Photoshoot

Photo shoot with Betty today. Went really well. We got the light just right so you can see that the gold is shiny but you can also see the texture.

Only took me the 15 hours to finish tidying the lines. I would like to go over them again because you can still them a bit but it does make it look a lot better and I don’t have time before the deadline, I may after, between the deadline and the show when I varnish the gold.

I Want You to ____ at my ____ ____.

Went to a studio with James today to photograph any objects or posters I’ve got. Went really well, got some really nice images from it.

Sunday

Finished gold leafing this morning. I’ve made a decision about the double lines. I cant leave it the way it is, the options were to either fill them in making the lines thicker or to paint over one of the lines with the cream. I chose the latter because I want to alter the image the least I can. I wont have time to varnish it before the deadline but this doest matter that much because it s more for preserving the gold than protecting it.

Gold Leafing

Started the gold leafing this evening. It’s a lot easier than I expected from my tests. Its taking ages, I just thank Grey’s Anatomy for providing me with human voices to listen to.

Saturday

Went to collect the wood today. Was surprisingly ok on the tube, yes, I took it on the tube from Oval to Golders Green. I can see what Paul said about the offsetting. It looks as though you need glasses – maybe I could say this was my intention – maybe that’s just what happens when you look at too much porn?! Haven’t decided on how I’m going to deal with it at the moment – I’ll let the mild hysteria subside.

The chap did a proof print this morning which went perfectly but because its so hot today so the ink will take ages to dry, he won’t be able to print onto the wood until later today, which means I can pick it up Saturday morning – which means I’ll have to take it home to work on because I need Sunday to work on it as well, which is a bit of a bugger but oh well.

Didn't have time to print it today after exposing it and all that jazz so going to do it tomorrow morning. Mixed up the paint, it’s a beautiful deep purple, almost black. Got perfect reactions from people that saw the print. Their first reaction was that it was beautiful and then surprise when they started reading it the text. The hidden drawings are more subtle than I first thought which I don't mind - people spot them after looking at the piece for longer.

Today Jobs
11am bind book
Sand wood
Package wood (bubble wrap)
5pm transport wood to be screen printed
bring it back to uni by 8

Shopping list
Cash (taxi, screen printing materials)
Bubble wrap
White spirit (gold leafing cleaning)
Some other stuff I can’t remember…

Today – two more coats on wood with sand papering in between. Painting finished now. Need to remember to sand it tomorrow because I forgot to in my dream last night and it was a disaster (I think the situation was made worse by being in Tesco).
Cut book pages to size.

Practicing the gold leafing
I need to be an expert at this by Friday so I thought I should practice a bit. It doesn’t work on paper because its too porous but that’s ok because I’m not doing it on paper. I tried it on some metal instead. I need to keep the size thin. The woman in the draw shop said I could take the leaf away as soon as it had been pressed down but this was a problem – I may have to cut smaller sections so I can leave them on the surface to dry before rubbing away the edges.

Today I went and bought some white gesso primer from an art shop. I need to prepare the wood for being printed on. Between each coat I need to sand it down to make it smooth. I also found some gold leaf from another art shop with loads of beautiful draws stacked up to the ceiling. 

I did one coat on the board, was easier than I expected. I had to wait over night before I could sand it down.