Easter, day 1 (post 1300!!!)

I rang the RSPCA about the white kitty. They got me to ring Domestic Services, who came & picked up the body and took it away to be scanned to try to notify the owners.

Anyway, my regime this Easter is to go to the studio in the mornings and to the National Folk Festival in the afternoons. Today the plan went well, except that instead of waking up early and bouncing off to the studio then going to the NFF at lunchtime, I lolled about in bed drinking tea and eating homemade hot Om buns (like hot cross buns but with an Om symbol drawn on them) made by Best Beloved and then going at lunchtime, ending up at the festival around 4.

I still got a lot done.



These are a couple of knitting pattern book images I inherited from one of my type purchases (when you buy presses or type you often have to take the rest of the crud the printer or his family are trying to offload). They usually come in sets of four: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK (CMYK) but I only have the yellow and blue blocks. So it's a two-colour print.

I spent a bit of time playing with ink, to get the right colours (I mixed a geranium red with silver and a dark green with silver):



to make this rough idea:




for a print folio called 'Freaks of Nature', curated by artist Rona Green.

Then I set the type for it:



I flipped it around for you, but for those who can't make it out, it says

Cherylneezcha dreamed of that day
when she would be crowned
SCRAPBOOKING QUEEN

The finished product will be cropped to make a bleed print (where the colour goes right off the sides) and each print will have a gold or silver crown stuck onto her head (a proper, acid-free scrapbooking sticker). Fun!

(Since taking that photo I changed the name to Sherylneezcha. I'm striving for something quite clarsy but unique, like every contemporary mother. It had to be phonetic, and involve at least one Y and a Z. I also wanted it to be a strong name, and thought incorporating Nietzche might help her get through life with the right attitude.)

I also planned my flip books for an upcoming Megalo book show, and started working on my next Book Art Object piece.

And being at the studio and getting all this done made me very happy, so I could then really enjoy the bits of the NFF that I caught. While I was eating my dinner there I watched a documentary about Bill Munroe, the 'father of bluegrass' in a room full of people who really cared about all the teeny tiny details of who played with him when and how many times he scratched his mandolin front to make it less fancy. One of the aforementioned players, 'Chubby' Wise, played his fiddle like Barry Morgan plays his organ, teeth and smile and half-closed eyes and all. It was heart-warming.

I love Easter. I rarely get interrupted because everyone else is on holiday and most shops are closed, so I can just get on with things.

I hope your Easter is just as satisfying.