Last day

Being a creature of habit, I always walk on the same side of the street, so on this, my last morning in NYC for a while, I crossed the road and got an altogether different view from the usual.

Actually, I went over to see what was going on beneath this, the National Debt sign.  Since we started coming here to New York, we’ve seen those figures increase and this morning, following the events in government last evening, there was a bit of a hoohah going on there on the street.

I didn’t linger however, having important business to attend to further down 6th Avenue.  I did stop to watch this chap in an elevated platform string a ?nylon cord across the street from one lamppost to another, though – the Extended Manhattan Eruv, I learned from the policeman standing on the same street corner, watching the goings on with the same curiosity as I.

My business was there in Toho Shoji though.  Newly extended, I found what I was after and though I would have liked to have lingered, I still hadn’t eaten breakfast.  I’d packed up as much as I could, put clothes for the flight in the top of my suitcase and checked out of the hotel, thinking that I’d get what I needed and eat in whatever time I had left.

When I arrived in class, all was quiet and cool.  The perfect time for dealing with a tricky and, for me, challenging, overprint of the “Tolstoy’s Ceiling” image I’d done on the brown kraft paper a couple of days ago.  I wasn’t happy with the indistinct image and so prepared another layer in black and white, which I hoped would bring out the architectural detail a little more.  I measured carefully, I checked all the print settings and held my breath as I loaded the paper.

Not bad, eh?  I don’t seem to have taken a photograph of the finished piece – it will have to come later and in the meantime, you’ll have to believe me that it looks a whole lot better than it did.  It’s still not a spectacular piece, but it represents a shift-change in my ability to control the print outcome, so for me, it’s an important piece of work.

No time to bask in glory, however, because there’s more to do.  I’d made a list of the remaining goals to be achieved and one of them was to print and apply the gel substrate we’d made.  I felt that this, in particular, needed to be done in the presence of an expert!  Though I’d planned to cover a cigar box (thank you, Jordi) having watched Mary demonstrate the steps required to achieve a good end result I decided on a smaller, flatter project and bought half a dozen round capiz shells in Toho this morning.  I printed out the image I’ve called “Colombo Fields” – it’s a photoshopped image of Colombo harbour superimposed on another image of Castlegate Meadow in Gloucester, taken on my way to work one day.

Having sprayed it with a post-coat of Krylon to fox the image, it had to be carefully peeled off the kitchen cutting mat with the minimum of stretching.  Thankfully, it came off relatively easily – hardly any need for holding breath at all!

I likened this to making a sheet of clingfilm and then putting it through the printer before peeling it off and applying it to…well, whatever we fancied.  In my case, it was those six capiz shells and a couple of flat, plastic disks.  Getting it straight with no crinkles wasn’t easy and like clingfilm, it really did want to stick to itself rather than behave and stick to the surface I wanted it to stick to. 

Patience needed!

By this time it was getting hot.  The air conditioning in the part of the building we were using had broken and with all the machinery going full tilt, the temperatures had risen to sauna levels.  The classrooms and print labs are at basement level and with no windows to open, we were getting very uncomfortable.  Installations such as the one above began to appear and a bin full of iced water was brought for us.  Time for lunch, perhaps?

We went out onto the "cool” street and spotted these chaps high above the street having a conversation, it appeared.  What a strange experience it was after lunch, to go from the normally hot and steamy street into an even hotter and steamier building again!  But portable air conditioners had been brought in and the temperatures were beginning to be under control again, thankfully.

This was important because Mary had some crucial information to share about the placement of substrates on carrier sheets, being particularly important to those of us who intended to print over the edge of the paper.

I wasn’t quite there yet, deciding to make my last print of the day on matte white Inkaid painted onto brown kraft paper.  This wallpaper sample from the Andaz hotel room recently fitted the paper well and the effect of printing on that matte white surface was very satisfying indeed.

Did I say last print of the day?  I lied!  I spotted that one of the remaining goals for the day was direct printing onto the aluminium sheeting, which had to be prepared by thorough cleaning, rubbing with steel wool and then two coats of digital ground.  Drying it swiftly became a great excuse for standing in the direct line of the fan!

Putting it through the printer on a carrier sheet, following Mary’s advice about printing over the edge of the metal, it was breath-holding time again.  All was going well until…

I heard a “click” as the metal sprung back into shape after being released from the roller and the print head scraped the last quarter of the image.  How very infuriating!  This could have been remedied by using the straight feed of the printer, the one which ensures the media being fed through doesn’t have to flex at all; the one which steadfastly refused to accept any medium at all, today, however.  So, lessons learned – and a great bit of printing nevertheless, because it can be cut down or even washed off and reprinted, should I choose.

