een Hand Gebonden Kunstenaarsboek '(The) Fairing(s)', the Artist's-Books Workshop,Vilnius 2009 a hand-bound Artist's-Book / le Livre d'Artist / ein handgebundenes Künstler Buch / Mahler Buch   dailies of the International Artist's-Books Workshop Vilnius 'real time' 20 - 10 - 2009 Dear me, early again: "These Dutch seem hard learners". There are some lessons to be learnt. The boxes that contain ink are not buckets that one can use to mixe colour in. It would not bring revolution if anyone started putting a lid on an ink-box when not using it, one would not see evaporate the actual liquid that has been mixed in to help the drying process, but it is most defenitively gone when needed most if you don't. A box with yellow does not need more than a tip of blue never to be yellow again - ! SO ! - Keep one palette knife for each colour, and others for mixing. The three stones (or old window-panes) are the yellow-one, the blue-one, and the red-one. Here you make your colours, in the way you would orderly 'built' your palette: from the yellow, in two directions, to white and black, and so on with blue and red. Such palettes should be a joy to look at - and if they are not, you need to think! I know it to be the worst comment in a graphical workshop but: "If in printmaking the actual printing is a job, and for that matter less interesting than painting, please find yourself another trade!" There should not be an 'actual printing' - printing, for an artist that is, should be part of the process of making a print. All left-over ink at the end of a day could make interesting end-papers (the sort of paper one could glue on to the boards of a 'hard-cover'); which could make cleaning not too much a tedious slave-job at the end of a day - and - left-over paper and ink not so much an invironmental problem. You would always need to try and experiment with the materials you are considering to use: in the case of an edition it might be wise to find out how exactly your ink and paper work with or against the time there is; it is not really the ink being stupid, and a shitty paper, it may be 'little you' being to hasty. I know little to score as high in snob-appeal as certain paper-qualities. As a matter of fact the art-buyer may fall for that, but an artist would be fair to himself (and his papers) by knowing his materials; it's rediculous to print led-typeface on Rives-BFK 300 grms. allthough I could love it for (some kind of) etching - and again there: a real artist can print led type-face in such a way that it 'works'; all depends on what, why and how (and a few other questions) I cannot find a proper solution for a total lack of (clean) felt. The good old sun that has been at the bottom of this in the very dawn of papermaking does not seem to work here, where time is autumn and the sun is something rare. Thus (afraid to loose too much time when going on a mission) 'half-basic' shall have to do. Drying 'on the air' (and basic central heating). Most certainly tomorrow we'd better try and make a 'heavier' paper. And I might just find a woolen blanket.   Back to Vilnius Days INDEX of the Joseph Joh'n' Pages