paintings prints and stuff

Yesterday I went to a workshop on collagraphs using carborundum. Carborundum is used in lithography and is fine pumice dust. In collagraphs it's used to create wonderful darks, where the carborundum grips the ink and creates intense colour. This is one of my favourite methods of printmaking - I love the painterly qualities you can achieve with it. It won't make as many prints as an etching but enough for me. The printing plate (shown left with traces of ink left on them) is made with Daler Rowney mountcard. Simple lines cut in with a craft knife will print as thin line, for thicker lines 2 cuts are made and the top layer of the paper between them is peeled away. Areas of darkness are created by peeling away the top layer, light areas are created by painting with wood glue and the very darkest areas are created by painting with wood glue and covering with carborundum. When the glue is dry, the whole plate is sealed with shellac varnish (brushes cleaned in methylated spirit). Wh...

Yesterday I went on a coach trip with a group I belong to, to see the Van Gogh exhibition at Compton Verney, a stately home with a large art gallery and lovely grounds, then on to Warwick University to see some conceptual art. The Van Gogh exhibition contained some of his early works and it was so reassuring to see how not-really-very-good they were :) Later works and drawings were wonderful. I especially liked one large painting - the subject was simply a patch of grass with butterflies. At Warwick University we saw an exhibition of a huge piece by Tomoko Takahashi, filling a large gallery space. The handouts included copies of 2 reviews - one slating her work and the other praising. I'd gone determined to keep an open mind but, to be honest, thinking I may not like it - but it was really very interesting. She'd visited all departments of the vast university and spoken to staff and students and collected stuff that was being thrown away. This varied from huge items like scaffo...

I meet up with 9 friends once a month and we talk about painting, crit our work, have people come to talk about their work, go out sketching (in smaller groups) and occasionally put on an exhibition. Last weekend we put up an exhibition in a local village hall. This is part of my section. We all work very differently. I took mainly canvasses - so much easier to transport and hang than framed work behind glass :). These range from 3ft 6in high to about 4ft 6in

Some more paintings in the Harlequin series (small paintings this time) 12in square 10in square 8x13in 12 in square - all oil on canvas. These are in a show starting next week along with the original larger canvasses.

I had a great long weekend at the coast with 3 friends, sketching, visiting galleries and mooching around lovely local shops. The salt marsh at Thornham in pen, pencil and tippex (!) North Norfolk has long lonely beaches, strands of reflective pools left by the receding tide, ever changing colours, little villages inland, galleries and miles of walks through dunes, bird reserves and salt marshes. watercolour, pencil, pen, tippex graphite watercolour, gouache, pen, pencil, pastel pencil The sketch of the tree stumps and salt marsh in monochrome is in pen, pencil and tippex, I find a tippex pen really useful for drawing back in with white. The watercolours include pencil, pastel pencil and gouache . I pick up whatever I need to make the mark or get the colour I want :) These were all done in a very small sketchbook - much smaller than I'd normally work - 4x6ins so 8in across the double page spread. photo: Thornham photographs just don't show the colours that the eye can see :(

I managed to get into the print workshop, made a new linocut and printed one print from the collagraph plates - disaster! - didn't use enough pressure and forgot to add the felt blanket (I was using the hydraulic press) so the print didn't work very well, but well enough to see how it will work. It will be a few days maybe before I can get in to print again :( The blanket is essential as it's an intaglio print and it needs to pick up the ink from the fine lines on the plate. Detail shown above The lino plate above has since been cut and is ready to print when I can get in to do it. It's a relief print and will be much quicker to ink up and print than the collagraph. I may do one lino print as a relief, before inking up, then I'll then have a contoured image with no colour. I may also experiment with printing it as an intaglio lino, where I ink up the background and surface and use a layer of sponge in the press, to force the paper into the cut away spaces to pi...

these are the collagraph plates I have ready to print. They are created using mount card, Where lines are cut with a craft knife it will print like drypoint lines, where the top layer is peeled off will print dark, where it is left alone will print a soft medium tone and for lights, pva is used as a resist, It is then varnished with straw-hat-varnish (shellac), which is meths based and won't dissolve when printing ink is applied. I now need to get to the print workshop to use the printing presses and facilities to experiment with printing them :) I haven't done any intaglio printing for ages and I'm looking forward to it. the trees are all done separately so no 2 prints will be the same, I can arrange them differently, change spacing and numbers and of course use different colours and colour mixes.