Paw Prints

Paint2006.01-060204-Joy

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

And here’s the “final” painting. You can see the texture of the stainless steel acrylic heavy body media in the black form — which to my mind should be a smooth thing.
acrylics, painting, canvas

Paint2006.01-060114-02

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

Here’s the under painting. The mottling is from using a wooly roller. The green and red just look odd here, like image processing artifacts.
acrylics, painting, canvas

Last year i purchased a dozen dater stamps for a dollar (and with shipping it was still less than $10) on eBay. The last year on the stamp was 2005, so I had all last year to fiddle with them and find uses for them. And now the new year approaches.

I’ve purchased a single dater on eBay for around $12. It will last for six years, so that amortizes nicely. Still, i didn’t feel like replacing the one at work for $12, particularly when i have a stack of perfectly uesful ones except for the small nagging bit about not being able to stamp the year “2006.”

I also had a number of other things around.

Glue, blade, tweezers, cutting mat and a couple of the daters. Note the altered dater on the right.

My first attempt of cutting the last digit of the year into a separate strip while still mounted on the dater failed because i couldn’t wiggle the digit around without breaking the strip.

However, popping the dater apart turned out to be fairly easy. First step was pulling out the knob that turns the phrase. It took wiggling and pulling and some nudging of the date dials to make it pop out, and each time i felt like i wouldn’t be able to repeat the removal, and then suddenly it would be loose. Since the dials all rotate about this piece, i’ll call it the axle.

Exploded view, missing the two dials and two single-digit bands that make up the date of the month.

After pulling out the axle, the metal part at the printing end slips off the two forks. It’s not a correct analogy, but i’ll call that metal strip the platen.

Suddenly, i had a pile of dials and rubber strips and bits of metal.

I tried again to slice the digit part off the year band, changing 2005 to 200 and 5. (These are the crossed bands in the second picture.) I could carefully reassemble the two bands to extend the dater from 2006 to 2009. (More about reassembly later.) This seemed almost anticlimactic and like only a small win.

I thought a bit about it, wondering if there was some similar alteration to do on the phrases. My first attempt was to take the “A” from “ANSWERED,” an “L” from “CANCELLED,” and the “EN” from “ENTERED.” This was possible because each phrase is on a raised bit of rubber. I sliced off the raised bit under the letter. Using the E6000 glue and the tweezers for placement, i put the “A” and “L” in the place of the “EN” to create the phrase “ALTERED.” I also substituted two single digit date bands for the year band so the dater now marks [phrase][n][n][month][n][n]. While a little ambiguous, perhaps, particularly because i date in the ISO ordering with year first, this will allow me to date things to using years ’00 to ’99. It also allows me to date in ISO order (but still with a century “ambiguity”).

I will likely make more alterations. The “NSWE” in “ANSWERED” could be “NEWS.” I’ll keep fiddling.

Reassembly is a little awkward. I found it best to stack the dials and bands, being careful to have them all oriented correctly, then insert the axle through the first side and through all the dials — but not into the final hole. I then slipped the platen in place, pulling the axle out of alignment to give the platen a little room to wiggle. It does NOT slide up the metal side of the fork to snap in place — the platen can’t make the sharp turn to go from side to top.

Once the platen is in place the axle can be wiggled through the final hole. Just like pulling it apart, there’s some little mechanical trick. Here i think it’s pulling down (handle-ward) on the dials while trying to pop the axle through.

Voila! Very fun. Probably even more fun if i were to spend some time with an anagram server.

instructions, diy, how-to, make, altered

This project took me far too long. It was “by request” — my mom wanted me to inscribe some of her favorite quotations on to 3×5 cards. She was then going to hang them from an antique hay rake she has in her workroom.

3×5 cards were not going to do it for me. So i made these leaves with soft pastels. After making the leaves, i realized that the soft pastels would rub off on everything.

So there was a long delay before i got around to buying fixative. Then i over sprayed the fixative on my test leaf, leaving it looking oddly frosted and spotting through on the obverse.

So, there was a long delay before i got around to spraying all the leaves, as i feared i was going to ruin them all. Eventually, i did spray the rest of the leaves — and took these two photos. The calligraphy was to be done on the white obverse of the leaves.

In the same time frame, i heard that some ATC i’d made for the “Glorified Characters” trade had been lost in the mail. I had been frustrated with the calligraphy on those; too loose them as well was disappointing. I slowly developed a block against doing the calligraphy. Moving provided a very nice excuse not to continue with anything.

Still, i’d committed to this project, so last weekend i did the calligraphy. I tested the paper — seemed using Pounce was good, Pounce + resin was not. I made a sheet with rules to put behind the leaf in hopes the rules would show through as a guide. I didn’t practice a great deal — i need months of practice i think.

Layout was hard and didn’t work. I’d previously done layout with a digital font on the leaf patterns; the font and scale didn’t really match my nibs. Since i couldn’t use those digital layouts, i tried sketching the lettering on the leaves. I never estimated the lettering width correctly. I ended up using a C-4 and Higgins non-waterproof ink.

I am hyperaware of the imperfections. Without looking, a week later, i can list: I spattered some drops of ink on the colored side of the leaves, i smudged some of the lettering on the first leaf, i misspelled a word and had to patch it with another layer of paper…. I don’t feel like scanning in the lettering.

I think it will be just fine, but i’ve learned how much doing things on request triggers bad perfectionist paralysis in me. I’m going to have to see how this affects my participation in ATC and other trades. I certainly got worked up over my Glorified Characters trade. (And to have them lost!)