New Sketchbooks

Everything is getting more expensive.  You've probably noticed!  This includes the materials I buy to make my mixed paper sketchbooks with; I do use as much as I can in the way of recycled and reclaimed material but some paper, and the board for the covers, I have to buy.

I decided it was time to rethink the design to avoid having to increase my prices massively.  I used to measure the pages in inches, 4"x6" and 6"x8", this suited the paper I was using when I first started making the books.  But now, most of the paper I use comes in standard A sizes so it seemed a bit wasteful to stick to the old page sizes and end up with lots of little offcuts.  And expensive too.

So I've resized the books so that (most of) the pages are now A5 for the larger journals and A6 for the smaller ones.  But I also decided that I quite liked the idea of different sized pages in the one book, so to make best use of the 'imperial' size sheets that watercolour paper comes in, the watercolour pages are a little smaller than A5/A6; to make up for it I've added an extra sheet into each book.  Once I'd started down the different sized pages route, it seemed only sensible to make any reclaimed paper pages whatever size made best use of the paper, so they may be odd sizes too, it just depends.

I've listed the first few of my new books in my Etsy shop.  Since this term I have a dissertation to write I'm really not sure when or whether I'll have time to make more any time soon, so if you fancy one for Christmas don't hang around!

Prep Work

I think I've mentioned before (once of twice!) that my prints are going into an exhibition this week. A nice feature of this exhibition is that the exhibitors put out their sketchbooks for the visitors to look through.

Now since a lot of my prep work for the prints have been test prints I haven't been working in a book - can't put a book through the press! So I have been collecting together all the bits I have done, the transferred photographs I started with, the charcoal drawings I did, the test prints from the plates that worked and the ones that didn't really, and of course the plates themselves.

And I've bound them together into a book.

Well I haven't actually included all of the test prints because there were so many of them... but a representative selection!

 

I toyed with the idea of adding a little colour here - decided against it.  Although it's something I will probably come back to in the future.

This print was one where I applied the ink with a roller rather than rubbing it on.  It's really surprising how different a print can look just by changing the way the ink is applied.  In the end I didn't use the roller for any of my final prints, it didn't seem to suit the soft landscape look I was after.

And I also mounted (most of) the printing plates and included those too.  Hopefully they won't make peoples fingers all inky - I have cleaned them, but still...

Hanging tomorrow... the exhibition details are here, do pop along if you can!

A new shop

I have had my original etsy shop for 3 years now and it has been rather neglected of late as the ffflowers have taken over.  So I decided it was time for a new start, a new look and a new name.  My new etsy shop hypsela handmade will still stock my handmade journals and seashore art cards but I hope to be adding new lines in time as well.  Please visit and show your support!

To get my new shop off to a good start I have been making a lot of my journals/sketchbooks, including several of the larger size, which I will be listing over the next few days.  These make a great present for those hard-to-buy-for arty friends and relations!

The books are filled with pages made from a mixture of different papers.  They are the sort of thing I looked for for ages without success - so now I make them myself.

This last book is a new style for me, covered with kraft paper ready for the owner to customise - an idea suggested to me by Maisy of OneLittleHouse on etsy.

Over the last couple of years I have been secretary (and acting chairman and refreshments provider and...) for a local group which has now given up the ghost - I have been left with a lot of paperwork to get rid of and a big pile of over-sized brown paper envelopes which I have no use for.  But they work really really well on the covers of these books!  Waste not, want not!

Beginning

I find beginnings difficult. I often don’t know where to start and can spend hours, days, sometimes weeks, procrastinating. But as soon as I have taken those first few steps, then there is that sudden rush of enthusiasm where I can see potential in everything I try. Then along comes the next stage of doubt where I don’t know which of the many ideas to pursue further and all that potential seems to have vanished anyway… I am amazed when I look back over old sketchbooks at the number of perfectly good ideas I have abandoned at this stage… so here are a few of the many experiments which never went any further.

And let’s hope I manage to get this blog over those tricky stages!