Anyway, it worked fine.

After drying, the cloths were ironed – once flattened the magic really became apparent. I included some pink rose petals and leaves in one bundle. The petals left a pale green colour, and there is a mysterious very pale pink – cannot image where that came from, but it may have been a label that was attached to the plastic mesh bag as it was not from the rose petals. I included the bag hoping to get an impression of the grid, but that didn’t happen. I also folded a piece of acid free office computer paper and put that in the second dye bath.

January 2015 printing – Seeds and Seed Pods

By: Celia Wilson 5 January, 20155 January, 2015

Garden plants, Nature prints, Prints, UncategorizedAkua inks, chance, Plant prints on paper, plants, plate, Prints, seed pods, Seeds and seed podsLeave a Comment

Seeds and seed pods are really quite beautiful, make good subjects for art and design. This is a collagraph plate that I made ‘last year!’ in December from dried seed pods of the Honesty plant (Lunaria annua, aka Money Plant) and one of the plant’s leaves. I had kept the dried specimen from 2012, so it has lasted well. I glued the dried plant material onto a piece of mat board and coated front and back of the board in two layers of polyurethane varnish – but it still had a little warp. This did not make any difference when the plate was printed. (Or so it seemed to me…) A small piece of the leaf had already broken away in the past, but apart from an interesting phenomenon that appeared when I inked the plate (the layers of varnish came away from three of the seed pods) the plate has held up well through its various inkings and cleanings. The photo here is what it looks like, cleaned, after an afternoon’s printing with Akua water based ink.

This is a ghost print (i.e. second print from an inked plate) from one of the initial printings.

The next two images are of a print made by inking up a piece of plastic, sending the plate and the plastic through the press, and then taking a print off the plate. The plastic creates an interesting background with plenty of unexpected results which is one of the reasons I enjoy printing.

Finally, here is a the result of selectively cleaning the inked plate, so that only the raised parts of the collagraph will print. Still have a lot to learn! At least I now know that placing the paper on top of the plate creates an embossed image. The digital ink jet paper is dry and probably causes the creasing. I really enjoy using Akua ink as it is easier to clean up and I do not like using turps! The ‘black’ ink (actually a combination of colours, more a dark grey) creates an image that almost could be a photocopy.

I have been collecting Rocket (Eruca sativa) seeds from the veggie bed. Really quite fascinating, and I notice that the membrane between the two halves of the seed pod is similar to that found in dried Honesty plants. I would like to find Lunaria rediviva a perennial ‘cousin’ of Honesty which has yet another variation on this form with more elongated pods. [Just found out that they are all members of the Mustard family (Brassicaceae)!]

Finally, poppy seed pods from the garden.

December prints

By: Celia Wilson 27 December, 201428 December, 2014

Garden plants, Pottery, Prints, UncategorizedAkua inks, art, dyes on paper, environment, Plant prints on paper, plants, Prints2 Comments

A few prints, one produced at home, and the others at printing group.

This print is produced with Akua inks, on a smooth card, and I used my printer at home. The print is taken directly off some old wallpaper that came from my parents house. The original illustration of what I think may be a conifer is pale green, but here I used red and it suggests the NZ Christmas tree – Pohutukawa! I used this print to make Christmas cards for family and friends.

I’ve always had an interest in pottery, probably because of the glazes, but I really like the shapes of vessels and I am also presently researching cardial ware pottery. The next two images are of prints I made using a piece of flat, smooth polystyrene packaging that came with food from the supermarket (nice to recycle!). I traced the outline, cut the shape out and used a pointed etching tool to impress the marks. I am still learning, so it is helpful to have an image I can work up on a block quickly, then be able to concentrate on the printing process itself. I used two small pieces of polystyrene joined with masking tape at the back, and the marks and pits on the surface of the polystyrene helped to suggest the surface of clay pottery ware – as you can see below. I really think these printing block are artworks in their own right.

I found the cardial ware pottery image by Joanbanjo on Wikimedia Commons. The neolithic pot is described as decorated impressed ware, from the Cova de l’Or de Beniarrés, (5000 – 4200 BC) in the Museu de Prehistòria de València. I used water based printing ink and dry paper for these works.

Credits: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AVas_amb_decoraci%C3%B3_impresa_cardial%2C_Cova_de_l’Or_de_Beniarr%C3%A9s%2C_Museu_de_Prehist%C3%B2ria_de_Val%C3%A8ncia.JPG

By Joanbanjo (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons from Wikimedia Commons

Finally from the garden, a photo of poppies for 2014 – red for love and tinged with white for peace.

I wish everybody a safe and bountiful 2015!