Printed page nails

I've been drooling over the countless photographs of printed page nails floating around the blogosphere for quite some time and today I finally plucked up the courage to try to create my own.  Every time I glanced at the instructions, I thought to myself "that cannot be as easy as it sounds!".  But I wouldn't lie to you folks: it's as easy as it sounds!  This was my very first attempt so my nails turned out a little messy but I think I've mastered the technique now so they'll hopefully turn out better the next time.

Required Materials:

• Pale nail varnish
• Several small cuttings of text from a newspaper
• Alcohol - I used gin.  I'm told you can even do it with mouthwash!
• A clear top coat
• Cotton buds and nail varnish remover

How to create your own printed page nails:

1.  Paint your nails with a pale base colour. 

I chose white, but as you can see from the pictures above, other pale colours such as light grey and beige work well too.  I think they would look nice with a pastel shade if you fancy something a bit more colourful - as long as the colour is pale enough to make the printed words stand out.  Often, pale nail varnishes don't provide a solid, opaque colour on the first coat so it may be necessary to apply two to achieve the desired effect.  Oh - and if you're sensible (I'm not), you might want to apply a clear base coat before applying the nail varnish to protect your nails.


2.  Dip your nail into the alcohol and keep it immersed for about five seconds.  Then press a piece of newspaper firmly against your nail and hold it there for about fifteen seconds.  Learn from my mistakes: make sure the newspaper covers the whole of your nail or the printing will be uneven and try to hold it as still as possible to prevent smudging. When you peel the paper off your nail you should have your printed page effect.

 

3.  It's important to apply a clear top coat to prevent the print from smudging or rubbing off your nail.  Clear up any excess print or nail varnish that has strayed onto your fingers using a cotton bud dipped in nail varnish remover.

Ta-da!  enjoy your printed page nails...

 

Cover of the week

The Last Skin by Barbara Ras

Publisher: Penguin

Publication date: 30th March 2010

Designer: Oliver Munday

My favourite poem

Source

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

- e. e. cummings

Book Art: Robert The

"Obsession with the semiotic erosion of meaning and reality led me to create objects that evangelize their own relevance by a direct fusion of word and form. Books (many culled from dumpsters and thrift store bins) are lovingly vandalized back to life so they can assert themselves against the culture which turned them into debris." - Robert The

Skin: a mortal work of art

Source

As anyone who is remotely familiar with the goings on of the Publishing industry - or, indeed, anyone who reads - will be aware, stories are no longer confined within the pages, covers and bindings of the traditional book.  New media is taking the Publishing industry by storm: with the growing popularity of e-books and e-readers and the astonishing success of Fifty Shades of Grey two notable victories in the ongoing revolution.  Like Fifty Shades, which began life as a Twilight fan fiction published episodically on websites, many authors are now using the internet as a means of publishing their own work and Penguin's recent purchase of the self-publishing company Author Solutions suggests that publishers are taking these new media very seriously indeed.

Just as I was beginning to get my head around all of these new ways of writing, publishing and reading stories, Shelley Jackson's name appeared on my computer screen.  As a writer and artist, Jackson is known for her hybrid genre experiments and her project Skin takes the use of new media in publishing to a whole other level.

Launched in 2003, Skin is described by Jackson as 'a mortal work of art'.  It is a 2095-word story published one word at a time in tattoos on the bodies of numerous volunteers, referred to as "words".  The story in its full form will be provided only to words, on receipt of proof that they have been tattooed - and the story will die with its words, constantly morphing until the last word's demise. If 2095 volunteers fail to materialise, the incomplete story will be considered definitive.

Personally I have always been rather uneasy about the idea of getting a tattoo, but I absolutely love the idea of a story published on the human body.  Sometimes I feel such a fierce connection with the words on a page that they may as well be branded on my skin.  And perhaps the thing I love most about literature is the endless variety of interpretations that can be made of a single text - what a collection of words means to you is exclusively yours.  No one will ever feel exactly the way that you did when reading those words and your interpretation dies with you, just as Skin dies with its participants.

As much as I admire Jackson's project, I don't think I have the guts to become a participant.  Can you imagine getting a really bland word, like "a" or "the"?  Or some kind of curse word or insult?  However, if you're a great deal braver than I am, Jackson's project is currently only approximately 553 words complete - although she does have over 10,000 applications for the remaining words to sift through.  But there's no harm in trying your luck, particularly as applications are accepted in no particular order: as Jackson states "you could write to me today and get in".

For details on how to apply, or for more information about the project itself, the following links may be of use:
Call for Participants
Guidelines
Project Status
FAQ

You can visit the web page for the Skin Project here and Shirley Jackson's website here.

Cover of the week

The Kiss by A. P. Chekhov

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Publication date: November 30th 1999

Designer: Darren Hagger

Reading al fresco!

Much to my dismay, reading is a hobby that tends to be kept behind closed doors.  Us bookish types spend our whole lives shut up in rooms without windows.  We have deathly pale skin and failing eyesight and we shriek with pain when exposed to sunlight - which is why we are often mistaken for vampires.

But in spite of my love of literature (and contrary to any suspicions that may be raised by my own Casper complexion), I adore The Great Outdoors.  There is nothing I hate more than being confined between four walls for extended periods of time.  One of the main struggles I faced at University was having to contend with a lack of fresh air and the consequent lowering of my spirits.  I spent my days reading, reading, reading and reading some more in underheated computer labs and overheated libraries with windows that resembled the little slits in medieval castle walls used for firing arrows out of.  I suppose the architect thought it wise to minimise the chances of anyone leaping to their death in the throes of essay stress.

However, whilst foraging the internet this evening I made an interesting discovery in the form of Bookyard - an outdoor library in Belgium by artist Massimo Bartolini.  This sent the cogs whirring in my little literary brain: maybe reading could be considered an outdoor pursuit after all?  I've spent the past hour looking up pictures of outdoor bookshelves and I thought I should share some of my favourite finds:

Bookyard - a public library in St Peters Abbey vineyard made by Massimo Batolini for the Belgian Art Festival: TRACK: a contemporary city conversation in Ghent

Hay Castle Books in Hay-on-Wye: a town of bookshops in Wales (road trip anyone?)

More from Hay-on-Wye, where outdoor reading is evidently the norm!

Moonraker Books in Langley, WA

Trees become books of knowledge in Stacks - an outdoor bookshelf installation by David Harper

Ikea create the world's largest outdoor bookshelf on Sydney's Bondi Beach

I feel happy inside just looking at these.  I hope they brighten your day a little too.  Now to sleep, perchance to dream - of forests full of books.