Momigami experiments with hand cream

 

Momigami experiment - left is the momigami, right is the original inkjet print on architect's tracing paper. I was surprised the momigami got much lighter than the original.

Momigami paper on left after rubbing on some acrylic paint or hi-flow inks.

(All images will enlarge - just click on them.) My friend Eileen of the Good Junk Sanctuary came over and showed me how to make momigami. It's something I have been curious about for years. We made a couple of pages while we talked about art and life. She mentioned that you could use hand cream, cooking oil or a gel made from konnyaku powder that is intended for momigami. After Eileen left I experimented with hand cream. (There are lots of videos online for making momigami.) I'm using Vaseline Intensive Care but I think hand creams are pretty much all the same. I first made a number of pieces of momigami from different papers. I let them dry overnight, the hand cream seems to go away. Maybe it's absorbed? The next day I rubbed acrylic paint diluted with glazing medium or hi-flow paint on them. All the paints were very thin, I wanted a transparent layer that wouldn't obscure the original patterns. My goal is to have interesting collage papers. All the papers became softer, and heavily wrinkled of course. The more fragile papers developed little holes and tears along the edges which I love. Rubbing the papers with paint did smooth out most of the physical wrinkles but emphasized the visual texture. At times the backs are almost more beautiful than the fronts.

The section of a brown envelope on the right with the arrow head is the momigami. The paper had already been printed with some acrylic paints on a gelli plate. The light spots are titan buff, a fairly opaque paint.

The next day the momigami paper was rubbed with acrylic paint. Not much change, but the more opaque titan buff spots stand out beautifully from the ground. Hard to see the effect in the photo. 

The momigami piece is on the right, the original paper was printed on the gelli plate. I was surprised at how much lighter it became. This is also architect's tracing paper. It's very tough. 

I painted some thin blues and sepia toned paints over the momigami sample. 

These two pages came from a magazine. The small figure on the right looks particularly good for collage. 

The pages were then painted with blue and golden brown acrylic paints.

I like the network of lines caused by paint sinking into the wrinkles. These will make inspiring collage materials.

On the left - momigami on a gardening magazine pages. The ink came off the page and smeared  around some, making my hands inky and the page look dirty. 

This was another gardening magazine page that was fragile. To strengthen it I tried to coat it with mat medium on a gelli plate. The paper stuck to the plate so I let it dry then coated it with more mat medium and laid a piece of architect's tracing paper on top. When that was dry I was able to peel the whole sheet off. What I have is some beautifully grungy text and plants. 

Bits of a page that fell apart. I love the cracks and the subtle colors. 

The backs of the previous bits of paper. The visual textures and colors are lovely. 

Drab Reality

Drab Reality - artist book made by Judith Hoffman, 2022. Pages 1 and 2. Collage, drawing, gelli plate printing.

                                

Drab Reality, handmade one-of-a-kind artist book, 2022. 3.75 x 5.25 x 1 inch. Drumleaf binding. See still photos of all the pages on my website. I have been struggling to explain this book. Its version of reality is definitely not drab. But it's also not explainable. This book evolved from some experiments. I tried preparing the backgrounds with the gelli plate. I have also been experimenting with drawing on transparent papers for collage. There are more details on my website. 

Drab Reality will be in the Puget Sound Book Artists Member's exhibit at the Collins Memorial Library June 4 to August 1, 2024. And at the Evergreen State Collage, September 29 to December 20, 2024.

Yes, I made this book two years ago. I have been slow to get my photography set up back in place. I'm not good at photography, so it takes me hours and hours to set up, take some sample photos, make adjustments, re-learn the camera settings, etc. etc. I think I just wanted to go ahead and start another project when this book was finished. 

Testing papers for transparency

Transparency tests. The tests are laid on a piece of black and a piece of white paper. Each is coated with Golden mat medium front and back up to about the halfway point. The papers are: 1. An unknown paper recommended, but discontinued. I have a stack. 2. Calligraphy paper. 3. Abaca from Talas. 4. Wet strength tissue. 5. Architect's tracing paper (Dick Blick calls it Canary Sketching and Tracing.) 6. White Kozo from Hiromi. 7. An old pad of forms used for dispatching or tracing trains. 8. Colors of the Rainbow tissue paper. (the color is Kraft) Drawings on #1 thru 6 are with .005 micron black. #7 and 8 are with 01 Microns. The image will enlarge.