Then, as if to prove that it was Friday afternoon, hot as hell down there and we were all tired, my decision to do a “quick and easy” transfer print using hand sanitiser gel into my  notebook result in the mess above.  Too much gel perhaps?  Too little patience?  Time to relax, to call it a day and to enjoy sharing what we’ve all achieved in these four, short days.

Believe me, there were some spectacular pieces!  Jordi recreated her masterpiece completed on the first day but spoiled in the rain on the way home.  The youngsters in the class had all worked their socks off, making the most remarkable images and really revealing their exciting artistic talents.  The rest of us sat back and proved that once again, everyone else in the room creates more interesting and well-finished results than oneself – and that’s true for each of us.  We packed our things up, said our goodbyes and thankyous and off we went.

For me, it was goodbye and see you soon to Jordi, a quick change of clothes in the hotel and a squeezing of artwork into my suitcase before jumping into a cab to JFK, where I sit now.  My suitcase was labelled “heavy” when I checked in, which is hardly surprising, but I managed to secure a seat on an earlier flight.

It’s been a fantastic week, full of fun and activity.  I suspect that I’ll have no difficulty sleeping on the way home!

Woman vs Machine

There have been several small tussles, believe me!

The day started well with my usual quick run round.  A little overcast this morning but it’s remained warm and sunny all day.

I went to take a look at the newly cleaned Public Library building, which looks stunning now it’s done.  Almost eerily white, it shines out like a beacon on Fifth Avenue.

Into class then, and another idea for the list – printing on the thin mulberry leaf papers using a kitchen cutting mat as a carrier sheet.  I’ve got the things secured and primed but haven’t yet printed – there’s one for the list for tomorrow.

I had a whole heap of papers primed and ready to go, including that black sheet on the top.  Having sifted through my images, I’d decided on that photograph of the flatiron building I took last evening and prepared both image and paper for printing.  As I did, I spotted a look of concern on Mary’s face and over she came with a sheet of tyvek which she suggested using to fool the printer into thinking it was printing a normal, white sheet of paper, because unsurprisingly, it wouldn’t like printing on black.

Both sheets were fed into the printer, but before the print button was pressed, the white tyvek was to be pulled out at the last minute.  But my printer wasn’t so easily fooled – as soon as we took the white sheet away, the error message came up and all was lost.

Time and again, we reloaded both sheets.  Time and again the printer thumbed its nose at us.

Not so easily beaten, Mary explained about the front feed – these printers have three feeds and perhaps by using the one at the front, we might be able to fool it in a different way.

As if.  Once again, the printer won.

By this time it was getting near lunchtime and I’d achieved very little.  Time for a quick win.  I loaded my textured sheet and created a composite sheet of images for it hoping that this one would go through easily.

At last, success.  Four good clear and crisp images on the sheet, well placed and a satisfying enough conclusion for the morning.  I went to lunch feeling determined to get that black print sorted this afternoon.

As we headed out of the building, the great images on the walls stopped me in my tracks again – this one is on the way to the ladies loo and makes me smile every time I see it.  I’ll save Jordi’s blushes by not posting the photograph of her posing as an additional character!

We made a dash over the road to Kinokuniya, to take a look at the new craft books there

That embroidery book!  So cute!

We grabbed a bite to eat before rushing back to tackle those printers again.  I’d already set myself the challenge of printing the flatiron photograph in a “frame” created on a funny piece of paper I’d brought from home – we’ve spoken a lot about the placement of images, getting them set up just right and how we want them to be – for the first time, I was 100% successful and felt rather pleased with the outcome here.

I still hadn’t printed the black sheet, however.

Just as I was summoning up courage to tackle it again, Mary demonstrated the aluminium transfer technique and prepared another aluminium plate for direct printing tomorrow.  Hang on a minute, I thought – if I can’t print a sheet of black paper, how on earth am I going to print a sheet of aluminium?

As I prepared the image and the paper, Jordi had a suggestion.  Perhaps…just maybe it might work?  Who knows?  Worth a try…

Ta dah!!  Not only did her idea work perfectly, my experience this morning of locating the image perfectly on the sheet, right way up meant that I was able to get the variation in coloured substrates in the correct place to work perfectly too.  I had applied red inkaid in the area around that red sign on the left, to make it “pop” and to get a kind of shadow on the building.

