How Much Is That Artist In The Window…?

April 17, 2011

I really enjoyed spending part of Saturday working in the window at Bird on a Wire Creations yesterday. I brought along a few additional finished altered books to share with people and worked away at folding the pages of a German Readers Digest to show people what I do. It was really nice chatting with people, and I made sure to entice window shoppers into the store with eye-contact and smiles to come talk with me.

Friends dropped by at different intervals to visit, and the chocolate I’d jokingly requested in my newsletter arrived in various forms (bacon chocolate chip cookies from Lauren!) It was a good window for Main Street people watching, and all the sunshine was glorious.

My table top setup at the store with work-in-progress book.

I’ll be back in the window at Bird on a Wire Creations at some point in the summer. In the meantime go visit the shop for all the lovely handmade items they carry. It was all I could do not to shop while I was there because there is so much tempting stuff I’d love to have.

Artist Window at Bird on a Wire Creations

April 15, 2011

For part of the day tomorrow I’ll be demoing my altered book work as the featured artist-in-the-window at Bird on a Wire Creations on Main Street. It’s a cozy little shop filled with lovely handmade and local items, so come on by for a visit and plan to stay awhile. I’ll be in the window working away on my latest altered book from 11am to 4pm. I’m hoping to bring some of the recent Fairy Tale altered books I haven’t yet shared publicly.

Please come see me and be sure to bring chocolate. 😉

Artist Window
11am to 4pm, April 16th, 2011
Bird on a Wire Creations
2535 Main Street, between Broadway & 10th
Vancouver BC

Altered Book Workshop at Seattle Centre for Book Arts

April 11, 20111 Comment

This past weekend I was in Seattle teaching a two day altered book workshop for the Seattle Center for Book Arts. I had a really terrific group of people taking the class and everyone came away with beautiful work by the end of it. I really enjoy seeing what people do with the techniques I’ve shared, because while they’re busy getting inspired, so am I.

The two day timeframe and small class size allowed me to share a lot of information about making altered books. I did a different demo at the beginning of each day – cutting a niche and rolling pages on day one, and making folded page books on day two.

The photos included in this blog post are of the in-progress and finished work made by my students.

Altered Book Workshop- Seattle Center for Book Arts-7

I really enjoy teaching and was given excellent feedback on the class itself and my style of teaching. I was happy people felt inspired by what I shared, and I’m so glad I can clearly articulate what I do.

I have one more altered book workshop coming up before I take a break from teaching until the fall. I’ll be back at Chalk Xchange on Saturday May 7th teaching a one day altered book class. Please visit the Chalk Xchange web site for further details and to sign up online.

The Blue Trees

April 6, 2011

The most recent addition to the Vancouver Biennale are a series of installations, The Blue Trees by Konstantin Dimopoulos, placed around the lower mainland. Boris and I went to visit the Garden City Park location in Richmond on the weekend, and it was quite an adventure getting there by transit. Well worth the effort though because the seeing the Blue Trees in person is pretty spectacular.

For more information about Konstantin Dimopoulos’ Blue Trees visit the Vancouver Biennale web site.

Altered Book: Little Red Riding Hood

March 28, 20114 Comments

I need to come up with a proper title for this work because while it certainly is about the story of Red Riding Hood, it’s not a great title. But that aside, I am REALLY excited to share this altered book with the world. It’s the first in a series of Fairy Tale inspired work I am creating for an upcoming show.

As mentioned previously, I was hoping to combine photography and altered books in this work so the first step was photographing models as fairy tale characters. This led to a hilarious shoot with friends Monique and Siobhan playing pretend and wearing costumes. I made some of these images into paper prints to figure out sizing, which amused me because I realized I’d made friends into paper dolls. With the size figured out, and poses selected, I had a set of photo prints made and this is what you’re seeing as the Red Riding Hood figure in this book.

I should mention those are real tree branches standing in for a full sized forest of trees. I gathered these along the ground from a nearby park, cleansed them of dirt and applied a coat of gel medium to each.

I used a large encyclopedia volume as the canvas for this altered book, and decided to cut the niche about half way through the thickness of the pages. I used two crumpled up pages from the book to create the ground for Red Riding Hood to stroll upon.

The flowers were added for colour, and I made them using a paper punch. The leaves were actually the last detail I came up with. I felt the forest looked too bare and decided to make leaves using another paper punch and recycled wrapping paper. It’s the right bit of whimsy and warmth even if there is a big scary wolf out to get the little miss.

When I started this I wasn’t going to include the wolf, but then as things came together I realized he had to be in there. I decided to create him as a paper cut figure and went searching through google images for reference I could use to create an outline because my drawing skills aren’t very good. I printed out this wolf to use as my template. I traced it onto a piece of black paper then modified and added details by cutting freehand.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well this worked out because it’s not a technique I’ve worked with much before. It’s inspired me to try and incorporate paper cutting into the rest of the Fairy Tales books.

