March workshop

The first group workshop of the year and a really enjoyable three days. Two very different willing victims, Lee a painter and printmaker from the Crickhowell area, and Elizabeth a very enthusiastic beginner from near Bristol.

As usual we started with an artists waffling on about his own work for a morning, while the paying customers tried to squeeze a word or questions in when they could. Then we looked at subjects for a black and white image, and chatted about tools, materials and techniques.

After a successful day and a half printing the black and white prints we moved on to the main event.

Elizabeth used the same image again for her colour, while Lee nipped down the spa to buy some fruit for reference for his bowl of fruit image.

Fox and Lapwings by Elizabeth Smith

The bowl of fruit had a variety of final incarnations as we discussed the mount of black line/shadow it needed to be the most optimum. Below is the final version with only a small amount of black on the fruit above the line of the glass bowl. There was such a nice delicacy of colour and tone in the fruit we decided that too much black killed of the subtlety of the colour. So Lee kept cutting a little bit more each time and printing until he was happy. Two really lovely prints and well done to both Lee and Elizabeth.  

Bowl of fruit by Lee Wright

The Owl and the Swan

Found this little doodle of a swan in my Sleaford sketchbook and liked the simple shape with stylized fluid reflection. Thought it would be a good picture to try out the simple print with black background I fancied doing after being inspired by Tamsin's Owl.

Simple graduated colour for the first layer, yellow ochre at the top as I wanted to capture the warm yellow you see on a swans head. Graduating down to the cooler blue for the shadow/reflection.

For the second colour I tried a strong peacock blue, but wasn't really sure about it. Seemed a bit harsh. So went back to the tried and tested method of using the same graduation as the first but darker in hue.

Felt this worked better, and it shows off the colours on the swan better than the bright blue. Liked it so much I wondered about leaving it at this, and not putting the last layer of black over. Then realised that as using a black background was kind of the point of the whole print it would be a bit of a cop out to no do it. So today I inked up and thought I would try out one of the blue ones as a test proof. If I didn't like I could always clean up, cut out the background and just have a black outline. When I came to print I realised my roller was a bit glazed, so should be cleaned up before printing to pick up the ink properly. Decided not to bother as I was a bit hesitant about laying the black over that lovely graduation.

What that meant was the roller didn't pick up as well as it should and allied with a light application of pressure resulted in a really lovely broken almost sgraffito or monoprint texture. Gives a really nice sense of depth, texture and fluidity to the print. Almost exactly the kind of feel I have been missing from the , static colour you get from lino. I do love a bit of texture..

Walk like a duck..

After the lovely inspiring work of Tamsin, back to the final thoughts on where I'm going over the next couple of months or six: 

13. Waterfalls - All the Japanese woodblock artists I enjoy have all done an impressive collection of waterfall prints, sometimes with another focus, trees weathering the storm in front of the torrent, birds nesting by the splashing waters. Usually with an underlying meaning of fortitude, strength and steadfastness. 

Waterfalls combine all of my favourite elements in a subject. They have the movement and natural drama that rushing crashing water gives a picture. Like my coastal work, while their location in the hills and mountains supplies the exciting intersecting angles and dramatic lighting of the best of the mountain compositions. There is also something a bit mystical and uplifting about waterfalls even by the proxy of a two dimensional image. So come the heavy rains of spring I will be out waterfall hunting.  

Having done a couple of waterfalls already, this is one of my favourites, and indeed I must say one of my favourite prints. Really happy with the composition, the colour and the sense of chiaroscuro opening out from the dark shadowed background to the river rushing towards the viewer in the light. 

14. Nocturne - Try doing a small series of Nocturnes to look at limited colour, different light levels. lack of clarity and focus - Experiment with suggesting half seen scenes rather than all explicit black outlined clarity under a midday sun I currently end up with. Will combine this with the 'mist' prints which have a similar underlying idea.

15. Kacho - Ga - Prints of birds and nature. I always stick a little bird or two in my prints, to me they suggest movement in an otherwise static picture, the life hidden within any landscape and the passing of time captured in the moment the drawing is completed. The next step would obviously be to concentrate on the bird/animal as the main focus of the print. I have done a couple of birdy prints, the main one being my 'Swan and Cygnets preen' from the Montgomery canal series.

Swan and Cygnets preen

I have though lots of little doodles done as asides while sitting by rivers or lakes drawing the 'big picture'. A couple of ducks usually wander up to see what I am up to and, more importantly do I have any bread. They usually get a little thumbnail or two instead of any wheat based delicacy and I wanted to see what more I could make of these little sketches without worrying about a finished print. More of a study to just muck about a bit really. These two are a scribble from the shore of Llyn Gwynant, and as such there is not even enough information to be ornithologically accurate. Although they did have black heads and black and white on their sides. Any more knowledgeable twitchers feel free to ID my duckies. I was more concerned with loose play on pattern and texture than any attempt to show any particular breed.