 I like to layer papers when I collage, I want the papers to be somewhat transparent or translucent. My drawings are often done on architect's tracing paper.  I coat it with Golden mat medium to make sure the ink doesn't smear in the collage process. Then I collage the drawing to the substrate. The mat medium does help to make the papers translucent. 

Transparency test. Colors of the rainbow tissue paper in soft ivory. The figure was drawn on the paper, coated with mat medium, cut out and collaged to eco-dyed paper. The soft ivory pretty closely matches the substrate paper. The brand Colors of the Rainbow is archival and comes in many colors. The paper is not strong when wet.

I have been testing papers lately, looking for other fairly transparent papers in tones I like. I tested all the likely looking papers I could find in my studio. After drawing on each sample I coated it front and back with the mat medium. Below are some drawings and collages I did to further test some of the papers I liked.

Old train dispatch or routing paper with drawing. Coated with  mat medium, cut out and collaged to eco-dyed substrate. I don't really know how to describe this pad. It's clearly associated with trains. I would love to find more, but I assume it's not archival. 

The figure was drawn on Abaca paper from Talas. I believe it's 9 gsm. This is the thinnest paper I tested. It works very well, although it's a little hard to drawn on. It's also my favorite for having the paper disappear. I think it would be beautiful for mark making.

All these tests were inspired by Sally Hirst. She has a blog post here about making papers transparent. And a YouTube video here. Her process is different from mine - she spritzes her papers before coating with medium. And she uses a different medium. Sally does test an even thinner Abaca which has to be ordered from Etsy. I found that too thin to draw on, but it would be great for mark making.

A dream about a drawing class.

Quick sketch of me in the dream, done right after writing the dream down in the dark. I was lying down in bed.

 

I sign up for a drawing class. The first day I'm a minute late. The instructor has locked the back door to the room so I have to go in the front one. He makes a comment because I'm late. I am embarrassed.  The second class I'm in the bathroom when the bell rings. I have already gone in and left my purse on a desk. But when I go back there is a woman - middle aged, white hair - writing formulas on the blackboard. The teacher is working on some papers and doesn't look up. So I sneak in and go to stand in the back, in the doorway of a closet, trying to not be seen. I'm hoping to get to my seat during a break. A few other people come to stand in the back too. A guy with sandy short hair starts talking to me. He says something about my dog Toby. Part of the time I can't understand him.  I ask him to repeat but still can't make sense of what he is saying. Toby is his dog, a rescue who took a liking to me at another time. I wonder if the woman at the blackboard is writing fire extinguisher formulas. Over time she covers a blackboard that has 3 big panels and extends all the way across the front of the room. The class is silent and taking notes. When will we draw? I don't have a drawing pad. Can I find Jim and get some money to buy a pad? I can't find my glasses so I have to wear the red weak ones. They look like red goggles. I feel very self conscious. I wake. 

 

A Krampus Mask you can download and make yourself

For Christmas cards last year - in 2023 - I made a Krampus Mask. You can go here, download a pdf, and make your own mask. If you don't know who Krampus is  - He used to be Santa Claus's sidekick. Maybe a balancing of good and evil? He seems to have been part of pre-Christian Northern European customs. I believe he was called Knecht Ruprecht in parts of Germany. There was a fad for Greetings from Krampus postcards for awhile - and now there are modern, very creepy versions. Check wikipedia for more info.

The mock-up Krampus masks and sketches.

I started with several mock-ups and a quick sketch - trying to get the eyes in the right place and correct proportions. The sketch ended up looking sad rather than scary, so I took it into Procreate on my iPad and made some alterations.

After altering he may be a bit more scary, or angry. I'm not fond of creepy.

Then I added color by layering the sketch on a red gelli plate print - again in Procreate. The final step was to add some white hatching so there was more dimension. This one was much easier to cut out and assemble than last year's Green Man.

