No titles, only barens (and spiders. And owls)

Giant spiders and printmaking tools

I was looking forward to starting work when the boys went back to school, but first it was far to hot (really. The inks do not like the heat) and then I managed to get a cold (still more productive than being hot mind) then I thought I was in the Goldilocks zone, and everything was just right, working hard on that reduction print. I carved a layer in the morning, printed it in the afternoon each day, and just when I finally started thinking I was getting the hang of it, I had to stop because I rely on postal services to get printmaking materials to me, and they hadn’t. It’s hard to print without ink.

This is how far I got with the sky before I ran out of ink.

Sometimes I think about a twitter thread where an author asked the things people noticed when moving from the city to the country. I mostly think of it walking to the next village to post a letter, because there’s no pavement on that road and one of the things people found odd was the lack of pavements.

I grew up in the country and never gave pavements much thought. All of my answers were different from proper, native city folk, but the inability to get anything delivered to my house annoys me the most. It’s not a particularly difficult house to find, it’s not particularly remote or hidden; but still the sheer creativity in misdelivering packages is almost impressive. Why leave it on my doorstep when you can make those extra steps and wang it into my neighbours duck enclosure? Or drive it a mile away and leave it at an undisclosed place?

Just one more layer of ink to go ..and then I have to print all the ground bits and birds. I might finish it before I die.

The other main differences to city living I’ve noticed  are the number of birds inside my house in summer (maybe my parents didn’t open the windows, or maybe my garden has a lot more birds? I don’t remember constantly shooing out feathered friends as a child) and a perennial amazement at the amount spiders poo. I’ve always been a spider friendly type of person, my husband spent a year thinking a particularly fine cobweb was a Halloween decoration in my last house, but this house seems to breed spiders of a stature unknown to any other place I’ve lived in. It seems as soon as I wipe a windowledge clean, it becomes bespattered once more. Perhaps a diet of flies does that. Not enough fibre.

No one living here is afraid of spiders, but we are all a little wary of the one that lives on the stairs (not above the stairs or on the wall, just sitting out on the middle step). This is because it is the size of a horse. A small horse, but give it a few generations of spider breeding and I expect to be riding my spider army out into battle.

One of the other things someone mentioned was they thought owls only hooted at night until they moved away from the city. The little owls are often about in the day here, but they mostly just shriek. Juvenile tawnies will hoot in the day too.  I imagine it’s just the standard teenage thing of being awake and loud exactly when your parents aren’t. This time of year, they are grown up and looking for a mate in and around the garden. The female makes the twit, and the male answers twoo. If you only have a female it’s fine, but if there’s only a male, especially a young male who’s not yet got the hang of his call, you might get a text message from your child who naturally assumes the haunting ‘OoooOoooooOoo’ is a ghost.

My collection of bamboo barens. They are made from bamboo leaves which probably makes sense if you are a Japanese woodblock printer.

My package of treats eventually turned up two days after it’s due date. Along with the essentials I ordered this glass baren made by Thomas Petit glass. I’ve been eyeing them up from a while, but hadn’t been able to justify purchasing in. I still can’t really.

Barens are the cheapest printmaking tool to buy. They’re what you rub the back of the print with to transfer the ink from the block to the paper. You can get them for free- an old spoon, a smooth pebble, a glass paperweight. For a few pounds more you can buy a plastic one, or one of these Japanese bamboo barens.  You can also get really expensive bamboo barens, ballbearing barens, Teflon barens and, of course, glass ones.

The much desired purple Thomas petit glass baren of my dreams. It’s weight makes printing easier, as does its slipperiness

I have a press, but  a baren is good for applying pressure to one spot, which a press can’t do, so it’s good for touching up, or if you want a specific area to be darker than the rest, or for printing very lightly so there’s a lot of texture. Using it this way, I need to be able to see where I’m rubbing, which is hard with a bamboo baren because it’s made out of a leaf and I have to use a layer of grease proof paper to reduce friction.

A glass baren is a nice thing, but I had to ask myself if it’s really necessary. Sometimes I feel you see a lot of a particular tool on Instagram and it’s not necessarily because its are good, or needed, but because it’s a sort of designer trend. You have to have it because all the cool kids have one, so it adds legitimacy to your work, as if having the right type of tools make you a proper artist.

I’ve wanted a glass baren for years. I’m seeing more of them on Instagram, probably because more people are making them and they’re becoming more affordable, and it’s only increased my yearning. I do want to look like a proper artist who knows what I’m doing (because I’m not, and I don’t) but at the end of the day, I bought it because I’m an artist and I’m a sucker for  a beautiful handcrafted piece. I couldn’t resist the baren. I guess I’m a cool kid now (in printmaking terms, not normal people terms. I am not normal people)