A New Page in the GWBridge Journal

This double page spread just fell into my lap when I looked at the photo.  I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like on the page, and it came close to what I had thought. 
This is the full page spread.  The edges are added with liquid pencil, and they fade better than they appear to in this photos because of the liquid pencil absorbs the light and the transferred photo reflects it.  But it is close to what it looks like in real life. You should be able to embiggen all the pages and it is better seen that way, I think.  The book is 4.5 inches by 14 inches when open completely.

closeup of the left page

closeup of the right page

Standing up, which is how I think the book will be seen generally.  There is more about how this all got started here and here.

I think that there are 7 spreads and a cover left to do... this one is fun.

The Cover of the GWB Book

It is a transfer using clear contact paper, so it is a little more "atmospheric" than the other transfer which used packing tape.  The packing tape holds the ink more firmly, but after I stared at it a while I decided that the more vague image was perfect for a book of bridge impressions.  Now I have to think about the next spread.  In my usual fashion, there are a couple of blank pages before the first spread I showed yesterday, so I have pages to fill... and one more cover to think about... what fun!

My latest book making project

I found this little landscape format board book the other day and thought it would be good for something.  I gessoed the pages with buff colored gesso after sanding them and then sanded them again.  It is about 4 inches high and 7 inches long and was originally something about Hot Wheels... not any more!


I love it that the book stands on its own because I had decided that I wanted it to be able to display that way.  Once I realized what I was going to use it for I added some rough swipes of gold acrylic to some of the pages to see how it would work.

Because.... it is going to be a George Washington Bridge Book!
This is the first spread I completed, it is a collage that I made from some river photos with the bridge on the far left.  I made it last year, and I don't think I ever posted the collage, but if I find it I will link to it later. 

You can see the gold acrylic swipe better here...

And this is the closeup of one page

The other side...

I made this page using a laser copy of the collage which I transferred using clear packing tape.  This is going to be fun!

Well, we had snow... a LOT of snow

And Blogless Nicki came up here to the northern reaches of Manhattan so we could have an artsy craftsy weekend.  What we decided to do was to make a gelatin plate......
 

We really made it from gelatin and water, inside a square baking tin, which we managed to get it to come out of the next day.  It took a little persuasion, but actually it came out really well.  We had some of the purchased Gelliplates, but we decided to make our own while we figured out how to use them lest we damage the much more expensive purchased ones...


We had the usual excellent supervision.  and we just played for the afternoon.  The plate held up beautifully and we made about 11 prints.  Then we took a break, made pasta and cookies and broke out the wine.  Or maybe the pasta was Friday after we made the plate... (it has to sit overnight to gell up) and on Saturday we had Chinese food.  In anycase we had cookies both nights and wine.  The important elements were the same.  It snowed 11 inches or more up here and the wind was really blasting...

Today, Nicki went home.  The snow is cleared off the sidewalks really well up here so she went off to watch dancing and eat more Chinese food and I went back into the studio with the supervisor and nade some more prints. The plate held up perfectly overnight and  I am sure this is not their final state, but here are some of them.  This is really fun!!
 

Out there somewhere is a bridge

and right here is a small pile of snow..... SNOW people, there was supposed to be maybe rain, MAYBE rain, and maybe not even that.  I swear that to be a weatherperson in NYC all you have to do is pretend and wave your arms in front of a blue screen.  THIS IS SNOW!


with two dogs, this is a major event, and since it is the first of the season I really don't know which shoes/boots are the least slippery in snow and still have not figured out how to get two sets of 4 each of those little booties things that keep their feet out of the salt.  I want you to think how I am going to get 8 of these on paws, as well as shoes on me and a coat and a scarf and mitts and keys etc etc etc when Tinta is just barely making it out the door without peeing in the hall.

I am especially fond of this particular listing on Amazon because it says the original price for these suckers is $1700!

The BridgeHenge Sunset Night

Normal Sunset behind the GWB

Fourth of July Night

Later the same night, it was up til almost midnight.

Fourth of July evening

This should have been up earlier, but I was fixated on other things.  Isn't it gorgeous?

pointillism

This is a shot from my window of the New Jersey Palisades. I played with the contrast and the color balance in Picassa just a little bit but I love the effect. I think there are things I could do with this.... pondering.

Autumn sunsets are the best

The summer rain made for many grey and dull evenings, but now that Labor Day has passed and the unofficial end of Summer in the US is here, suddenly we have sunsets! Maybe I am back ... I was taking an unannounced break so now I am having an unannounced return...

This was the start

of how 4th for July looked around here... I LOVE this bridge

I walked across the George Washington Bridge

This was the view from the North Walkway. It was hazy all day and followed by rain, which I missed.

Opened to traffic: October 25, 1931
Lower Level opened: August 29, 1962 Translation: they added Martha later, she was an afterthought

Length: 4,760 feet or 1,451 meters (between anchorages)
Length of center span: 3,500 feet or 1,067 meters
Width: 119 feet or 36 meters
Width of roadway: 90 feet or 27 meters
Height restrictions, Lower Level: 13' 6"
Height of tower above water: 604 feet
Water clearance at mid-span: 212 feet or 65 meters

The Upper Level is suspended from four steel cables, each 36 inches in diameter and composed of 26,474 wires. The cables are carried by saddles on top of two 604-foot-high steel towers.