Wildfowl study I

Particular bird targets are the heron, the red kite and the raven. All indigenous and almost all viewable from my garden in mid wales. The heron, especially, I see crashing out of the drainage ditches and flapping in their particularly prehistoric way into its favourite tree, whenever I walk my dog down to the Dyfi river. To get a closer look at the others I am going to need to get my boots dirty though and in the case of the raven, gain a bit of altitude. Oh dear a day on the hills, I may have to tramp up to the ridge of Cadair Idris, or even Aran Fawddwy to watch ravens tumbling and dancing with each other in the clear cold air. Poor old me!

The Owl and the Hare by Tamsin Abbott

The beginning of this week I had the pleasure of a two day one to one workshop with a very talented stained glass painter called Tamsin Abbot. You may know stained glass, and you may know glass painting but Tamsin's work combines the two into a very attractive individual artform.

you can see Tamsin's glasswork here.

DAY 1 - Tamsin has always had an interest in various forms of printmaking and aspects of her composition, subject matter and the way she draws on the glass have a marked affinity with the look of a lino print. When she sent me a link to her website my first thought was; "oo they're nice", and the second; "They'd work very well as a lino cut"

( My third thought was, " I wonder if I should get her to do the window for my sauna " but that's another story. )

It is nice being right occasionally, even if it is through someone else's hard work. On the first day Tamsin worked intently on a black and white print of one of her signature images, the barn owl. She was a natural with the lino!

 One of Tamsin's main concerns was the use and layering of colour. Though Tamsin selects each piece of glass in relation to her overall composition she doesn't get a chance to create the colours. These comes from the beautiful hand blown glass she sorts through and chooses for each picture. Layering complimentary colours and the do's and don'ts of colour use within reduction printing are a whole different story.

We decided, therefore, to start by adding a single colour layer, but use a graduation to increase the colour range within the single layer. As is self evident from Tamsin's glasswork, the planning and cutting of a lino fitted perfectly with her personal visual language. In a relatively short time Tamsin was using the tools confidently and varying her mark making to suite the different areas of the subjects plumage.  Her hard work and affinity for the medium show clearly in her first print. This quite exquisite barn owl:

'Owl' by Tamsin Abbot

DAY 2 - After Tamsin had fortified herself for the task ahead with a hearty breakfast at the Wynnstay Arms, we discussed Tamsin's second print. We ( I ) decided, after the unqualified success of the owl on day 1 that we could push on to doing a full three colour reduction print. Quite a lot of work for only your second print and even harder to complete in a single day... ( Not that I told Tamsin that! )
Tamsin had done some homework and redrawn a scraperboard picture of a hare fleeing a gathering storm which we discussed how to turn into a colour print. We settled on using a similar graduation to the Owl print, but darkening down the tone for each succeeding layer. We could then think about the tonal variation between layers without worrying about any colour change. Tamsin and I decided this would fit in with her usual imagery.
 Over the course of the day we played around with these layers, darkening each one through the edition to see how they worked in contrast to the following layer. There was also a lot of discussion on the best way to realise the hare standing out against the dark hillside. After a last minute mutiny on whether to print the hillside black, which had been the plan all along, then an injury time distraction from my two young children invading the studio, ( Which Tamsin dealt with admirably) we had 'Storm Hare' (my title). Another lovely print and a very impressive amount of work in a day:

'Storm Hare' by Tamsin Abbot

The 'Storm hare ' is a very effective honest print in it's own right that also fits in completely with Tamsins existing body of work. The cutting of the hair of the hare using both the colours and marks of the cutting are particularly effective and very well realised.
It is always fascinating to see what an accomplished artists can create with their first bit of lino and a helping hand and, if I'm honest, it also recharges my own visual batteries. Seeing new ways of working the lino can make you look at your own practice in a different way and rekindle a bit of enthusiasm. The use of black in Tamsin's work is particularly effective, strong and very dramatic without being too heavy or deadening.

I've already told Tamsin I shall be following her example, so expect to see a darker piece from me in the near future. ( In fact that A3 print of the swan with reflection I was going to cut out on a white background should work quite well on black, mmmmm......)

More things to do

7. The City - Having lived in London and Brighton and seen all the visual spectacle they have to offer, I would love to get back in to the grimy magnificence of the metropolis and do some cityscapes. 

