I am fed up with visiting Reading hospital (Royal Berks as locally called). They are as perplexed as my GP about what the problem is. However I am doing well and getting up earlier every morning and accomplishing a great deal. For example I could not find my lino inks on Thursday and decided I would have to turn out the bookbinding room. Now the bookbinding room is a very small room. We put a single bed in it when we moved here five years ago and it was a tight fit. So it became `the bookbinding room (no bed). But it has a metal cupboard and a load of shelves and a desk to work on. Anyway I got only half way through yesterday. I got up at seven this morning and went to work on the room again and by 0830 it was finished. I was a bit scandalised by what I found. A number of totally unused sketchbooks!! A workman's carrying box full of graphite pencils, pastels and so on. and a very large number of unused lino blocks, boxes of paints Oh and my inks! Which I want anyway. So the moral has to be. If you want any art materials, search the metal cupboard before buying anything!!
I have managed to make fabric covers for two books and create a concertina book on The Owl and the PussyCat. see below.
The illustrations for the concertina book are all photos, mostly taken by me. The idea was that this is a trial in making - actually the first version was awful and badly made. This is the second version but in fact, it is merely a dry run for the final version which will have lino cuts everywhere in place of the photos. That will keep me occupied over winter!!
The other bit of news is that my family and, I fear, the doctors at Royal Berks, are all adamant that I stop driving. Too dangerous - which I admit is true. So my nephew is taking it over and I am coming to terms with a very different lifestyle like giving up my linocut class on Friday because I do not want to wreck some family member`s Fridays. But actually I can do a great deal at home because I have a little press and a professional drying rack. The restriction will be on lino block size. A4 is too big but A5 is okay. I could, I suppose, buy a Columbia press (The Rolls-Royce of Victorian presses) but we would have to rebuild the garage to get it inside. I asked my nephew who knows about floor loading and such like topics and he listed the things we would have to do.
So what about weaving? I bought one of Daryl Lancaster's patterns for a gilet (she calls it a vest) but I really fancied using some of her striped fabric. So I got a copy of her instructions for weaving a striped length of fabric, hunted through my wool stash and got all sorts of lovely stuff and designed a stripey fabric. So now I need to finish the fabric on the Schacht. Silk dyed warp and wool weft. On that note, I will go and weave a few inches!!
I have managed to make fabric covers for two books and create a concertina book on The Owl and the PussyCat. see below.
The illustrations for the concertina book are all photos, mostly taken by me. The idea was that this is a trial in making - actually the first version was awful and badly made. This is the second version but in fact, it is merely a dry run for the final version which will have lino cuts everywhere in place of the photos. That will keep me occupied over winter!!
The other bit of news is that my family and, I fear, the doctors at Royal Berks, are all adamant that I stop driving. Too dangerous - which I admit is true. So my nephew is taking it over and I am coming to terms with a very different lifestyle like giving up my linocut class on Friday because I do not want to wreck some family member`s Fridays. But actually I can do a great deal at home because I have a little press and a professional drying rack. The restriction will be on lino block size. A4 is too big but A5 is okay. I could, I suppose, buy a Columbia press (The Rolls-Royce of Victorian presses) but we would have to rebuild the garage to get it inside. I asked my nephew who knows about floor loading and such like topics and he listed the things we would have to do.
So what about weaving? I bought one of Daryl Lancaster's patterns for a gilet (she calls it a vest) but I really fancied using some of her striped fabric. So I got a copy of her instructions for weaving a striped length of fabric, hunted through my wool stash and got all sorts of lovely stuff and designed a stripey fabric. So now I need to finish the fabric on the Schacht. Silk dyed warp and wool weft. On that note, I will go and weave a few inches!!
