tool tuesday: bone folder

I love my bone folder. I use it for creasing, scoring, smoothing, burnishing, and working materials into tight corners. I use it to score paper before tearing it. I use it in bookbinding to make nice crisp creases in my pages. I burnish with it when I'm doing an image transfer. I probably use it for a lot of other things which I can't remember right now. It's a versatile tool. It has a polished surface and feels smooth to the touch. It has a beautiful shape. It's light and fits into my hand nicely. It also fits easily into my pocket. I love my bone folder. And it loves me.

art day

Most weekends, my friend Carole drives to art vein studio and we have an "art day" together. The table above usually seats 6-8 people when I give workshops, but when Carole and I get together, we spread out and take the entire surface (actually, when I'm working on my own I take the entire space plus every available work surface I can find). Sometimes we try out new techniques together and sometimes we each do our own thing. Sometimes we do both. Here's what we did yesterday:

Inspired by Jo Horswill's wonderful collagraphs, Carole suggested we try some ourselves. We have very little experience doing this but buoyed with Jo's instructions, we started our plates. We used mat board, gluing on our collage elements with gel and matte medium. The heart-shaped design is Carole's and the other two are mine. As this is a multi-step process, we are allowing them to dry before we seal them with gesso and varnish (or would just varnish be sufficient?). We don't have a press so plan to go the rolling pin/brayer route. Or failing that, the drive-over-them-with-a-car method. We will post our experiments when we have printed them....we're keeping our fingers crossed that they won't be complete disasters! Jo, if you have any advice for us, we would welcome it. Thanks!

While our plates were drying, we each worked on some artist trading cards. I printed off some of my glass photos to mount on cards and Carole used a technique found in the book, Artist Trading Card Workshop, by Bernie Berlin. She cut out magazine face photos, applied a thin layer of gesso, and then re-drew the faces, adding funky hair and other details with a marker, Pebeo Touch 3-D paints, and acrylics. Gives a surreal effect and is a great way to get the hang of drawing faces.

It seems that most mixed-media artists know all about Cloth Paper Scissors, and although I had heard of it, I had never actually peeked inside a copy. Carole brought it in and it looks quite interesting. I've borrowed it and plan to peruse it more carefully this week. Of interest to me were the article on creating mini-assemblages with old rusty lightswitch covers and a peek into the creative spaces of other artists...always fascinating!

Another gift! Carole had just returned from a visit with her sister-in-law on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. When her sister-in-law saw my blog and my reliquaries, she gave Carole this wonderful barnacle to give to me. It is one of her beach finds. I absolutely adore it and am so touched that she was inspired to pass this very precious object on to me. I will make it a beautiful home. Thanks Judy!

japanese paper

Today I made the steamy drive into Montreal (a 45-minute drive from the town where I live) for a much-needed haircut. While I was in the city I dropped into my old neighbourhood and visited au papier japonais, a wonderful store that carries over 500 kinds of Japanese paper as well as paper from other parts of the world, and samples of the famous Montreal-made Saint-Armand paper. They also give an amazing array of workshops in the areas of paper arts and techniques; books, boxes, portfolios and photo albums; and drawing, painting and collage. The owners, Lorraine Pritchard and Stan Phillips, are knowledgeable and helpful and it's always a pleasure to drop in. This time around, I purchased the following: moriki goldenrod (for my firefly pieces), etchu pure kozo (for collagraph experiments), MM tengujo and HM tosa tengujo (very fine tissue often used for conservation mending but I sometimes use them in my reliquaries and sewn paper pieces and plan to experiment with them in some ink pieces). And then, to top off the afternoon, I walked a few doors down to my favourite bagel place, the Fairmount Bagel Bakery, and bought 2 dozen sesame seed bagels. Montreal bagels...the best bagels ever!

These four sheets were my purchases today.