I’m really excited by this series because it’s allowing me to try new things and push boundaries with my artwork. I’ve already selected the next few Fairy Tales and will be starting another altered book this week.

Materials used: book, Japanese paper, recycled wrapping paper, photograph, paper punch, tree branches, straight pins, book pages, glue, and gel medium.

Inspiration with Instagram

March 25, 2011

I’ve had my iPhone 4 for a couple months now and I’m really enjoying having it around as a creative tool. I’ve used it to shoot a couple timelapse videos while I worked away on art, but I also use it every day to shoot all sorts of photos. Instagram is my favorite app for sharing these photos, and also my motivation for taking them most of the time. It’s a photo sharing app which connects you with other users, but also allows you to share your photos with external sites like twitter, flickr, and facebook. There are fifteen different filters to manipulate your photos, and they recently added an option of a tilt-shift effect.

This is a selection of the many photos I’ve shared through Instagram over the last few months. I generally strive for sharing interesting and beautiful things – sometimes art, often graffiti, and mostly nature. The app reminds me of the early days of Flickr when sharing photos with a community felt really exciting and inspiring.

Papers

Antiquarian Books

Late Winter Sunny Day

Big Lou’s Butcher Shop

Boris

Vintage Dress

Cherry Blossoms

If you’re on Instagram, come and find me. My username is simply Rachael Ashe. I’d love to share photos with you.

Five Good Things from the Weekend

March 21, 2011

1. Walking outside in the sunshine enjoying a gorgeous spring day hand-in-hand with B.
2. Visiting the cherry blossoms in McSpadden Park – some of the first flowering trees I’ve seen in our neighbourhood.
3. Walking 5km of the seawall that runs along the perimeter of Stanley Park. So many beautiful things to see, including a hawk, eagles, the ocean, and a heron.
4. Devouring a delicious lunch at Legendary Noodle. I haven’t been there in ages, and already crave another visit just thinking about what we ate.
5. Watching a really good movie (Adjustment Bureau) that reminded me how grateful I am for the things I have.

Timelapse: Constructing A Form From Cardboard

March 15, 2011

Thanks to a photo taken in India by a traveling friend, I found the right bit of inspiration to fuel my project around toilet paper rolls. I started experimenting with the cardboard in a new way and shot a timelapse with my iPhone during part of the process.

The final form of this project is yet to be determined but now I am well on my way with a clearer idea.

Altered Book: Coming Into Bloom

March 11, 2011

This particular book started out as a sample for the altered book class I taught a few weeks ago. It’s a very different book than what I’ve used previously because it’s a children’s storybook with colour illustrations and very large print.

Each page was folded, tucked back into the centre of the book and glued into place. It then became a very clunky form I’m not entirely happy with, and the shape felt difficult to work with as well. So I decided this needed flowers and more colour.

I started making flowers using a cherry blossom punch with red paper and attached each one with a straight pin. The different coloured balls in the centre of each flower are the pearlized heads of the pins, and they seem to increase the whimsy of the piece. With so much red between the flowers and end pages I decided it was a bit overkill and toned it down the addition of white flowers.

I did a similar process last year at this time – punching tiny flowers from paper in an effort to call forth the real thing and kick off spring. Between the flowers, end pages, and the illustrations in the book this is the most eye-blasting altered book I’ve created yet. Happy Spring!

Materials used: book, paper, rubber stamp & ink, straight pins, and gel medium.

Altered Book: The Beginnings of a New Series

March 10, 2011

I’m just starting to work on a new series of altered books in preparation of a group show later this year. The theme of said show is Fairy Tales, which thankfully will prove to be a rich source of inspiration for all those involved.

My initial thoughts around the work I plan to create is to combine altered books with my figurative photography. On Tuesday I sat down in the studio to explore some of the ideas I have about bringing these two mediums together.

I want to combine photo-based figures with found objects within a book. I plan to shoot new material (read: models) to use in these fairy tale themed books, and first steps involved figuring out how best to photograph the models for what I need. The book pictured here was an exploration of materials because I wasn’t sure what format the final output of the photo-based figure should take. I played around with an inkjet print on plain paper and then pulled out a photographic print to work with.

The photo I used in this was a self portrait I shot down at Kits beach two years ago. I purposely did not worry too much about composition or selection of materials with this mixing of media because I just wanted to explore the idea. My biggest concern was finding a print material for the photo-figure that would not be difficult to cut out, and it looks like photo paper works just fine.

I’m excited by this new work and can’t wait to see where this series will go.

Materials used: book, tissue paper, small stones, small shells, photograph, wood tiles, and gel medium.

Canvas to the Imagination

Rachael Ashe – Art | Craft | Life