For the eyes on these creatures, we used the cut end of a dried stalk of grass. If you do try this, remember to leave your clay-work to completely dry out before firing. Drying can take anywhere between 2 days and a week depending on size. Larger pieces should be hollowed out, but these were small enough to remain solid.
While away in Scotland, I did some typewriter hunting in the second hand shops and charity shops. the only one I was able to find was this example of the Invisible Typewriter. Not sure about her typing posture…
She reminded me of a certain eBay seller’s typewriter shots, (!) but this lady is infinitely more respectable.
And I think that’s my finger in the corner of the shot too – a proper holiday snap!
You can’t go to Scotland and not do a bit of wild typing. The sound of the water in the burn was wonderful, and the isolated spot – super. No curious cattle, thank goodness, and no sheep. This was made at a ‘secret’ location with an Olympia Splendid 66. It has all the right features for typing a sketch, but I did think the touch a bit clunky or heavy. Very nicely portable though, and not too heavy in a back-pack. Does not like being made to type on a slope, though. I had to keep my knees as level. I would have liked to have had more time to draw, but this was a family break, and we had fires to build! More on fires later. The thing I love about going for a walk in Scotland is the fact that you can just have a walk anywhere, up any hill within reason, and not have some crazy farmer chase you off the land poking a shot-gun out of a four-wheel drive at you! (Yes, this has happened in England, but things are – different – north of the border!) Common sense and good manners in the countryside, and leave nothing but your foot-print and you can’t go wrong.
I couldn’t decide what time to make it, when I came to finish this, so all time stands still for a while. At least in this picture. I do like to have a wind up clock. There is something rather nice about the ritual each day of turning the key at the back. The alarm is really alarming the first time around, good grief! No way of falling back asleep again after that thing goes off!
Trying out a newly re-inked ribbon in the Skyriter. I think this is going to be a good way of getting those really dark tones without having to go over and over the same spot on the paper.
Re-inking a ribbon is a bit messy, and you have to use metal stamp ink, NOT ordinary stamp-pad ink for rubber stamps, as this will corode your type. And we don’t want that. But re-inking, for me, is worth the slight hassle and time involved. Making typed drawings is using a lot of ink, and I hate to be chucking lots of plastic spools away. Spraying the ribbon with WD40 works, but works best for text typing.
Also hope that a heavily inked ribbon will work better in the large type Classic 12 when it returns from its hols in the Spa.
A few weeks ago now, I started looking in earnest (read, frenzied and totally obsessive verging on lunatic numbers of hours on ebay) for a large typeface. Today it finally arrived, having travelled to the UK from the USA with so many stops and starts it would make your eyes water. I was crossing my fingers that the seller really did pack the typewriter as carefully as I had asked them to. I can only think that luck was on my side, because it had nothing but newspaper to keep it warm and amused on its journey here. It seems to be mostly ok, I mean it can type. But it needs an overhaul.
These things just do not come up on ebay in the UK. Aurgh! Well if they do, I have missed them all. Sometimes you just have to break your own rules to find the right machine. I’ll have to wait a little bit longer before I can start to experiment with this large type. It’s going off for a Typewriter Spa next week. In the meantime, here’s a thing I did in between bouts of searching…
I sit here
Making the coolness
My dwelling place.
(Bashō)
I love this camera. I recently dug it out and started playing with it again. I like the wait for the prints to come back. Not everything has to be instantaneous. The most recent set of prints I had back included a random photo of someone in a tent!
A corbel head from my local cemetary, bearing the work of acid rain. I was tempted to make the eyes look in the same direction, but I thought I’d keep it as faithful to the original artist’s hand as possible.
Type The Clouds 