And what little flash of brilliance did Jordi contribute to this success?

A strip of washi tape along the leading edge.  Brilliant!

Returning to the studio, we found Mary demonstrating the gel print to Louise’s mirror.  Now, having just conquered the black paper issue, were we ready to contemplate peeling off what amounts to a sheet of handmade cling film, printed with an image to be applied to a 3D object?

Not really.  We watched and promised ourselves that tomorrow, we’ll tackle it with ease.  Fingers crossed.

We returned to the hotel for a quick freshen up before dinner, noting that once again, the news crews were outside (I’m staying in the same place as a certain notorious Frenchman) and headed downtown to Otto.

Otto is a favourite of ours and yet again, we enjoyed a memorable meal.  The food is delicious, the atmosphere buzzy and service charmingly efficient.

Of course, there is also the added attraction of the gelati.  Our all time favourite Olive Oil gelati, the seasonal favourite Sweetcorn gelati and my favourite pistachio too.  Oh my word, were we full?

We walked through Greenwich village past this shopfront – Textile Arts Center opening soon?  I have a sneaky suspicion that my friend and mistress of the washi tape will be back.

We waited for the bus reflecting on another great day.  We’re tired but delighted with what we’ve done so far and with one more day to go, have plenty to keep us busy.

And, in the woman vs machine stakes, I think we are still ahead. 

Just.

Heard on the street

“let’s just say the story of stuff took a turn and developed, yeah?”

Oh, that old excuse…

Press the button and…

see what happens!  After a day preparing surfaces and doing a few little quick and simple transfer prints, it was time today to take a deep breath and go for it.

I started the day as yesterday, using those first couple of hours to run a couple of errands and tick things off my list.  Time is tight when the days are taken up with class and one place I needed to go was M&J on 6th Ave, not that far away from the hotel or the IPC.  My list included “linen twill tape”, a simple enough thing to buy – but when I got there, look at the selection.  I mean, how can a girl choose?!  Whilst I really only wanted cream, I got white too, plus pink….and why not get some green as well?  Oh, and that pale blue is so pretty…they’ll all go through the printer in due course

I arrived to find Mary prepping some aluminium plates for printing – we’d chosen some images for this shiny metallic surface and sometime soon will be doing both a transfer onto them and, I understand, putting them directly through the printers too.  Hmmm…!

We spent the morning creating all kinds of textures and then using Inkaid in a variety of colours to create a receptive surface for the ink.  We prepared black paper, brown kraft paper, card, collages, old bits of artwork and things we’d brought with us.  We added a couple of coats of Inkaid to the substrates we’d created yesterday and made a new one with aluminium duct tape.  Before long, the whole floor was covered in sheets laid out to dry.

We left all of this drying over lunchtime and Jordi and I ran back to the hotel because today we had a special lunch.  I’d booked a package which as well as four nights for the price of three, also included a picnic lunch, which we’d booked for today.  Oh my, what a grand affair, all packed up in a real hamper, complete with bottle of wine!  Teddy Bear James was ready to tuck in too!

Back to work though – we couldn’t wait to get going with the printing!  However, before we could do that, we needed to put the papers in the dry press for a minute or two to straighten and flatten them.  At home, they’d be ironed using the usual iron and baking parchment but here there are enormous heat presses and the prepared surfaces are sandwiched between two non stick sheets and held in the press at 150F and then cooled under a metal weight.  It made quite a difference to most of them though the brown kraft paper was going to prove a challenge, in spite of the careful pressing, it turned out.

The computer set up isn’t easy for printing, involving the need to get up on a step stool to load the paper into the printer which is high on a shelf.  The huge printers are Epson 3880s and we were turning out prints at an incredible rate – thankfully, all included in the class fee!  Having gone through all the print options and changed all kinds of settings I had no idea existed (how helpful it is to have a professional print technician in the class!), it was time to hit the “print” button and step back and wait.

What would the end result be like?  Anxious faces peered into the printer tray to see what was coming out – here a large railway engine is appearing, I hope!

The central table began to fill with all kinds of interesting and exciting images – the large sheets of small colourful pictures are intended for the metal sheets and were printed out on the huge printer by Mary.