...and these light and chewy bagels were added to the post in response to Jo's comment. Thanks Jo! The reason that the shapes are slightly wonky is that each bagel is rolled by hand, in a flick of the wrist, before being baked in a wood-fired oven. Quite something to watch.

oka ferry

This past week I've been driving to Laval, a city north of Montreal, to work on a contract I've been doing with an adult literacy group there. I've been organizing their library and now I'm at the point of entering all their books into a database. It's a 45-minute drive on roads clogged with traffic, and even worse now that road construction has peaked. After a particularly frustrating drive back home, I realized that I had another option...the Oka Ferry! Hudson, the town where I live, is situated on the Ottawa River but as it is so wide, it is called Lake of Two Mountains. Across the river is Oka (photo below), famed for at least two things: the amazing Oka cheese originally made by Trappist monks and the "Oka Crisis", a 3-month land dispute in 1990 between the Mohawk Nation and the Town of Oka, when a golf course was built on a sacred ancestral burial ground. There are two 10-car ferries that travel between Hudson and Oka, essentially flat-bed barges pulled by power boats. It's a fun way to commute home. So I took the ferry. It took me about 30 minutes longer (as I had to wait for the ferry and the ride across is about 10 minutes) and it cost me $8.50, but when I arrived home I was relaxed and refreshed. It was a heavenly commute...I think I'll do it again!

happy 75th!

My Mom turns 75 today! Happy Birthday Mom!

This is a blind contour drawing of my Mom that I did for an artist trading card series. I covered the cards with black gesso and then used gel pens to do the drawings. I love the spontaneity of blind contour drawings. Sometimes you really capture the essence of your subject in all those muddled lines. And it's great therapy for someone like me who is drawing-challenged and often obstructed by perfectionism.

More ATCs. These are blind contour drawings of my two sisters, Jerzy, and my Dad.

nests

I am compelled to make nests. Many things I make end up being nests, even if I don't start out with that intention. This morning I gathered up all the nests I have laying around my home. If I looked harder, I'd probably find more.

black and white photograph of a found grass nest

formed copper nest

constructed glass nest

silver nest ring

twig nest found on the ground

nest and egg made from scrap wood and shavings

copper wire nest

polaroid transfer from slide of found nest on a fence post

tool tuesday: behold the humble tweezers

It's "tool tuesday" again! And today I shall honour my humble tweezers, much-used and much-loved. Often working on a small scale, I use these tweezers for picking up wee bits and pieces for my reliquary assemblages, getting tiny things out of tight places, and plucking the odd sliver from my delicate hands. These particular tweezers are corneal tweezers purchased for $11.50 from one of my favourite tool stores, Lee Valley. I like Lee Valley because I like to support Canadian companies, they have good quality stuff, and they really know and love their tools. You can tell by reading the loving catalogue descriptions they bestow on each of their tools. This is their blurb about the corneal tweezers: Designed for delicate corneal excisions, these surgical stainless-steel tweezers are tipped with notched teeth that intersect for an extraordinary grip. Ideal for delicately removing elusive slivers, plucking errant debris from fine finishes or retrieving small things from near-inaccessible places, they are manufactured with finger grip holes along the flex-steel arms for outstanding control.

Experimenting with placement of a small silver bead in one of my remnant reliquaries.

Dipping into my little box of treasures.

Very useful for picking up my new favourite things - tiny Christmas light bulbs salvaged from an IKEA string of lights purchased at a garage sale. They are rather bug-like and remind me of small fireflies. I have a plan for these!

orange appreciation

After my green phase a few posts ago, Vanessa suggested I try doing an orange theme. Jo read that post and has jumped into orange herself (see her post today for some interesting information on the colour orange and some scrumptious photos). As I've been quite low over the last week, avoiding my studio and life in general, doing nothing creative, the search for orange seemed like a very therapeutic idea. Especially since orange is associated with healing, vitality, enthusiasm, creativity, and exploration. I've been keeping my eyes open over the past several days for orange and realize that we have no orange in our garden (the photo above is from another garden) and very few orange possessions. I did manage to cobble together an orange collage using some things I found around the house. Some of the objects are obvious and some less so. Can you identify them all?


