printing

Published 23. september 2020

I am a little behind!

Since last time, I have mainly worked in my sketchbooks, trying to develope something, but it has not been easy,

I have just made two small sketchbooks connected to trees and forrests, both summer and winter.

The winter book was supposed to be in black and white, but when I glued the collage of the winterbook with gel medium, the black and white photocopies suddenly developed colour, a very subtle winter colour.

Now I just have to fill the few pages with more collage.

Even if it has bees a while since my last post, I have been making my monthly books.

In July, my garden was filled with roses and lillies, so of course I had to use them as a theme:

As usual, I printed on a large sheet of paper, cut it up and sew my little book:

For my September book, I chose dragonflies as my theme since I am back trying to finish some quilts with dragonflies.

And my book:

Thank you for watching.

Hopefully you don’t have to wait too long for my next entry…

Published 20. juni 2020

I Love Tulips!

I really love tulips with their many shapes patterns and colours. And May in my garden was filled with tulips. I first fell in love with the flower when I read about the history of tulips and my home town Bergen.

A young Doctor, Henrik Höjer, travelled to the University of Leiden, Holland to take his examen. There he met and befriended Charles de L’Ecluse. When he moved back to Bergen three years later, 1596, he brought with him many bulbs and thus introduced the tulip to Norway. He continued to receive bulbs from Charles de L’Ecluse for years to come.

There even is a tulip that only exist in Norway, named Tulipa norvegica.

So it was natural for me to use tulips as my theme for the May book. I picked up all my tulip stamps and sprayed, printed and draw tulips on a big sheet of paper:

After cutting it up and made a book of it the result is like this:

I have also working on some ideas from my design wall, trying to get together some new quilts. Back on my Dragonfly theme, this first one is a piece of paper used to blot of some printing and painting:

I thought it would be a great background for some machine embroidery, so I bonded it to wadding, and surrounded it with strips of old sari-silk. I have never used paper in my works before, so this is a try and learn. Will the paper hold all the stitching from the machine embroidery? Time will show. It is up on the design wall while I figure out how to proceed.

The next one has been waiting for a year for me to proceed. I tried to bleach the sari strips used, but it didn’t work, so I painted it instead. The dragonfly is free machine stitched, and painted as well. Now I have to deal with the background, what to do next.

As you see, they can end up well or be total failures. Time will show.

I hope you have enjoyed this glipse into my creative life.

Enjoy your summer, keep distance and be safe.

Published 4. mars 2020

Looking at old ideas with new eyes.

In february I have been visiting an old friend, the beautiful Oseberg Viking ship. Here in the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo.

Following the building of the copy they made in Tønsberg some years ago, named Saga Oseberg, from the start

until it was finished

I have collected quite a lot of inspirational photos and other materials, and now I want to look at it all with new eyes. I made some new stamps,

collected some of my old stampa as well, printed them randomly on a large sheet of paper, cut it and made myself another little sketchbook:

Now as we enter March I will continue working with my Viking heritage, but I have some other plans as well.

Published 12. april 2015

Just a short update

I have started on my next textile book for Ineke Berlyn’s workshop. Today I have painted with thickened Procion MX for the background fabric, and just now, I’m waiting for it to dry a bit before I print some more on it.

I have also on the line some pieces of fabric treated with BubbleJet solution for printing text for this book.

And while I was working, I also made another little piece,
with a bit more painting, just for fun. It may be useful some
day…

I will keep you updated.

Published 11. januar 2015

Happy New Year!

2015 is already more than a week old, I’ve used this first week to finish some Journalquilts from 2014:
First November, inspired by the art of Michael Morgan:

The colours were chosen because November can be rather dark and wet here in Bergen. Some close-ups:

December was made by a photo I took at Skarvhamran, Skjerstad, last summer. I made it in black and white, to give it a wintery look:

And some close-ups:

I am not satisfied with the edge of the hillside in the foreground, maybe I have to put on some Markal shadings there as well.

I have not made any resolutions for 2015, and working full time in NRK as well, I will just try to be as creative as posssible with the little time I have. But I have signed up for Ineke Berlyn’s Art textile books online. I love her online courses, they give me a chance to try something new

Published 4. desember 2014

For Galskapen heng i det grøne, og Eplet er raudt utan synd

We have just had another challenge finished with Latitude Quilts. Our theme this time was LETTERING. When the challenge came, I thought this was just my thing. I love letters and writing, and often try to incorporate it in my work. So I looked through my sketchbooks for inspiration, and at once found my quote. It is from a poem by the Norwegian author Jon Fosse and in Norwegian it goes: «For galskapen heng i det grøne, og eplet er raudt utan synd». Translated to English it says something like: «For the madness is hanging in the green, and the apple is red without sinn». I had already a rough idea of how to interpret it, and for a long time, I had wanted to try to embroider lettering in the style of Lorina Bulwer. I had found somewhere on the internet a tutorial of how tom make letters like hers easy, and decided to use it this time.

What colours to use were easy to pick, I needle-turn appliqued the apple, machine quilted the piece simple with free straight lines before I embroidered the lettering and finished it all with some simple hand-stitches. And framed it all with the colour of the apple.

Because the quote is Norwegian, as my native language is, I decided to keep both the text in the quilt and the title in Norwegian.