As we produced sheets and sheets of prints, we began to realise that matching the correct image for the particular substrate was key to success, and perhaps tomorrow, we’ll create the substrate with the image in mind, rather than vice versa.  I was pleased with my print of Colombo harbour on the duct tape surface but will perhaps have another go with the railway engine tomorrow, to see if we can improve on today’s effort.

After class, we headed downtown to Madison Square, where I just had to take another photograph of my favourite Flatiron building. Love it!

Our destination was the Shake Shack, where the queue was rather long and we were very thirsty.  Time for one of us to take the “B line” and skip to the front to buy two beers to drink whilst we stood in the “A line” to order food!

Cheers!

Though there’s a Shake Shack nearer to home now and another on the West Side, we agreed that there’s nowhere quite like the original and best, the Shake Shack in the Square.

Even if there are birds.

And squirrels.

And I get VERY jumpy!

Today, there was also art in the Square .  Echo was rather striking and as the people of NYC chilled in the park, listening to the live band on stage, we made our way back to 6th and the bus back uptown, via Eataly.  It had been our original intention to get gelati there but by this time, believe it or not, we were Too Full For Dessert.  I know…  But Eataly was buzzing, the place a licence to print money, so full was it (and is always, according to Jordi!)  We promised ourselves dinner at Otto tomorrow instead.

In answer to Dorothy’s question of yesterday, I’ve tried to include hyperlinks to product websites which include UK sources.  I am also reliably informed by the lady herself, that she has many useful links to the sources, too.

A great place to learn

Where else would the combination of jet lag, a 24hr diner serving great breakfasts a few doors down and round-the-clock shopping on the doorstep enable me to get such a flying start on the day?

Before 9am this morning, I’d had breakfast, done a quick trot around the block to drop into the drugstore for latex gloves and into Staples for some scissors and a couple of 4gb memory sticks currently on offer for $5 each.  Fifth Ave was just getting started, the air was fresh from yesterday’s rain and the day was starting well.

By 9.45 I was sitting outside the Institute of Photography on 6th Ave, when Jordi arrived.  I’d been watching the arrivals in the reception, wondering who might be taking the same class.  What would our fellow students be like?

The answer was, people much like ourselves.  Eleven women and one chap, two teaching assistants and Mary, our tutor.  After brief introductions and a speedy outline of the class programme, we were started on our first, simple image transfer using hand santiser gel – who knew?

The institute is a fascinating place with every room crammed full of equipment and exciting art work.  We’re working in a fairly empty studio for the messy bits and one of two rooms chock a block with computers, each connected to a large format printer and two enormous, stand-alone printers.  There’s a library and this afternoon, we discovered another hive of activity when we went to dry our prints in the lab – a large room where a group of youngsters were mixing chemicals for some photographic process or other.  Everywhere is clean, exceptionally well equipped and managed – I am very impressed indeed.

We enjoyed lunch in the sunshine on a corner of Bryant Park, mulling over what we’ve learned so far.  Was it what we’d expected?  Well, yes and no.  Were we having fun?  You bet.

After a short walk through the park – in search of ice cream! – we returned to the Studio to prepare our images for the afternoon’s first project.  Into the computer room then, where the sheep were separated from the goats – all the computers were Macs and I’m a PC girl.  Uh-oh.  Fortunately, help was on hand and with a little encouragement and a bit of a workaround, my image was moved to the right place and was printed out along with the others.

The next transfer was more complex, involving DASS “Super Sauce” and stone paper. 

The jury’s out on this one so far, because of the glossy, plasticky surface.  But tomorrow, we have plans for taking it back a little and who knows whether it will be a triumph or a train-wreck afterwards?  Watch this space!!  (The image is a door lock in the museum, Cochin, btw)

The last part of the afternoon was spent preparing some substrates for tomorrow – a gel base which will eventually end up covering a 3D object and a more textured surface which will be more of a fresco in character.

After such a day, a super gourmet dinner was in store – or?  Actually, a quick run up to Michaels to take advantage of an unusually generous money off voucher, followed by a pizza and pudding in WholeFoods next door. As we sat making plans for tomorrow, the heavens opened and we realised we were trapped, far from home with neither raincoat nor umbrellas.  Jordi ran for her subway station as I ran for the bus shelter.

Now, all I have to do is to select some images to use tomorrow.  I’m going to need a good strongly coloured one to print on some aluminium sheeting, and a couple of others to keep on hand for whatever else Mary might pull out of the bag.  This is really such fun and, what’s more, so far we’ve done nothing that couldn’t be done at home.  The possibilities are endless…