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golden crown & bark of a quivertree
… these are a few of my favourite things.
And there was much opportunity for the gathering of these favourite things on our recent roadtrip across Namibia.
folded, rippled, wrinkled (fish river canyon, african elephant)
elephant petroglyph | subtle mineral colours, dolerite columns
purples, russets
fine forms, more mineral hues
black & white, circles & stripes
bone dry, desaturated
earthy harmonies, rounded rhythms
bright brandberg hills… and a mystery paint spillage in the desert
perfectly patterned, eminently engravable | ancient petroglyphs
desert car wreck… adorned
a decaying structure’s textures & patterns (goageb ghost town)
lines (looking up: hot air balloon cables,
looking down: wildlife highways & byways)
namib desert sands: infinitely intriguing colours, forms…
textures…
… and patterns
pleasing points (rondavel thatch, starling silhouette)
all these elements coalesce in the simplicity of a dead tree at dusk
ink & watercolour ‘floral mandalas’
This time last year I was a bit snowed under by the many ‘to dos’ associated with moving to a new city so I took a break from my annual handmade festive greeting card manufactory… and I thought I’d be doing the same again this year (it’s December already??! where did 2015 go!?!) but then I got caught up in the colourful fun of painting a series of small ‘floral mandalas’, first as doodles in my sketchbook and then in a somewhat more ‘considered’ way on watercolour paper off-cuts that I’d been hoping to find a good use for…
work-in-progress
I soon realised that I seemed to be making cards, and almost as quickly realised that hand-painting cards for all the friends and family I’d like to send festive new year greetings to would be completely insane quite unachievable in the time available. So I decided to try out the greeting card printing services of MOO (I’ve had business cards & stickers printed by them in the past and the quality is great… btw, this is not a sponsored post, just my personal opinion ;-). A unique (as far as I’m aware) and very appealing feature of MOO’s service is that you can have a different design printed on every card in a pack at no additional cost… so the possibilities are almost endless!
I scanned some of my ink & watercolour ‘floral mandalas’ and played around with them in Photoshop to arrive at five festive designs to have printed by MOO. These are they…
‘floral mandala’ cards
Unable to resist the ‘multiple designs’ feature of MOO’s service I also had some creature cards printed (with designs based on these limited edition ‘animal diorama’ silkscreen prints made a few years ago).
‘animal diorama’ cards – octopus & owl
Not traditionally ‘Christmassy’, for sure… but I say good riddance to the jolly, fat man in the red suit and all hail the red-eyed kraken! ;-)
Some of these cards are now available in my Etsy store – they can be found here >
Or you might like to give MOO’s greeting card printing service a whirl yourself, here >
soaring | ponderous
propped | aslant
highly strung
perched
mellowed
guided
ingenious | hypnotic
sheathed | rationalised
dwarfed
dappled | faceted
… and that first ever ‘wolkenkrabber’*
pieter bruegel (I)’s “the tower of babel” c.1565
as seen at rotterdam’s magnificent boijmans van beuningen museum
the buildings and structures pictured
(in order of first appearance, and if known) are as follows:
- erasmus bridge [ben van berkel, un studio]
- de rotterdam [rem koolhaas, oma]
- kpn tower / toren op zuid [renzo piano, rpbw]
- calypso [alsop architects]
- museum boijmans van beuningen [ad van der steur]
- the museum’s INGENIOUS ‘merry-go-round coat rack‘ [studio wieki somers] & a detail of olaf nicolai & studio thonik’s courtyard collaboration
- rotterdam centraal station [benthem crouwel, meijer & van schooten, west8]
- de delftse poort [abe bonnema]
* wolkenkrabber – excellent dutch word for skyscraper, literally ‘cloud(s) scraper’ – beautifully visualised in bruegel’s 16th century tower of babel painting
Since making my ‘Curiosity Cabinet’ repeat pattern design and having a test length of fabric printed by Spoonflower w-a-y back in their beta days (2008!!), I have received lots of positive responses from kind folk, and requests to make the fabric available to buy on Spoonflower. I hadn’t been completely happy with my original test piece so before making it available for purchase I wanted to tweak the design to incorporate some different creature drawings, and to make some minor colour adjustments (for better light/dark contrast when printed).
I finally got around to making these changes towards the end of last year and was very happy with the new test print I ordered from Spoonflower. The fabric shown in the four pictures above is printed by Spoonflower on their ‘silky faille’ – I chose to test print on this fabric (despite it being 100% polyester – my preference ordinarily being natural fibres such as cotton and linen) because I was advised by another Spoonflower user that dark/light colour contrast works particularly well on it. And indeed it does! (thanks Chris, a.k.a. pricklymonkey)
You can find this design available to purchase, printed on any of Spoonflower’s numerous different fabric types, here >>
I have also experimented with a dusty, teal-y blue colour variation (above), although this is not currently available to purchase as I have yet to order a test swatch (a Spoonflower ‘quality control’ requirement). If you’re interested in purchasing the blue (which you can find here >>) let me know, and I’ll do what’s necessary to make it available to buy.
And if you do make anything using this fabric I’d love to see some pictures of your completed project(s)!
hmmm… tasty, individually packaged critter snacks!
now… how do i get into this jar?
“i ♥ handmade books: timeless techniques and fresh ideas
for beautiful handmade books” by charlotte rivers
This very pleasing little tome was published in September last year, and I was excited to receive a copy as a gift from friends at Christmas time. It’s full of beautiful & inspiring handmade books by book binders, artists and designers from around the world, and I am delighted to have a little accordion fold book I made featured in it.
sakurasnow, accordion fold book
The projects shown in the first four chapters of the book are wonderfully eclectic and beautifully illustrate the unlimited creative possibilities of book-making. Book ‘types’ covered include folded bindings (such as accordion, flag and carousel books) and many sewn bindings (including pamphlet, long, coptic, japanese stab and french link stitching techniques). There is also a section on interesting page and cover treatments (e.g. suminagashi paper marbling, natural plant dyeing, woven covers etc.) and a chapter entitled “Experimental Packaging” which shows some innovative and fun book cover / packaging projects.
Below are just a handful of the many inspired and inspiring makers featured in the book…
leah buckareff of coldsnap bindery incorporates printing, painting and embroidery to beautiful & atmospheric effect on her books’ (linen) cloth covers
(incidentally, she also produces beautiful, darkly atmospheric music as one half of the band nadja, which you can check out here)
i love these wonderfully structural, experimental stitched (and even knitted!) bindings by luisa gomes cardoso of canteiro de alfaces
lotta helleberg‘s indigo-dyed book covers are quite exquisite!
The fifth and final chapter “Book-Making in Practice” features very practical and comprehensive step-by-step tutorials for a range of different binding / book-making techniques used in the projects featured.
These are complemented by simple, clear illustrations that are completely unintimidating and make even very complex looking methods seem perfectly achievable…
… I’m definitely inspired (and now also better equipped!) to try my hand at some more book-making.
