Roz Wound Up

Fun with Gifs and Some Recent Journal Sketches

Left: An animated gif of a bird sketch I made in my journal recently. Wait 8 seconds and the image will switch to the painted version, and 8 seconds more and it will switch back to the line work, etc. Or that's the theory. I've worked out that if I click on it so that it enlarges the screen changes, but I'll check when it goes live. If it still doesn't work scroll down to the end of the post to see the full spread which shows the finished painting. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

I was out and about in town the other day without my journal so I was sketching on little bits of paper and did the sketch of the woman you'll see in the full page spread image at the end of this post. 

Then when I pasted it in at home I wanted to do more sketching and painting so I got out some photos I'd taken of birds in an aviary at a nursing home. I threw them up on my computer screen (which is large) and started sketching. I was using a fresh, juicy .5 Staedtler Pigment Liner and you can see there is a variety of line thickness you can get with that pen.

I really loved the line drawing so I took a moment to photograph it before I went ahead with the painting. I wanted to paint it in part to help it stand out against the purple strip (stamp ink). I had deliberately started my sketch so a portion of the bird would extend onto the color strip, but it would have worked better if I had positioned the bird a little more either to the left or the right. I find the beak split right at the "forehead" too distracting.

I used gouache for the painting. I used dilute washes in most areas because I wanted to let the lines (which I was in love with) show through.

This is in a 7 x 9 inch journal I bound with Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media paper.

Below: The full page spread. Before arriving at this spread I had prepainted the spread with rubberstamp ink. I had taped off sections of the page to paint them purple. The large purple rectangle on the left page (which bleeds off the top, bottom and fore edge of that page) would have been perfect as the background of a sketch. (I use Brilliance Ink and it drys waterproof, or at least I have found it water resistant.) Instead, it became the perfect place to put one of my paper scraps that I've been sketching on (because I have a shoulder problem and am not carrying my journal right now). The tab in the gutter is from a pre-cut page. When I start a new journal I cut out pages throughout the journal. This makes room for any collage material I may add later. I often attach things to these tabs, or paint right across them. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Danger Will Robinson: Beware Ranger Archival Ink—and Other Thoughts on Stamp Inks

Above: Page from my Minnesota Journal Project 2000 journal showing ink bleeding through the pages. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

I wrote about the MNJP2K's ten-year reunion last week. During that reunion our original year 2000 journals were brought out of the archives of the Minnesota Historical Society so that we could look at them again. It reminded me that I can't warn people too much about the problems I had with "Ranger Archival Stamp Ink."

As you can see from the above image letters stamped on one page bled through to the next. This is a heavy weight paper. Other inks didn't respond this way when I tested them later in the year—which I was able to do because I knew before the year was out that the bleeding was happening. It happens that quickly.

I originally used Ranger Archival Stamp Ink because I was looking for a stamp ink that I could wash over with watercolor washes (I like to hand color some of my eraser carvings). In 2000 there weren't a lot of choices.

I remember also at the time that the paper store I purchased the ink from couldn't get an answer from the company. I even supplied them with samples that had evidence of this bleeding which is simply the result of stamping and leaving the stamping alone—it bled on its own! Because I didn't get any feedback or explanation  from the company I immediately spread the word to my students and friends.

In the intervening years the company may have changed their product. But they were so unresponsive I would be sure to test their inks with something unimportant first.

Above: another example of the Ranger Archival ink from my MNJP2K journal. It's more difficult to tell from this image that there is bleed through or migration of the ink through the paper, but the reverse side is totally readable because of it. Here, however, if you look closely you can see how all the edges of the letters are fuzzy. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

I think the bleed through separation of the inks started to be visible in three to six months. It is clear that the ink is separating. The image also becomes very blurry as ink spreads not only out but down through the paper.

Several of my 2000 journals (again all with thick art papers that take other inks with no problem) all show how images stamped on one page simply migrated over time through the paper.

In my own journals I view it more as a learning experience, but I do wish I'd known before I'd used this ink in my MNJP2K journal which is now in the MNHS archives.

Opon occasion I still use rubberstamps in my journals to stamp out headings, or for other decorative effects. I use Brilliance Stamp Ink for most of my stamping. Brilliance Graphite Black stamp ink is a black, black ink which I find dries to such a high level of water resistance that I count it as waterproof. I routinely, since 2000 (and the problem with Ranger inks was discovered) have stamped my eraser prints using Brillance Graphite Black stamp ink and there have been no problems—no ink separation, no bleeding, no migration, no bluring. Ten years out the prints made with Brilliance Graphite Black stamp ink remain as crisp as the day I stamped them.

I also enjoy using Brilliance's pearlescent colors to smear on for backgrounds, either with a pad or by using the reinkers (I put a bit of ink on a paper towel and smear).

I have trouble locating these inks locally. I have purchased both the pads and reinkers from Marco Paper if you can't find a suitable vendor. (I'm just a happy customer of Marco Paper; long after I stopped being heavily involved in mail art a friend suggested we go to a rubberstamp convention and check things out and I found Marco Paper through that happy accident.)

Recently I have been playing with stencils and rubberstamp ink. In an effort to broaden my color palette of stamp inks I've made escorted trips to Michaels' and such stores (I have to be accompanied or I might pass out from the overwhelming distractions!).

While I love the richness of the Colorbox colors their ink has too floral a smell for me. I literally have to air a page out in the back room, windows open in winter, for 10 days, before I can get near a journal in which I use those inks. Obviously since I use my journal multiple times on any given day that isn't a product for me. (If smells don't bother you Colorbox is a great choice.)

Instead I have continued to use Brilliance, and I have also found that VersaMagic from Tsukineko meets all my needs. VersaMagic does have a bit of a chemical/floral smell, but I find that if I work with the ink and leave the journal open a room away, to dry while I do something else, I can return to the journal in an hour. That's pretty much my normal work mode when working on backgrounds so it's straightforward to include VersaMagic into my workflow. My finch from masking tape uses VersaMagic's Eggplant as a background color. I bought one of those little petal pads that are easy to rub around on the page, and through stencils for that matter. (Note: this page has since evolved with more color added and I will be doing a post on it at a later date, but here you can see the eggplant ink clearly, with some Pearl-Ex red-gold smeared about—see the next paragraph.)

If you can find them (the shop locally that carried them no longer does) I also recommend the Pearl Ex Stamp pad reinkers. The pads were pretty frustrating, seeming to dry out immediately, but the reinkers are marvelous with two-toned colors that split into blue and gold, or red and gold in the most amazing ways (the split is intentional and not in any way a seeping, bleeding, or migrating of ink!) Their Copper and their Red-Gold are my favorites. Once dry I have had no difficulty in painting over them. Without doing a lot of searching for images I've posted using the Pearl Ex inks I can immediately send you to this image of geese, with a Pearl-Ex stamp ink Red-gold background. You'll get the idea.