paintings prints and stuff

close ups of the image from yesterday The paper was a pale grey, the whites are oil paint put on with a flat brush in single strokes between the branches, leaving bits of the grey flickering through the entire image. They would make interesting large canvasses if only I could keep them that simple .... ..... large brushes .... lots of paint ...... and time ....

January Snow. Vivien Blackburn A painting that started out as a monoprint demo and ended as a mixed media piece. About 10/11 inches tall. The monoprint was done using oil paint on acetate, printed onto paper wet with turps. I then worked into it with a colour shaper and a brush, using more oil paint and then a graphite stick to draw through the wet paint. The graphite stick worked beautifully on the turpsy surface, gliding across it and making intense oily marks.

Lino monoprints, variations on a theme, Vivien Blackburn These aren't simply linoprints now as they are all unique - I've used monoprinting techniques with them, 'inking' them up with oil paint and working into them with coloured pencils and oil pastel. So I'm calling them lino monoprints as the best description I can come up with. I've included one straight, rolled lino print to show how it prints with lino ink applied with a roller in the traditional way. Monoprints are unique prints that contain a repeatable element - like the linocut in these - but with utterly different results due to colour and inking up differences and work done after printing. Monotypes are absolute one-offs with no repeatable element. Working with my lino prints this way suits my way of thinking better than the clean cut lino print that's included in the line up above. If anyone is interested in owning one, I'm going to put them in my Etsy shop I haven't sussed out ...

Over on our group Watermarks blog Lindsay has just done an interesting post on Kurt Jackson. Tomorrow I'm doing a follow up to it. It made me digress into influences on our work and the importance of looking at other artists past and present, learning, but retaining our own 'voice'. We are all influenced, consciously or unconsciously by work we see. David Prentice quotes Rupert Bear (childrens books) as an influence with their aerial viewpoint in the illustrations. :>) His work has this wonderful feeling of flying slightly above the scene but isn't remotely illustrational. I love marks - splatters and scratches and brushmarks and knife marks, drawing with a twig to get those lovely not-quite-predictable marks I also love colour and masses and line. I spent some time managing to work out how to unite my disparate interests into a cohesive image when I was at college. Influences range from KJ to Monet, Turner, Gwen John, Joan Eardley, Egon Schiele (lo...

monoprint and coloured pencil. in Casey's book for the FPP exchange, by Vivien http://flyingpictures.wordpress.com/ - link to the exchange website These are my additions to Casey's book - theme: Local Colour. It's safely arrived in France so I can post them here now :>) The monoprints were done by painting onto acetate with turpsy oil paints and then using that to print onto paper. I then worked on them when dry with coloured pencil in some areas. My husband and my father are both seriously ill - I won't go into detail but it is having a huge impact on the family so bear with me if postings are a bit erratic while we all come to terms with things. .

seahorses. monotype. approx 14 ins tall. Vivien Blackburn This is an old piece of work that I have on the wall in the bathroom - a monotype I did in the first year of my degree. It is actually a normal rectangle but as it's behind glass I had to take the photograph at an angle because of the reflections. it was made by rolling out a varied mix of turquoise printing ink onto a metal plate and printing it onto the paper using an etching press (rather like an old mangle with a flat bed but rather more expensive :>( ) - inking up the whole plate with a thin layer. It was left to dry overnight and then I made stencils, cutting and tearing newsprint freehand with no drawing to make the sea horses and weed. These were positioned on the turquoise print. Then I rolled up the plate with a dark midnight blue and put it through the press again - where the newsprint was it remained variegated turquoise and the deep background appeared. This was the first time I'd used this tech...

monotype: copyright Vivien Blackburn This is a monotype I did some time ago - made by doing a random roll up of the printing plate with the honey/burnt sienna coloured printing ink. I then made cut out stencils from newspaper and overprinted with the black ink. With monotypes there can only be one, it isn't possible to recreate the print again. For this type of printing you don't need a printing press, you can just place the paper over the printing plate and rub the back with a baren or your palm to pick up the ink from the plate. He looks a bit cross at being disturbed. I've been looking at cats in art from the earliest times and found some beautiful examples :) In ancient Egypt they were of course revered but in medieval times their fortunes changed and they were seen as associated with magic, witches, licentiousness and wrongdoing. Hundreds of thousans were exterminated - leading to a rise in the rodent population and probably aiding the rise and spread of the plague - t...

Trees are one of the recurring themes in my work, as part of a wider landscape and studies of individual trees. The sketches on the left were done in a local country park. The trees were absolutely covered in eyes and the more I looked the more there were. I'm not certain but looking at them I think it's where the deer or rabbits had nibbled a branch and they are the scar that was left. I wasn't interested in background or context, I was just fascinated by these recurring eyes and it's simply a sketch investigating them. This was done with Caran d'Ache neocolour II, watersoluble waxy crayons in an A4 sketchbook. The piece below was done some time later, playing with monoprinting on hand made paper, looking at this and other sketches of bark - I decided too many distinct eyes was offputting in a 'final' piece as it had quite an uncomfortable feeling :) so this was from imagination, based on a number of sources. It's about 8 inches tall. There are more of...