It has of course to be a megopolis, London, Birmingham definitely New York ( Any invites gratefully received ).. Below a print of the outskirts of Cardiff I produced for a series the 'Taff Trial.' I really enjoyed playing with the pattern and abstracted shapes in the tower block. Really whet my appetite for a bit more hot tower on tarmac action..

Llandaff North. Cardiff

 8. The Meaning of Landscape - A bit more intellectual and long term this one. What makes certain landscapes special, what attaches a meaning to a piece of ground, what is it that makes part of the  'landscape' a 'view' therefore special and so worth preserving or just ground of no consequence. Is the appearance of the land importance or its connection to those who associate with it. How does a completely false man made landscape (Most of the countryside in the UK ) become the symbol of all things 'natural'  and something to be protected against mans perfidious interference? Aspects of memory, history, personal  involvement. How different cultures see their relationship with the land on which they live. An investigative path that will have to include the indigenous arts of Australasia, having as they do a completely different take on the meaning of the landscape.

9. Play Misty for me - Moving away from the crisp clear lines I am partial to and look at suggestion, hint, half seen and obscure. Experiment with more ephemeral prints aiming to capture the appearance, or not, of mist, a landscape glimpsed through heavy rain, evening light and other obscurities.

10. Multi Block - A step on from reduction print? having a go at prints in whichb I can play with the things that cannot be done on a single chunk of lino. Playing with texture, being able to cut continous lines and patterns and then overlay more pattern and areas of texture without worrying about the restrictions of the previous or following layers.

As previously mentioned I have cut out the keyblock for my first multiblock. Typically I couldn't have a go at a test A4 print, oh no I've cut out an A2 multi that will need at least four sheets.

Offsetting the key onto the transfer sheet

11. Outside broadcast - Take the lino block outside and draw directly onto the block to hopefully keep the loose quality of the draw line. Avoids the deadening effect on the spontaneous drawn line of tracing the image from sketch to block. There is of course the reversing of the image through direct printing, so the subject matter must be something that is not affected by orientation. Just a great composition of a simple image.

12. Portrait - An attempt at expressive portraits, looking at old black and white images of tribal societies, reference books on tattoo portraits, criminal mugshots. Old staged photo's from the early days of photography. Or, as here, a print from the early days of my printmaking:

Amy

   

In with the new.

A Happy New 2012 to all printmakers,

After finishing the old year by showing an unfinished print, the last of my Chough suite, I better start this new year by showing the finished article, with the final black keyline over the top. I nice end to the three prints around the common Chough theme. They worked well together, which sent me back thinking about triptychs, quatrychs, triptych spreads and even a temporal triptych.

I have just realised I have shown the beginning and the end but not the middle. So here is the middle of the Chough. Print number two:

As with the other two, a bit of experimentation with printing the sky. Which I will look at in more detail when I show the layer breakdown.

No New Year printmaker resolutions as such then, just a very keen desire to get a move on and try out some of that stuff really. As well as the Multiblock keyline cut I showed last post sitting resplendent in my new registration block, ( Still clean shiny and unused) So like the stuff inspired by the Chough suite I have a whole list of things I have been scribbling in my little black book of scribbles ' n ' things.

I need to get on and start something because the longer I leave it the longer the list grows as one idea leads to another. A bit like this blog really.

Heres a quick list of some of the scribbles, for action in 2012 :

1. Temporal Triptych - Little idea I had after doing my 'Llyn movement in the movement' research, [ Oho yet another story to catch up on, I got a Arts Council Wales grant and everything for that one which dealt with trying to work out how to show movement in the essentially static carved medium of Lino.]  So a triptych is a scene spread through three images, my temporal triptych would aim to show the same scene spread though three images showing how the scene changed over time. Thinking mainly waves crashing on rocks. As the form of both the wave and the rock seem to change drastically as the fluid form of the one wraps around the solid shape of the other.

2. Triptych spread -  More of your standard trippie here. A wide long view divided up across three separate prints which and, heres the rub, must work dramatically and compositionally as individual units but then fit together to display as one. Got a whole lot of ideas here to do with shorelines, lakes etc.

3. Quatrych - Is there such a thing, similar to the Triptych but rather than three in a line with this fella you have four arranged in a square, so it really is just a scene enlarged to be huge and then printed in four smaller pieces to be manageable. Nothing special here really other than just wanting to see four prints arranged together to make up a whopper. Which leads to:

4. A Whopper - Same kind of scale as the above, but in one large print. A1 even A0 size, and for further dramatic effect feel that something so big must have a contrastingly simple and bold subject matter. Almost abstract. Like a single boulder and wave, or lone sheep, something like that. So I can really lose myself and get carried away cutting texture and pattern within a very simple form.

