Boiled Books - a new batch

Inspired by leaves on the street on a blustery day, I captured a few by chasing them down the street pushed along by hefty gusts of wind.   Must have looked a fool, but I got some good leaves.  

 Rather than press them or cover them to keep them fresh, I went straight for my dye pot and cut up some watercolor paper and started stacking.    The usual mix of water and some big glugs of white vinegar in the pot.       I put a tile on the top and one on the bottom of the stack of papers and leaves, and left them for almost 2 hours simmering on the stove with a couple rocks on top to hold them down and keep them flat.   

Here they are the following day.  I took them out of the pot after the allotted time, and set them on aluminum foil to set the color better, leaving them overnight.   


 Next morning this is what I found as I opened them up.  

If you are a  nature lover, you'll love doing these yourself.    It is sooooo easy.  I encourage you to try it.    

Mountain art journal used to inspire new felt piece

With mountains being a recurring theme for me lately, I started a new art journal.       I was playing with spray inks and made masks with torn paper or deli wrap.    I used them but could not throw them away.  

So, into the mountain journal they go.  And the gelli prints too.      And now I'm looking around things I've done in the past that would fit the theme and will add them in.      

One of the reasons many of us keep art journals is to find inspiration from things we m ight otherwise have tossed away.     Like these mountains.    I probably will add text later with quotes and poetry. 





this last pic has copies of two watercolored woodsy scenes I painted years ago.  I'm going to use them for inspiration for the next felted piece I do.
   

Felt piece finished.

It took quite a while to call this finished.   Perhaps because it needed more tweaking, or perhaps I just loved the process of the fine layering of colored wools and the act of punching it with the barbed needle.      It's ready to enter in  the small works show.       And I'm ready to move on to the next one.

Clown alert! Another scary post card

I know some of you freak out over pictures of clowns.   Well, don't peek then.    BTW he is not vicious, he's profoundly sad.    

Boo.

It's time to get scary stuff out in the mail or to display.      Here are a some post cards I made years ago.    These are altered photos from a book.     I think they have a story to tell.        I d on't know what it is, but I like to ponder.....   I think I've shown them here before, but why not again?    

Boiled books part 3

These colorful leaves from the senior center seem like likely candidates for experimenting with the boiled books.

 This time I skipped the tiles and used only clips.

Ater boiling, I found the color of the paper to have hardly changed and the water in the pot was not black.    So, I began to wonder if the leaves had left any impressions.  

A quick peek let me see a faint outline, so  I used some Iced Spruce color distress ink spray on the edges of the soaking wet paper and let them sit awhile still clamped together.  When I opened the packet this is how they looked.   Distress inks are so reactive with water it spread all through the packet.

The second packet I returned to the pot and poured in more of the distress ink right into the pot and let it boil for another 20 minutes.      When I removed them, of course the water was now darkened more, and so was the paper. 

I set this packet on a tile and let it sit overnight with a stone on top to keep the pressure on the leaves. 

This is how they looked when I peeled them open.   You can see most of the color is gone from the leaves, but hardly any migrated to the paper.   

boiled books part 2

 Here we go again.     Taking the boiled book package out of the pot.   Can hardly wait to see what's inside but waited to let it cool and sit overnight.













 Look how black the water in the pot turned.    Perhaps because I used some leaves from black oak tree?












Here is a packet, note the wires are now rusted.   Hmmm...  hadn't thought of that.   

 What I'm doing is opening the booklets, page by page.  They started with the fresh leaves and plant debris inside but now are soft and flattened against the pages.  Soem of those little dark splotches were small red rose petals.  They did not leave any color as I expected.

 this is the page with the plant materials removed.

 Here is a page with the imprint on opposite page.

 Another one with imprint on opposite page, birch trees give off the yellow cast.   

 Geranium leaf imprint on opposite page.    Of course on the page under the leaf there is also a lot of color transfers and will be shown later.

 Here is a layerd page, with an iris sword, oak leaf and birch leaves over the top. 

 this is the opposite page.

this is the 2 page spread after leaves are removed.

 Finely cut Japanese maple leaf.

 Leaf removed.

 Dried iris leaf. rosemary, thyme.   Showing opposite page.

 With leaves removed.

 Bay leaf, rosemary, black oak leaf stem from garlic chive. showing opposite page.

 stringy stuff was from an old sisal planter liner.  Just curious what it might do.   

 Leaf assortment showing opposite page.

 Same spread with all leaves removed.

Instead of stuffing the pages with leaves, I thought I'd try a subtle piece.    I think this is from heavenly bamboo.   shows on opposite page as well.

 I turned back the bottom page which had been pressed up against the back of a ceramic tile with grooves on it.     Black oak leaves. Tile pattern looks like shutters.   

shown with plant material removed.



I expect these will dry lighter.   Will know later.

I'm pressing some of these cooked leaves.  Not sure how that can work with boiled leaves, but worth a try.   Would like to use some in the books.

These photos are from one of the two packets.   The other one I opened in the studio last night.   I'll show pics from that in next post.     I wanted to see if it made a difference to leave things stacked overnight.     I'll know later.  I guess I should let them all dry before comparing.