Paper birds #2: the green screen

work in progress. Using the green screen at ANU. Not sure of the title yet.

This will be a new video that re-tells my first encounter with a Pink Robin in the Styx Valley in Tasmania. I was told at the time that it was a Rose Robin. The misidentification lead me to become a twitcher. The video will have a narrative where I try and think through why the correct identification was important to me.

Launceston gorge

I did a flying visit to Launceston on Wednesday, to check out some sites for a project in September/October this year. Photos above are from the Launceston gorge- which is in the middle of town- at night.

I was an intense 21hr trip and a late night of sorting out the ghosts in the machines when I got back to Hobart but everything is now back on track- enough time to start a new flyer drawing! If you happen to be in Hobart on Friday night come to CAST.

More letterpress adventures

There are no pictures of me in action this time as I was the only one in the studio Book Studio, due to term break and Caren is having a well deserved research break- part of which was at Otago printing press, Dunedin. So it was just me and The Beast. I was a little nervous so I did venture into the nearby honours studios and ask the conscientious students socialising working to come running is if they heard screams. But I am please to say that I did not fuck up the press or rip the paper drum (I have forgotten it's Proper Name) although I did print red hate and silver love onto it once or twice. It does sound as if it has a new wheeze but I could just be being paranoid.

I was printing up a couple of things- the extra chapzines (which is still in process but fairly straight forward as the chases are already set), and a cover for the new Flaps: Hate Mail #3. With Caren not being there to check my chases I made several mistakes. Not so many on the first plate- which I printed in red- so I could so straight over the orange of the chapzine plate and not have to clean the rollers. But with the second plate- silver- it took a a while to work out how I should set the chase and place it on the bed.

Take one:

Take Two:

There are four changes that you can see. There was more padding to bring short letters up to type high. With photocopying it's so easy to make a change to where you put a page and my mind is so geared to reversing and the paper and printing face down that it was a little weird thinking through how I had to place and set each plate. Caren would have answered all my questions in two seconds before I had placed it on the bed, where there is not enough space to turn the chases without lifting them up and therefore losing loose letters and all the paper padding you have in place.

The original idea was to have the two plates printed over each other as you can see below:

But as you can see it wasn't working. I set both plates with wooden type as they are a lot larger and you can quickly create a solid page of type. However the same scale makes over printing in this style harder read. I was realising then what was working with the two colour plates in the Nature Strip Chapzine. But the biggest and mist painful aspect about making changes when you have the chase in place , is that it takes many hours to set the plate, and a good hour to clean up so you feel very committed to getting something printed- or using the plates that you have. So an emergency decision was made to print the second plate on the back side. Here's the two sides:

It still needed something to make it work and to make it clear what the zine was about and who by. So we stamped the cover with our trusty rubber stamps- used in three Flaps editions now, the other two being Sad Sack Saturday Night and Joe Jobs.

You can buy Flaps and other zines at Sticky in Melbourne and online with Smells like zines and hopefully soon Format.

paper birds

the beginning of the Black Kite body.

to scale model finished

detail of the wings

to scale Varied Tit.

Made from the paper bags of all the things I bought in Japan.

A Black Kite and Varied Tit- they are the props for an animation that I am now editing with Abi. The works title is "Feeders" and it picks up on some of my encounters with birds- including the Black Kite that stole my lunch.

Getting it ready for the Aichi Triennale.

What I have been up to #1

photos top to bottom: Caren doing some fine tuning of the furniture so it fix printing shadows on the irregular type; wooden type of first plate; dancing with the Graphix cylinder proofing press.

I’ve been pretty busy in the last couple of weeks, finishing the editing of a new part to walking through clear fells, and printing quiet a bit in the Book Studio at ANU. I have set plates in the past but had out sourced the printing. The exciting thing over the last couple of weeks is that I have started driving the beast of the press. Caren uses the driving metaphor quiet a bit but I found for me it was a bit more like dancing- once I had worked out which foot was going to step on the release that grabs the paper and which hand would hold the paper to the drum and press the print button, it all started to flow.

Shots above are from the first layer of translucent fluro orange.

Posting this now and will post second plate and more images and explanation next post- which will hopefully be tomorrow but as Lateline Business is on the TV it means it’s time to go to bed.

chaos and sleeplessness

Only two days to go and complete exhaustions as I try and make it all happen. Thanks to Kate and Hanako for the rescue last night.

But still pausing to photograph fashionistas:

A bike gang Tokyo style: Yoyogi

Install Shibuya.

back checking..

So I am probably not doing this via "normal" blog protocols but some times I am posting things later into titles I have already made: eg Tokyo spat me out. So please scroll down and also visit my Fuji project blog magneticglimpses.

Another open studio and another late night.

It seems like I work in fits and starts. Having another late night to try and get something up to test run point for tomorrow. Kind of want to make a new zine too. But as I have only vaguely started on a few things it seems unlikely.

Above is a still from the new video I am working on.

The Fear

The Fear got hold of me this week. It's that moment in making a new work when you start to see the end of the time you have and start to worry that you have:

a. Wasted time and not worked hard enough;

b. that you have/might have been going in the wrong direction with the work;

c. because you can see the end in sight here, you can see the work load from home piling up too;

and all of the above makes you freeze. No matter that it has also been very cold this week.