Chapter 6: Raising the surface

 

What a long pause since my last post! Time has filled up with preparations for my annual walking tour, three wonderful weeks walking in Wales, and getting back into my everyday life (especially getting the weeds out of the vegetables!) Also, impressions and images of my walk keep bubbling up and are clamouring to be expressed in one way or the other, to say nothing of a couple of hundreds of photographs to be worked on, sorted and named.

Just to give you an idea: this was taken on Cader Idris, looking west towards the sea. It does not get much better than that …

Most of the work for this chapter was done before my holidays. Continuing with ideas already waiting for me helped me a lot in easing my way back into coursework.

4.6.1 Altering the surface

Punches

I made the punches in my sketchbook on light cartridge paper. After the first few punches I put a folded towel under the paper, which made punching easier and the holes more definite. It was also easier to vary the pressure of the instruments and the depth of the holes.

I worked on the scans in Picasa to make the textures more visible. There is no black on the pages really (mostly).

 

	The instruments are: 1. the tip of my embroidery scissors 2. a sewing wheel, very regular marks good for patterns 3. a pin 4. a felting needle  5. the tip of my cutting knife makes short lines 6. a sturdy embroidery needle
As you can see I rubbed the punches with charcoal to make them stand out more, but I find the effect rather coarse.
	inner square: embroidery needle first ring: sewing wheel outer ring: a puncher for cans (I do not even know the German word!), makes very strong holes with definite texture zigzags and squares: puncher and embroidery needle wavy lines: puncher
The textures of these punched papers are lovely to touch!	I have a sort of Braille in mind with images instead of letters.
This sheet of strong watercolour paper was washed with Brusho and punched with the can puncher and the cutting knife. Detail: marks made with the cutting knife
First I put one layer of towel under the paper, then three layers to obtain well defined holes.    Cut and fold
I experimented with simple forms, straight and wavy lines.
	A page in my sketchbook on light cartridge paper.
This example is size A5, also in my sketchbook.	The back sides are also interesting.
Fold 3, above, is size A5 on sturdy brown Kraft paper.
Fold 4, above, A5 on light cartridge paper
	A more elaborate example on brown Kraft paper. I used the line drawing of a cornflower, below left (5x5 cm).

Above: A copy of my poppies line drawing. The example led to the next idea below. I selected a part of the seedheads and their stems for cutting and folding. 

	1. The cut-out forms still lie flat and show strong outlines.
	2. Folded up on the back side. I love the shadows and took many photographs with varied directions of light.
	3. Folded up on the front side with the outlines of the drawing as background.

This trial (3x6 cm approximately) was inspired by the texture of the pistol handle. I started with tiny cuts and made larger cuts until there was a corner to fold. This surface is also very nice to touch!

Cut and thread

For my first trial I used my drawing of the field edge with the idea that a pattern might emerge from the corn stalks. I used white and off-white paper. This sheet might be an interesting ground for printing.

A simple weave (A5).
I threaded a linen thread through the curved cuts.
I liked the way the example looked against the light, so I tried to photograph the effect. Later I splashed the sheet with Brusho to see how the paper and thread take the colour.
The sheet took a while to dry (even in this heat), and I made some prints. I like the marks of the thread. It should be possible to make intricate prints with threads sewn on paper.
The circles on the brown Kraft paper were inspired by the eyelets of my walking boots. I cut and folded the strips of paper for greater impact.
Cut and add My drawing of a cornflower head was the source of this example. The paper is washed with Brusho, and the cut-out shapes are pasted randomly to suggest the crumpled appearance of the flowers.     This drawing (10x10 cm) was used for the example above (14x25 cm). Not easy to draw cornflowers! They remind me of someone with extremely tousled hair. A different interpretation of cut and paste: The circles were cut from this print and pasted back at random to interrupt the pattern of the stems.

Some experiments on the field edge

	I pasted prints from my line drawing on sheets of newspaper and had several frames of cut-outs to play with. Here a few examples of layering, colours and background, size is approx. A4.

For the next step with this I think of varying the size.