Two stages of making the outside of the "rooms" - graphite rubbing of the wall and the fingerplate and keyhole on the door, and the inking up, first with indian ink and then quink -
This became three stages when I added rubbing with the end of a wax candle - it leaves the white dotty marks -
More rubbings inside the rooms, and if you look closely you'll see single words added to each page -
Now the hard part - accurately folding the sheets of paper. They are quite thick, thanks to the emulsion paint on the other side. Fold before cutting, or cut before folding?
Inking up this sheet, I accidentally used indian ink for both layers on the left half. All the graphite got covered, and needed to be added afterwards. I was surprised that the "under-writing" showed so well, and am tempted to re-do the Quink pages. The waxed areas show through in a different, more mysterious way.
Also there's the small matter of which words to use, inside the rooms. Raising my eyes from the computer screen to the bookshelf above it, I see "The Lost Art of Reading" (by David L. Ulin); five lines read at random yield: anonymous, comment, innuendo, noise, disputes, constant - this book, faut de mieux, will be the source of the words... but how many, and which, should be in colour?
Margaret your constant recording of such a variety of images, text and thoughts is amazing, never mind the fact of you learning mandarin among all you many things.
ReplyDeletere the question of colour, you will make your own decision but having posed the question to your readers I thought about this and decided I would use red for words that might suggest disharmony in such a venue. From your list I would use red for innuendo, noise disputes. Constant could be in my mind be red or it could be a very calm word needing its own colour.
I've been reading all your posts about this project and I am really impressed with the way it is developing.
ReplyDeletelondonbookworks.blogspot.co.uk