I like birthdays. Not really my own, I’ve grown a little tired of that one over the past 22 years. It’s always on the same day, SOOOoo unoriginal. But I like the birthdays of those nearest and dearest because it’s one of those occasions where it’s acceptable for me to force my work, baked good and other forms of general handmade nonsense on people and they HAVE to pretend to be grateful. This year has been no exception to this rule, and I dread to think of the amount of hours I’ve clocked up in the past eight months crafting nonsensical felt characters, photoshopping bizarre and often totally inappropriate cards and drawing and printing over ambitious comic books.
Yes the number of people on this earth who have been subjected to some kind of Bagley-Original has risen quite dramatically over the past few months, and with the onset of my kid sisters birthday recently, I decided that there was no call to stop now!
It’s always a little frightening when the people you remember being small enough to fit in the kitchen sink like it was yesterday, suddenly turn around and announce they’ve decided to be fifteen now. I actually find it disturbing to the point that it’s a little bit rude, but she decided to do it anyway. And luckily for me, Rhianna (yes, yes, like the singer except she actually manages to spell it right) is in possession of a similarly questionable take on the idea of “being grown up” to my own. In that you shouldn’t really do it because it’s boring.
So in the spirit of our shared view on the legitimacy of adulthood, and the fact that this is the first time I’ve been home for her, rather inconsiderately placed summer birthday, for quite some years, I decided to make a bit of a fuss and theme it like an Alice in Wonderland Tea Party.
Considering it was only really me taking care of the birthday business, as my parents had to work on the day, it turned into a comparatively elaborate affair, and as such the retelling will be done in two parts. For now we’ll just have a little chat about the present I made her: The Doormouse’s Hints and Tips for Life; A tiny, leather-bound charm on a necklace containing numerous questionable facts and general helpful nonsense for life.
Key and Lock Necklace found in a Charity Shop.
I gave it to her by tying helpful, directional luggage tags (“Follow Me”, “This Way”, “Just a Little Further” etc) to a long length of string that ran all around the house, in and out of doorways, along banisters and finally into the kitchen where the tea party was arranged, and finally into the sugar bowl where it was hidden.
This was then placed in the sugar pot for her to find.
Made from handmade paper, faux leather, a gold marker, left over cogs from Tick and a lot of glue.
Happy Birthday Nan! May this little gift serve you well throughout the adventure you’re about to embark on. Next stop Sixteen, when the tips for life start taking a bit of a different bent.
But for now, just enjoy the fun of nonsense and all the creativity that comes with it. And don’t forget to clean behind your ears.
Be it because you live there, be it for funsies, be it for the Olympics or just because you couldn’t escape in time for the Olympics, if you’re kicking you heels anywhere near Leicester Square sometime soon, pop into Orbital on Great Newport St or Gosh!, found on the corner of Berwick St.
Seriously, do it. They’re two of the best examples of comic and zine stores in this country, crammed full of awesome and, as of this week, my work’s also apart of it.
HellzYeah! I’m stocked in London. Boom. Baby.
For a full analysis of this story, kindly refer your little internet hungry eyes here, where the News section of my Website will tell you all you need to know, with a few more bright and shiny photos for good measure.
Very quickly, while we’ve been discussing how very, excellently generous I am (I AM.) I thought I’d throw up a few creations of mine that have landed themselves in the laps of others at various present giving occassions.
A little Sleepy Fox and a Lizard Majig. Because a drink is just SO cliche on your 21st.
The two tiny felties were lifted from the rather lovely book, Felties by Nelly Pailloux as a little gift for an old housemate of mine a year or so ago.
The perfect Servant for a foodie on his birthday. With the added twist of a robot-fanatic.
The Chef, however, is all the work of my own little noodle and came about as a red herring gift for Matthews 25th before the presentation of his comic.
He lives here now. On the curtain above Matt’s workspace. Doing Robot and Chef stuff
Although there is a safety pin on the back, I hadn’t intended for Robo Chef to be a birthday badge, more just a silly gift to make Matty smile. That didn’t stop him from wearing him proudly on his shirt for the entirety of his birthday weekend though, including into the rather posh restaurant we went to for dinner, something the waiting staff seemed a little bamboozled by.
Bless the boy, I find it a little warming on the inside that, in the name of supporting my work and encouraging my odd excuse for creativity, he is more than happy to walk around looking like a bit of a twat. Long may it continue, embarrassment is for total suckers.
I’m back with a new post! Yes I know it’s terribly late, I am oh-so-sorry, but you see, there was a dragon.
No?
Not buying it?
Yeah well that’s because it’s a lie. There was no dragon, I’ve just been rubbish (again) and have failed at bringing you any kind of news in favour of sleeping. However, those lazy days are now gone! Banished! And I hereby solemnly swear to be much, much better at this blog fandango. Frealz.
So here it goes. Last time I did a post, I was just about to embark on a big old silly printing experiment that did, in the true nature of experimentation, fail horrendously. Yes, you heard, printing finally turned on me. Screen Printing as well, that dirty dog. After all the nice things I said about it. Needless to say, it put me a little bit (a lot) down in the dumps, I don’t like doing bad work. Especially not bad prints.
But such is the nature of trying new things and not leaving yourself enough time to properly get to grips with it.
Basically what happened, was that I wanted to do a print for the End of Year Show, and my tutor talked me into doing it GIANT (A1), as opposed to the comfort zone of A6-A3 size range I tend to aim for, less than a week before the exhibition was due to open. Actually, now that I think about it, this is the same tutor who was to blame for the up-all-night-due-to-lack-of-preparation-2-page-comic shebang. Must investigate the possibility of a single-handed conspiracy against me there.
