Dreaming in Digital - az

When Jennifer Coyne Qudeen shared her practice of using tea bags, in her words, as a 'mark maker'  it intrigued me. Basically, it is taking a tea bag and pressing it in between paper with weights on top. I took that idea and and altered it by folding a piece of paper around the tea bag and using hand clamps to secure it. I did try it in a journal and got mixed results. It leaked over many pages, including drawn ones, which I liked but it was warping the book boards which I didn't like.

 The upside is that folds and the areas where the clamps were secured made interesting pools and blossoms of sepia toned color. The down side is that the folds were distracting and clamped areas made imprints so you don't have a smooth surface to draw on. I also used lightweight paper which took the color well, but kept the folds crisp and teared a bit.

'Dreaming in Digital -andrea', 8 1/2x11", tea, pencil and pen on 60 lb paper

I did iron the paper (without setting the house on fire) which made it a little better to work.on. Using pencil and pen, I traced the squares (created by the clamps) because it reminded me of a work that Karin had done some years ago called 'dreaming in digital' which had little squares in it and still inspires me. The below is the original version of 'dreaming in digital'.

'dreaming in digital' by Karin Sanborn, 19x24", monoprint collage

It is odd, but for some reason the way both works' paper received the colourant seems similar. I don't fancy myself a print maker, but I do like taking a walk in that world occasionally.