As promised!

This was the first one I pulled from the block, done on Daler-Rowney Canford paper with a (cheap) baren. The ones I did with a spoon are still drying, since there’s so much more ink on them (in them, in fact) so I can’t post a comparison picture yet.

Found while wandering the internet in search of SFnal livejournal icons – Minerva McGonagall, in the style of Aubrey Beardsley.

I’ve just taken half a dozen prints from the Brigid’s Cross block I posted about before, since I finally finished carving it tonight.

It’s always an amazing feeling to peel off the first print and see the results – once it translates itself from vinyl & wet ink to paper (and reverses itself in the process) it makes it really easy to look on my work with new eyes. It stops being the piece of vinyl I’ve had on my table for the last month, and I can finally see how all those awkward curves and chunky lines, the unexpected holes and the scars where the sankakuto slipped, transform themselves on paper.

I experimented for a couple of them, going back to the serving spoon (solid, sturdy 1950s EPNS) I used when I first started doing this. It’s much harder and gives a very solid line, and unlike the baren it doesn’t have a grain, so that changes how you use it. Also unlike the baren, it wasn’t designed to be used in that position, so it leaves my right hand and wrist aching. And rather warm, because the friction of the plated steel across the back of the paper gets it hot enough to be uncomfortable.

Tomorrow, when they’re dry, I’ll post pictures for comparison.i

Everything went well; we had a capacity crowd (in fact, some people who wanted tickets were disappointed) and plenty of enthusiastic volunteers to read.

Note to self: be more thorough about working out timings next time. Still, spending more time than expected in the pub with theatre types is always good, and the unexpected folk session afterwards was unexpected and also good.

Let’s see if this is going to the right place.

Note to self: my printer (HP Photosmart 2570) just cannot handle newsprint. It’s fine with much thicker card than I’d originally expected (basically, if it’ll curve and relax, it’ll go through) but newsprint’s too flimsy and jams about half the time.

I’ll be moving servers fairly soon; if all goes well, nothing should go noticeably wrong, or even noticeably anything.

The illustrations are online here. (That link goes to the title page; there are a lot of others in the linked gallery.)

There’s something special about using white ink – I’m not quite sure what it is, but it’s there. This particular ink – Daler-Rowney FW – works well on leather, which is why I originally picked it up, but of course it’s ideal for black paper too. (And much less cliched than using silver ink.) This is some particularly nice handmade paper, very heavy and rough-textured, from Nepal. The design’s much more open, with fewer & thinner lines, than I normally do, but I think it works.

Theatre, and not particularly related to the visual arts, but I want to talk about it anyway and make the script public.

On the evening of the 26th of March, I’m running a play reading in Westminster Arts Reference Library – originally scheduled as part of LGBT History Month, but various exigencies meant we had to change date & venue.

Addendum: there’s an open-access Facebook event here, for those of you who use Facebook. Sadly, the venue is not wheelchair accessible – it’s a Victorian building with three flights of stairs, and we’re at the top. It’s not ideal, but it’s the venue we’ve got.

This is in some senses a hilariously bad play, consisting mostly of entirely un-dubious language and arbitrary plot developments, and in others it’s really good. It’s a political satire with bisexuality and dancing demons!

The original script is here, and the PDF version I’ve prepared to use on the evening is here.

I prepared it using Scribus; the font is StrangeNewes, by Feòrag NicBhrìde, while the title page is done in Chapbook, also by Feòrag.