Enjoy your new identity. I hope you all had a great holiday. 

Is there one correct way to do blind contour drawing?

A piece of tracing paper with blind contour drawings. These sketches go into a box to possibly be used in collage later. None are considered finished at this point. They will be torn away from the main sheet and used individually. It's a low pressure way to work.

There are a number of ways that artists do blind contour drawings. In general the purpose is to strengthen observational and drawing skills. Most artists don't consider the final drawings to be a finished, presentable product. I find it a very useful way to generate sketches that are quirky. I consider some of them finished drawings that may end up in my collages. It's also a way for me to break away from my inclination to draw realistically, which drives me nuts.

Blind contour drawing on collaged background, 5 x 7 inches.

 I think this is the method that most art teachers use: 

(This would likely be using a large sheet of paper.) 

• Position yourself so you can see the subject, but not your paper. 
• Fix your eye on an edge in the subject. 
• Draw a continuous line on your paper, don't look at the drawing. Slowly follow the edge or contour with your eyes and the tool. 
• Imagine that the drawing tool is touching the subject. 
• Sometimes a timer is set. 

Blind contour drawing on a collaged background. 5 x 7 inches

There is no reason why you have to follow these “rules.”

My favorite method is to draw fairly fast. My drawing are small, between 3 and 6 inches high. They usually take about two minutes for the blind contour drawing. I often draw an area - an eye and the nose for example - and then lift my pen and start the second eye somewhere else. This can create interesting disjunctions. If I have done five or six drawings without looking at the paper when I lift the pen, and I don’t like any of them, then I would probably look at the paper to move my pen. I don't try to get it in the perfect spot, just in the ballpark. If I’m not looking, eye glasses can be split into pieces that may not look good so I usually draw them all in one line. After I have five to ten quick drawings, I add hatching to my favorites while looking at the subject and the drawing. I always feel free to enhance areas I like - like the eyes. Hatching in general adds volume and character. It also sometimes adds to the oddness of the drawing.

Blind contour drawing done on iPad with Procreate. I lost track of the eyes so there is an extra. Another layer was used to add hatching while looking at the photo.

This is a two page spread from my sketchbook. The sketches were all done from the same photo. With eyes closed, I drew one face, opened my eyes and started the next one nearby. The hatching was added with my eyes open.

Possible variations: 

• Use non-dominant hand. 
• Or switch hands mid-drawing. 
• Lift the drawing tool, don’t look at the paper to place it again. 
• Or lift the tool, look at my paper to place it again but immediately look away. 
• Draw fast. 
• Draw very slow. 
• Make hatching or scribbling marks as I do the blind part of the drawing. They have a different quality than the more deliberate ones I usually make while looking.

Feel-draw sketch, hatching added in ears, around nose and mouth while looking.

Another closely related drawing method is what I call the feel-draw. I saw this in a drawing technique book, but can't find it now. I feel my face and draw what I feel. Ups and downs, bumps, etc. It's another way to get an interesting drawing with distortions. The variations apply here too. I like the effect of doing some blind hatching or scribbling to mark the lower areas like ear holes. So far these haven't made it into collages, they seem too weird. But as I say that I realize I need to use them.

Hands can be very interesting using blind contour methods.

Working in Procreate on my iPad, I have a black layer behind the transparent layer I'm drawing on.

When drawing on an ipad, I put a layer under the layer I'm drawing on that is the same color as my drawing tool. When I am drawing with a black pen, I draw on the top transparent layer. There is a layer below that is also black. That black layer won't be turned off until the blind part of the drawing is complete. I sometimes use a third layer to add the hatching.

Another group of drawings on tracing paper. I probably won't use most of these. I only like one right now.

You can download and make this Green Man mask

 

Green Man mask Christmas card. You can download the pdf and make your own.

This was my Solstice/Christmas/New Years card this year. I still haven't mailed them all out. But here it is - you can download it from my website and make your own. There are instructions on the web page. It turns out the mask looks good either way. Turned over it covers your mouth and chin. It's a very effective disguise.