But I digress, “a big print…ha!” you may claim, “doesn’t sound like such a big deal to me!”
Well, metaphorical voice of imaginary rhetoric reader, you’re right, you wouldn’t think a big print WOULD be such a nightmare, however this one decided it would be due to the following limitations.
I only had one screen. This meant that, in order to achieve the 3 colour print I was aiming for, I had to only expose ONE layer onto the screen (due to time limitations) – the most complex one was naturally the best choice, but this meant the starting two had to be hand cut newsprint cut outs which I would have to use as stencils with the blank screen, then expose the 3rd layer on afterwards. I hate cutting newsprint. It’s delicate and awkward and a pain in the arse to transport. I especially hate cutting newsprint when the newsprint itself is bigger than A1 and I only have an A3 cutting mat and, due to the end-of-year-run-down-of-materials, comparatively blunt utensils.
I also couldn’t afford, due to the end-of-year-run-down-of-funds, to digitally scan and print my exposable design onto a giant acetate in order to expose it, so it had to be hand traced from the original sketch, using special ink (FROM A POT WITH A BRUSH! Not even pens) onto a cheaper, transparent, special-ink-from-a-pot friendly material. This ate one full day of my already very tight schedule.
Due to the size of the print and, by comparison, the size of me, I was encouraged not to print the organic way; hand+squeegie=lovely print, but instead to use THE ARM. Now this was really where my downfall lay. In theory, THE ARM is a great idea. It’s a bit mechanical arm that holds the big squeegees and spreads the ink over large surface areas my own little limbs would struggle to cover. All I had to do was push the handle of THE ARM along with the correct pressure to get a nice, flat, even coverage.
Unfortunately, as I only had, in the end, one day in which I could print, I didn’t really get the time necessary to be able to master the art of THE ARM. In fact, I think it’s fair to say I was actually pretty shit at it. I’m not sure if it was due to my size and weight (or lack thereof) but I just couldn’t seem to put enough pressure on the damn thing to get an even coverage of ink. I tried thousands of variants of amounts of ink, I tried adjusting the bed, adjusting the screen, the suction, I tried more paint in the mix, more solution, harder squeegees, softer squeegees, literally everything I could in the very limited timescale I had.
But in the end, with time ticking by, I had to just go for it. And 3 colours, 5 prints, about 60 newsprint tests and a grump to end all grumps later, was left with a pretty damn substandard print as a result.
Muchos Disappointingos.
As you can see, the colour is not at all flat and the black’s not come through at all clearly. I think had the lines been printed perfectly, it may have tied any issues with the stenciled colour together. Might even have looked better, given the grimy nature of the subject matter. But unfortunately the lines are just as problematic as the other two colours. Which really meant the image lost out in areas of detail like these.
The brief for the exhibition was 1912: Go make something! So I chose to focus on the death of Bram Stoker; author of Dracula, theatre owner and all-round pretty clever guy. From here, I subsequently, invented an “alternative reality” in which Dracula‘s success above all his other works was attributed to the fact that it was not from Stoker’s imagination, but based on true events. I wanted to suggest that his death in 1912, officially regarded as “a series of strokes” was actually caused via the paranormal attack of a vampire.
I chose to do it in the form of a single image narrative. This was actually a bit of a leap for me who is, as you may be aware from my other work (and if you’re not I think you’d better have a look in the shop don’t you?) predominantly a sequential art sort of gal. This whole, summarising in one image was quite the challenge, which is why it was so disappointing to have overcome one hurdle to fail at another.
Anyway, It’s big, it’s a print and you can see what it is, so in many ways, I achieved what I set out to. It’s just a shame the craft is so poor. But we live, we learn and sometimes, we screw up screen printing.
I think that’s definitely what Sinatra was singing about in That’s Life: Screen printing giant images of deceased writers.
What an epiphany.
B
x
Poor Ink coverage could have looked ghostly and haunting, had the black been a little crisper.
This blog’s been a little sleepy recently, I’ll admit. And this post isn’t likely to be a particularly spectacular explosion back into the swing of things, just a quick one to apologise to anyone who might worry. So this one is for you, EVERYTHING IS OKAY. I am NOT sick, dead or in the throes of coping with the sudden, awkward degeneration and/or loss of my fingers or any other limb. I have not been kidnapped, abused or oppressed in any way and, most importantly, I haven’t lost my internet connection or stopped producing work. Oh no.
No, actually I’ve been working my little bum off in the build up to the end of year show. You’ll all be pleased to hear that I’m now finished with my graded work (I’ve officially passed my first year with a First! Which would be incredible…if the first year was at all graded…which it’s not) and have been sinking my time and efforts into our exhibition project.
As it’s late, I won’t go into to too much detail, but just though I’d pop by and throw up a picture for you to contemplate before I call it a night. The Project is “1912” and if you can work out what’s going on based on this, fairly obscure, image, I’ll take my hat off to you and give you a prize. Suggestions are welcome.
More is coming, I promise, including some more of that lovely printmaking I just won’t shut up about. Until then, here’s a Bat.
Tonight I was inspired to write a haiku. I’ve been enjoying the beautiful gift that is this weather this past few days, and in doing so I think I’ve unlocked a new potential for new forms of creativity. I’ve attempted to capture those familiar associations we all have of the summer. Let me know what you think.
“To the insect that
Found sustenance in my blood:
I hope you are dead.”
Now bear with me, I’m new to this poetry business. But I think I may be onto something here.
Rebecca Bagley Illustration 