5. Expressionist - ( direct from notebook ) "More emotive expressive picture, Hand drawn direct on to the block, very scribbly and loose - drawn with big permanent marker - simple subjects. Black dog -  rough landscape." By black dog I do both mean an actual black dog and the symbolic 'Black dog' which represents depression and ultimately death and is often reported by those suffering from, initially, one and worried about the other. A dog that I have seen on one very strange occasion!


6. Story - A longer term project is that of telling a tale, a story through a consecutive series of prints. Initial ideas lean towards the biblical, as all good lapsed catholics tend to, fairy tale, same thing really, biographical, more fairy stories or an updating and development of these images my 'American Series.' Seen here in the light of a virtual day for the very first time. They have been sleeping at the bottom of every folder, file or plan chest in which I store my work since their creation over a decade ago. Back in the day when most of my work was figurative and before my 'escape to Wales'

"Strange Fruit" American 5

"Daily Bread" American 10

"X" American 11

They started as a wee rant against the USification of culture through good ole telly and the assumption we have in the UK of a complete knowledge of, and understanding about, America purely through its depiction on UK television, American film and the media.  I had a huge list of things I 'knew' about America, a collection of even bigger assumptions and newspaper clippings of the more extreme examples of American happenings.  I then starting to arrange them into a series of prints from the view point of a Brit impression of life in the US. Generally as accurate as thinking that all the English either live in Castles with butlers or are cockney geezers.

Each composition or layout was based on a classic painting, print or drawing and I tried to link each consecutive print by having a background detail become the subject for the following print. Or the main subject become the background detail of the following print.

Never did finish the whole series, but  finished enough to get shortlisted for a years residency in Roswell Artist in Residence, New Mexico. Maybe I'll come back to them and start again, maybe I will move on to something I have knocking about at the back of my head.  A new series based on the life and exciting times of Saint Bonaduce  ( Bon - a - juicy ) the first gay saint. Mainly because I want to have a go at some of the richness of religious imagery, contempory icons and use a whole load of gold leaf! May even build a saint out of brambles. Oooh the pain of thorns, the agony... It will be a multimedia extravaganza!

The registration is dead, long live The Registration

I have just finished the third in my Chough series, in which I experimented a little bit with cutting a sun in the evening sky. I think this is the first time I have actually depicted the sun in a composition by cutting it in to the colour rather than perhaps just smearing a bit of the ink away to suggest a highlight area of the sky.

Really not sure if it worked, For the first colour layer I only printed the sky area itself rather than the entire block as I normally do. With the previous Hodomura paper, especially the later batch with the hairy surface, a rollered out edge of ink as opposed to a cut edge would result in some rather nasty lifting of the papers surface at the boundary where the ink was thinnest. This print I am using the BFK Rives 250 gsm which is a much sturdier surface and so could stand the abuse. Here is the almost finished print, just the black edging and deep shadow to apply next.

I will show the full Chough suite in series in another post, but in this post I wanted to lament the end, probably, of the registration system I have used for the last ten years. The masking tape angles.

They had a lot of advantages, easy to set up if you had to print on the kitchen table and remove at dinner time. Slightly flexible and as a new set where put down for, and to the edges of, each block it didn't matter how irregular the lino block was they would fit perfectly. A simple easy to use system that nonetheless granted me, when I got it right, perfect registration.

Disadvantages included going through a shedload of masking tape, it was a bit of a faff to cut, stretch and stick down the little bits of tape each time, if the studio got a bit too warm they could lift off losing the registration. They could not be removed, once down, until the print was finished, or I could not start a print unless I knew I had the time to complete it without needing the table for something else.

I decided to try my first multiblock/reduction print, and of course couldn't start with a little A4 test but had to go for a large complicated beach scene from Pembrokshire in A2. I toiled to cut out the key block for days and days, offset the image onto a couple more of sheets of lino, was all ready to start cutting the other blocks then had to remove the registration marks for a three day course.

"If only..", I cursed ".. I could lift the reg marks off the table and put them down again unaltered" So I looked again at a method I have seen occasionally and which was used by Anne Mytton a printmaker who came on one of my 1:1 workshops and who lugged huge registration boards for her woodcuts up and down my stairs.

A quick chat with and visit to the proper workshop of a friend of mine Mark; joiner, builder and painter,  and I have my new, and as yet untried, method of registration.

A simple sheet of MDF with another thinner strip the height of the lino, a right angle, to hold the block and wide enough to hold a smaller angle on top to register the paper.

The next print will be done using this new, to me, method and I am intrigued as to how well it may work. I also like the idea that it forces me to trim my blocks square, and that I could work on a number of different prints at the same time. The next print should be the multi/reduction I have had floating around for a while now, but it may yet be something completely different.

Long live The Registration.