Tony
Thinking of grey my mind went to printmaking. While we strive for the blackest velvety black and sharpest whites, grey is often overlooked.
Mezzotint was developed in the 18th century to give the most subtle of grey tones and was the preferred method for the reproduction of paintings until lithography was invented. At Neckinger we have a collection of fantastic mezzotints depicting socialites painted by Joshua Reynolds. I used photos taken from the prints to give a of ranges of greys which I tied together as a sample book. I created a small pamphlet stitched book using the image of Mrs Bamphylde created to celebrate her ultimately unhappy marriage. I then wrapped them all in an Indian grey kardi paper wrapper.
… and then I made a concertina!
The words in the book can be found here.
Alison
I couldn’t help think of the book 50 Shades of Grey for this project. The combination of proper Earl Grey tea and reading a naughty book amused me so here are 50 saucy snippets from the book, each housed in a tea bag dyed a shade of grey using Earl Grey tea. I hope Twinings won’t mind some not-so-subtle changes I’ve made to their packaging design.
Joan
I wanted to try a new (to me) structure for this book, so I made a tab binding. It worked quite well, except I made a mistake counting tabs! The images are offcuts from recent prints. I find it difficult to throw away little squares with interesting marks, often made when cleaning my rollers after a day making prints. I was unsure how to respond to our theme of Grey and decided to write down some random thoughts and first ideas that came to mind – hence the title.
Patti
This book began with the suminagashi bookcloth and endpapers I printed during a course with Sue Doggett at City Lit. These prints sparked a continuing series of books inspired by the sea. Elements such as the Beaufort Scale, the Shipping Forecast and a ship’s log have become starting points for poetry and prose exploring the loss of a relationship and the fragility of memory.
When the theme Grey was chosen, I immediately thought of the sea in all its changing moods. I wrote a poem (which you will find here) to reflect the shifting emotions suggested by the different shades of grey paper.
The book is a concertina structure made from a range of grey papers, with boards covered in suminagashi-printed paper and Chinese shogi paper used for the endpapers. The quality of grey papers was dictated by time constraints, but their varied tones echo the changing colours of the sea.
