Message in a Bottle

I had some adorable visitors today. My friend DW came over to finish her pattern and brought her two Italian Greyhounds, Lou and Willow Rose, with her. They are amazingly calm for dogs. They are a lot more like cats in that they like to curl up in a nice warm spot and sit there for hours. This is Willow Rose all curled up in her blankets which I just thought was so sweet.

So, we finished DW's pattern and are cutting the full size mockup from muslin, which she will finish at home. I am very pleased with the result and can't wait till Tuesday when we get to sew the mockup together.

The rest of the day way taken up by finishing the clay sculptures for the mask casting tomorrow, and then making a prototype for the message in a bottle promo piece for the Tempest. My friend Casey who is coming up the marketing ideas for the Tempest described this letter to me as being written on the back of a ships log, aged, and beaten the sea. So I decided I would try to recreate that process exactly. I took an old book which I had begun but never finished and tore several pages out of it to work with. (I can always finish the book with one less signature of paper if I wish). I then came up with a design in Photoshop for a ship's log taken from real 19th century logs that I found on line with some small maps and drawings that seemed appropriate. I then set up a custom printing size and ran the book pages through our large format inkjet printer. They printed beautifully, better than I imagined. 

I then took the printed page and soaked it in salt water and crumpled it. The paper is wonderful because it retains it's integrity and becomes almost like a wool fabric when wet. I then laid the paper down on a protected surface took the distressing ink pad and ran it ink side down just above the paper so it picked up the high spots and added brown aging. This was a little intense so after I did the backside I put it back in the salt water bath and scrubbed it some to fade it. 

I then let the papers dry out in the sun. I then took some watered down Gesso and a natural sponge and gave the paper an uneven coat to simulate the effects of salt on the ink. Once the paper was dry I ironed it flat and smooth and then went back into Photoshop to design the message for the other side. I printed the other side with the message and then tore the paper into segments and re-crumpled it. I then took some sand and shell fragments and some glue and made some random spots of glue on the note and poured the fragments over the to give it a kind of crusty feel. Here is a picture of the finished piece. I actually wonder if it is too subtle. Maybe I washed out too much of the ink. Anyway I think I will take one copy and try tea dying it to age the whole thing darker and then spray it with a light coat of acrylic sealer.

Well, we will see if it works with Casey on Monday. Time to turn in. We have a big day of mask mold casting tomorrow.