On the New Jersey side, the tower rises out of the river 76 feet from shore; on the New York side, the tower stands on land.

Since there are 4,760 feet from one anchorage (the place where the cables are attached into the palisades rock) to the other, both ways, plus the extra walk to see what it all looked like from New Jersey and to and from the apartment had to be 2 miles. Two FLAT miles once you go up the stairs to the walkway.

This is the walkway, and as you can see it is very narrow. The traffic is pretty close to you as you go along, but the overall effect is still great. You are sharing the walkway with bicycles and runners and other walkers.

These guys didn't have to share their walkway with anyone. One looks like the Silver Surfer who was always one of my favorite comic book superheros.

This is the view from New Jersey. The north side of the bridge is the only one open during the week, so the view from the roadway is all upstream. That may be great when the weather is clear but the South side has the NY skyline, so now I am going to have to do that one. The South side walkway is open on the weekends according to one of the bridgeworkers.

Le Corbusier ------

"The George Washington Bridge over the Hudson is the most beautiful bridge in the world. Made of cables and steel beams, it gleams in the sky like a reversed arch. It is blessed. It is the only seat of grace in the disordered city. It is painted an aluminum color and, between water and sky, you see nothing but the bent cord supported by two steel towers. When your car moves up the ramp, the two towers rise so high that it brings you happiness; their structure is so pure, so resolute, so regular that here, finally, steel architecture seems to laugh� The second tower is very far away; innumerable vertical cables, gleaming across the sky, are suspended from the magisterial curve that swings down and then up. The rose-colored towers of New York appear, a vision whose harshness is mitigated by distance." I thought I had this post scheduled but it appears that blogger requires 2 numbers in the day portion of the date, or it won't publish.. oh well, this was supposed to be the 4th of July post

Can you tell what I did yesterday?

Teaser only, the whole post is coming on the 4th of July

On New York Streets

Things seen on the streets of New York are frequently not what they seem at first blush. It wasn't hot enough to fry an egg ... it hasn't been hot enough to wear shorts, much less fry an egg. That fact helped me determine that this.....

wasn't a science experiment gone wrong. Sure did look like it for a minute though, didn't it?

It has certainly been a long strange trip this 2008..

A lot of this all started with a group of us who decided to post a picture every day for a year in 2008.  I didn't put any requirements on mine, I used old and new and whatever came to mind, but I generally did accomplish it.. or I will have done it on the 7th of January.  I got a late start.  

That photo blog led to a "real" blog, since I found that I often had something to say that had no relationship to the picture of the day.  

There are a couple of zillion blogs and bloggers out there talking about their New Year's Resolutions, so I will not add to them.  HOWEVER.... Leah over at Creative Every Day has decided to have a word to focus on for the year.  That led me to thinking what my word would be were I to join in.. 

Because everything I ponder like that has pluses and minuses - multiples of each - and shoulds and should nots and maybes and perhapses attached to it I think that my word for the coming year is Simplicity.  Just give over and simply be, simply do, simplicity.

We shall see how that resonates, it isn't midnight yet..

I wandered around for a while in my photoblog for the past year and picked one picture from each month as a favorite.  Some months were harder than others, June was a real banner month for possibilities, as was May.  April, on the other hand didn't have the same depth.  I wonder if there is a study of the reasons for that?    What follows is a collage of 12 of my favorites, with one extra thrown in because it was impossible to leave out the bridge and maybe it deserves a collage of its own.

Happy 2009 to all of you, and if you decide to follow Leah and do a word, let me know what it is.. I am curious about the complexity of choosing...(grin)

August in New York

Usually people leave New York City to the tourists in August. Too hot, too sultry, too sweaty. But this year, August has been glorious. Cool, lovely weather, no crowds and a seat at some lovely restaurants.

Last weekend was Casa Mono. I wish I could wow you with pictures of the food, but I was so busy eating it and loving it that I forgot to take a single picture. Casa Mono is a NY Times 2 star Spanish Restaurant near Gramercy Park. It describes itself as "Mario Batali's Spanish taverna with a New York sensibility." It was SOOO good. We sat at the bar and watched them cook everything and it was a great experience.. yum.

If you look closely at the picture above you should recognize a tv star ... if you are a slave to tv. (ok Jenni, this one is for you ... name him)

It was the second Saturday where streets were closed to cars as an experiment. I went wandering down Park Avenue and into the Farmer's Market at Union Square.

The market was so tempting, the peaches are in and while they do not rival Georgia/South Carolina peaches, they are good. The peppers are in season too, and I love it when you can get a little sampler of all the colors.

August in NY has no big sparklers, but the weather this year is the best and we are having some great sunsets up here above the GWB.. SO, lest you think I have forgotten to look out the window lately.. an August sunset.