Inky concertina

[Audrey T]

Not sure if this is the right forum or if there even is a rightful place for it on FPN. I'm experimenting with a concertina prototype for my students. (The fold-and-cut concertina template isn't mine.)

 

This first attempt is just on printer paper, as I wasn't sure if I would be messing up right from the start. It's certainly the wrong paper, as everything soaks through and you can barely tell back from front. I'll use better paper for my students, but for my purposes it was fine that the page had two inky sides.

 

First I put down a little bit of crayon as a resist, but it didn't really do anything. Then I splashed some FP ink around, dragged some of it with a comb, picked some of it up with a wet paper towel & dabbed it around, then dried the page in the sun.

 

After that, borrowing Nick Stewart's tip about using bleach to react with the ink, I created some random negative spaces. To play with texture, I used wadded-up plastic wrap dipped in watered-down bleach. Dried the page again.

 

Finally, I cut & folded the paper into a concertina, and used the random shapes to prompt outlines of memories with darker ink (Brun Prévenance, Jacques Herbin Scented. Despite the cool smell, I don't care for the ink).

 

 

[lapis]

Nice! And yes, this is a good place for your artwork. I mean, inks aren't just for writing....

[Audrey T]

2 hours ago, lapis said:

Nice! And yes, this is a good place for your artwork. I mean, inks aren't just for writing....

Thank you!

[amberleadavis]

Very fun!  I'm a fan of palimpsests. 

[Audrey T]

12 hours ago, amberleadavis said:

Very fun!  I'm a fan of palimpsests. 

Do you have one of your own to share?

[lapis]

14 hours ago, amberleadavis said:

Very fun!  I'm a fan of palimpsests. 

Just thinking of that gives me a tremendously bad conscience 🤮. I mean, for all that work -- like having to get a hold of the animal in the first place, scraping, unscraping and then rescraping -- my just having to whip out my bike (and rucksack) and drive off to buy another stack of hp copy paper (500 80g/m² A4 sheets) for about 3.50 Euros... that sometimes makes me think I'm already in heaven....

[Audrey T]

1 hour ago, lapis said:

having to get a hold of the animal in the first place, scraping, unscraping and then rescraping

I think you could do it less authentically than by slaughtering an animal and scraping the hide ;-). However, it still might involve a bike and knapsack at some point. I'm not sure if that is an authentic requirement.

[lapis]

Well, I do feel better getting it off my chest that I nowadays do drive only my bicycle (no, it's not an E-bike) and no longer my Norton Commando. The latter was, however -- if I may say so -- very authentic....

[Audrey T]

1 hour ago, lapis said:

Norton Commando

Authentic and commanding. Were the colors appropriately commanding too?

[lapis]

The old 850 was simply black on black (not my favourite ink colour). My bike today is a KTM -- made in Austria  -- but black and white. Thusly, more philosophical than aesthetic. Very practical and sturdy... sooo... I can recommend it, too.

[Audrey T]

5 minutes ago, lapis said:

black on black

That sounds authoritative 😉

[amberleadavis]

16 hours ago, Audrey T said:

Do you have one of your own to share?

 

 

I do, I will find them to share, but warning, I have not used any animal skins.

 

14 hours ago, lapis said:

Just thinking of that gives me a tremendously bad conscience 🤮. I mean, for all that work -- like having to get a hold of the animal in the first place, scraping, unscraping and then rescraping -- my just having to whip out my bike (and rucksack) and drive off to buy another stack of hp copy paper (500 80g/m² A4 sheets) for about 3.50 Euros... that sometimes makes me think I'm already in heaven....

 

LOL

 

 

So, the old TR paper can actually be washed and reused.

[Audrey T]

5 hours ago, amberleadavis said:

I do, I will find them to share, but warning, I have not used any animal skins.

Oh good! (On both counts.)

[inkstainedruth]

On 2/3/2022 at 12:27 PM, Audrey T said:

I think you could do it less authentically than by slaughtering an animal and scraping the hide ;-). However, it still might involve a bike and knapsack at some point. I'm not sure if that is an authentic requirement.

A few years ago my husband and I went up to the Cook Forest area in NW PA because there was a French and Indian War re-enactment weekend in that area.  We watched the "battle" and went to a lecture by some guy dressed up as Benjamin Franklin (sort of the way the actor Hal Holbrook used to do stage shows as Mark Twain, I think); the guy doing Ben Franklin even had a replica of a glass harmonica [glass harp], an instrument that Franklin had invented.  But he also did a demo/workshop in "brain tanning" the way the Native Americans in what is now Western New York and Western PA did.  He said he cheated and used some sort of detergent that had borax in it, but in actual practice there was generally enough brain matter from a specific animal to tan the entire hide of that animal that was the same sort of chemical makeup as borax.  And there we all were, on our hands and knees in the dirt and gravel, scraping at the hide he'd brought with the edges of shells and working the borax into the hide after the hair or fur had beens scraped off....   And trust me -- it was NOT easy to do....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[essayfaire]

Do you have a step-by-step of this?  It's my week to dictate (whoops- choose) family Sunday art project.  I am not an artist, but we're all on rotation...  I originally thought the thread was about a musical concertina, with which I am more familiar.

[Audrey T]

13 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

brain tanning

You might be interested in this video of Saddle Lake Cree Nation cowhide frost scraping:

https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/sc6nj1/satisfying_cowhide/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

[Audrey T]

7 minutes ago, essayfaire said:

Do you have a step-by-step of this?  It's my week to dictate (whoops- choose) family Sunday art project.  I am not an artist, but we're all on rotation...  I originally thought the thread was about a musical concertina, with which I am more familiar.

A step-by-step of the folded concertina? Here's a template:

 

https://citizensketcher.com/2016/03/14/make-you-own-accordion-fold-travel-journals-for-watercolor-sketching/

 

And here are two videos (2 parts of 1 set) showing how to do this in watercolor. My process was a little different, because I used ink & watered-down bleach. For a family project, though, watercolors would be perfect. At some point I think she uses gesso (which I didn't). For kids, I might be more fun to use some table salt with the watercolors. And maybe use markers for the sketching part of the concertina book? It'd be fun to see what your family comes up with, so I hope you post!

 

 

 

[essayfaire]

Thank you, @Audrey T!  I will post if it isn't a disaster!

[Audrey T]

6 minutes ago, essayfaire said:

if it isn't a disaster!

Disasters are kind of fun. Especially if kids are involved 😉 Or pet family.

[Audrey T]

10 minutes ago, essayfaire said:

Thank you, @Audrey T!  I will post if it isn't a disaster!

You probably know about the salt with watercolor technique, but in case you don't, here's a quick demo:

 

 

There may be other videos that are more interesting -- this was actually the first short thing I ran across.