The appreciation to which I referred in my title is the appreciation and warm fuzzy glow that I felt when I received a nomination for a Brillante Weblog Award from Vanessa today. How nice! It's great to be appreciated and the idea is to spread that appreciation around the blogosphere!

Here are the rules:

1. Put the logo on your blog
2. Add a link to the person who nominated you
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4. Add links to those blogs on your blog
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs

So thanks Vanessa! And here are my 7 nominated blogs:

1. mystory
2. ronna's blog
3. red red day
4. ro bruhn art
5. carol crafts
6. judy wise
7. shayla perreault newcomb

tool tuesday: spinny

Another "tool tuesday" and another tool! Many thanks to Laurie Boisvert for submitting the account of her rocky start with spinny, her engraving block. And check out her amazing jewellery at this link: http://www.shiny-objects.com/index.html

Here is the story of spinny. I bought an engravers block in San Francisco after falling in love with one while using it for week in a stone setting class I was taking. I love it for its simplicity; it does two things: clamp and rotate. That's all. But it does it perfectly and gracefully. I refuse tools which force awkwardly adjustments; I don't have three hands. But the block and I had a tough trip back home. It's so heavy it caused my bag to weigh 44lbs and threw me off balance going down the hotel stairs (at 3:45am - damn early flights); I came home with a giant bruise on my arm from hitting the wall corner. On the plane I bought the world's worst muffin so I'd have a toonie [a Canadian two dollar coin] for a luggage cart at Pearson [Lester B. Pearson Airport in Toronto]. Then during transport it crushed all the made in SF chocolates I brought home for Bill; it smashed my contact lens solution bottle (which contains hydrogen peroxide), the broken plastic pierced the ziplock bag and solution seeped over my beloved purple cowboy boots discolouring one. I forgave it all; perfection is hard to find.

Next week's post needs a tool so don't hesitate to share one (or more) of your favourites!

green again

I've been down for the past few days so I thought a wander in the garden searching for more bursts of green might help to lift my spirits...

jazz fest

Spent last night at the amazing Festival International de Jazz de Montreal. Pictured above is Toronto-based Shakura S'Aida, an intense and powerful blues singer full of funk and soul. She was at one of the many free outdoor concert stages and really had the crowd moving! The free concerts are always wonderful, not only because the musicians are top-notch, but because you really catch the energy and magic of the festival. My highlight, though, was an indoor paid concert (so I couldn't take photographs). I was privileged to see the sublime Melody Gardot. She's a young folky-blues, acoustic jazz singer with an old soul. I've been listening to her CD for awhile now, but nothing prepared me for her voice in person. Wow! Silky, sensual, sultry, smoky, soulful...perfection!

green

Lush, fresh, growth, life, burst, tender, balmy, delicate, subdued, quiet, soft, sensual, gentle, swell. I'm in a green mood today...

tool tuesday: beloved file

Happy Canada Day! And welcome to "tool tuesday!" I’d like to thank Jo Horswill for submitting a wonderful account of her file with a beautiful quote from her husband about the way tools enter our lives. Here’s what she had to say about her favourite tool:

Here is a pic of my beloved file. It's certainly not the most sophisticated tool in my studio, but it's the one I love the most! It was given to me by Warren, my husband. This is what he told me. "You never seem to buy a file, they just appear from somewhere, are given to you, or you just find them." It's a lovely old rusty file with a 'W' stamped on it by my Warren. Its wooden handle is smooth as silk, from the most beautiful patina it has developed over many years of handling and use. It seems to fit in my hand so well, is a good size for me and feels balanced. I use it to file the edges of my copper plates after I have etched them and before printing. The edges need to be filed on an angle so as not to cut through your printing paper as the plate passes through the pressure of the press. I do like to ponder on whose hands this file has been held by, all the different projects it's worked on and who's toolboxes it's lived in. I know one thing, it has always been reliable and does a great finish on my plates, I think it's happy living with me...