Ahoy. Ahah

I've always loved the tang of the sea air and fancied myself as a bit of a salty sea dog, without really going to sea that much. Though I have always enjoyed the little sailing I have managed. So when my dad invited me along on one of his sailing trips with the old boys I hesitantly jumped at the chance. A week cooped up in a tiny boat with my dad and two complete strangers in the midst of the Irish Sea with some of the most unpredictable weather in the world, what could go wrong?

Well surprisingly nothing really. Apart from a touch of going green for the first day, due to the weather being so rough, it was a good trip. We sailed from Whitehaven to Portpatrick and once I had my sea legs it was really enjoyable to sit on the pitching back deck, sketchbook clutched in hand drawing.  Trying to catch the coast sliding past at a rate of about 7 - 8 knots and the constant swell and shift of the waves passing underneath lifting then dropping the boat and roaring away towards the shore.  

Normally a 'Coastal' landscape involves a walk along the coast looking down or out to sea, seeing the front of a wave breaking and crashing landward. It was a novel and exciting challenge to be out at sea looking in to shore and watching the back of the wave moving away from me against the back drop of the land.

I think some of the sketches I produced over a couple of days rank up there with the best I have ever produced. In terms of their natural drama, composition and potential to be great prints. I'm really keen to continue the draw from the sea method, just perhaps not by sail. Sea Kayak maybe?

So when Aberystwyth Printmakers called for work for two new shows, both to consist of A4 sized prints there was only one set of sketches I reached for. One of the shows is at Aberystwyth Arts Centre opening the 8th of May, the other was at Wharapuke in New Zealand.

This print is of the Little Ross lighthouse, on the entrance to Kirkcudbright Bay, being left astern as we raced away.

Usually I enlarge my sketches from A4 up to A2 size but I finally thought I would have a go at doing the print the same size as the sketch. I only used a couple of colours and black and when I inked up purposefully kept the inking loose and quite random. Making sure not to cover the entire printing area. This keeps the print loose and spontaneous and is in keeping with the sketch and subject matter. It also adds a certain feeling of thinness and translucence which helps give the waves depth. With this print I also tried an all brown version.

This is Little Ross lighthouse earlier as we left Kirkcudbright Bay and turned to travel along the coast

Very happy with how these turned out at A4, so the next thing is to try them at the usual A2 size and perhaps even larger.

But first.....

Back to the lakes of Snowdonia and a different paper!

Torres Strait islander Alick Tipoti

Kid's in bed, cup of tea brewed, settled down to watch something on the iplayer and the Griff Rhys Jones new series 'Hidden Treasures of... Australian Art ' catches the eye. Always a sucker for the intensity and originality of spiritual art but wasn't sure if Griff was the man to deliver it.

So imagine my surprise when about 6 minutes in the first artist he visits in his search for the maker of a tribal mask is Alick Tipoti, a Torres Strait Islander now living in Cairns. Who while also carving masks usually works in .... fanfare.. Linocut. Huge bloody great things, in black and white, dense with fascinating pattern and incredibly rich in meaning and belief.

Here is an explanation of his work;

"Alick Tipoti is a Torres Strait Islander who is guided by the traditional cultural practices of his people. He believes in the Zugubal who were spoken about for many years by his ancestors. He is most diligent about what he sees as his responsibility to document the stories, genealogies, songs and other aspects of his culture so that it is available for future generations to learn, understand and practice. He speaks his native language, Kala Lagaw Ya of the Maluilgal nation of Zenadh Kes. Alick believes that language is the vital ingredient that binds all cultures in the world today. ‘Without your language you become a foreigner, lost in another persons culture. * The Australian Art Print Network "

'Koedalal ar Sapural'

Kuyku Garpathamai Mabaig 2007
linocut on paper, edition 3/45

And just to give you an indication of the size and impact of the prints heres the man himself with his wonderful pictures.

 A great deal of his philosophy regarding the place of language in defining and grounding a culture has many parallels with the place and importance of the Welsh language in shaping the resurgence of the welsh culture and nation today. There is also a very interesting piece in the programme where he talks of the spirits of his ancestors helping him with the print, although not as strongly in Cairns as they do back home. To help them with this he usually prints at night. A lot of artist talk of the Muse but his is much more personal and effective it seems. I was fascinated to see how his immersion, his belief in his traditional belief system gives him an unshakable confidence and self belief in his own work and his place, both historical and cultural, in producing that artwork. Which gives his artwork not only a vast wealth of subject to draw upon but a passion and integrity in the execution of that subject, that has such meaning for him, and which then goes a long way towards giving the work it's power.

If as a modern western artist you have no religion, no organised beliefs, where does that passion, that belief in the point and meaning of your own work come from. Do you need it at all? Or do you have to scrabble around and find something else to believe in, spiritual or not to replace the lack of a coherent system in which you have a place. Can you create your own things to believe in and find important enough to give your work  a sense of depth and veracity? Or can you ( can I ) draw on the religious, historical and cultural baggage into which I was born without the belief in that baggage.

Really loved the idea, especially after the shots of the Torres Islands Landscape, of an Artist as different from me as can be in terms of location, climate, culture, language, geography and especially belief, but still using lino, a language we could both speak.

Will have a big think on this and see where it takes me. Back to St George and the Dragon I think.

Number two, The Misty Mountain (Not Tolkien!)

The second smaller illustration for the i-ching was to be a mountain path ascending up through the mists. As luck would have it I found a great sketch I had done, but not yet used, of Tryfan. A great grey shattered peak of a mountain in North Wales. It rears like a broaching whale above Llyn Ogwen and I had sketched it from below the main road and included the bridge so with a bit of judicious photoshoppery majigerry, Tryfan was stretched up to mountain of heaven proportions, I then redrew the bridge to make it a bit more 'Chinese' and put a winding path in and then 'bigged'up the river that runs under the bridge. The actual river Ogwen is concealed by the cut it runs in but I wanted a rushing mountain stream so lifted it right up and made it foam and splash. It was also a good way to take the eye into the composition and accentuate the path/steps by separating them out from the main body of the picture.

Initially the path started with steps just in the immediate foreground with the idea that you went out of the picture and back in again at the bridge to suggest the winding nature of the path.  The client then decided they wanted it a bit more obvious that the steps in the foreground connected directly to the bridge and up the mountain.
Rough 2:

 Steps wind up to the bridge and the cliff on the edge has gone. This does have the added bonus of making the main mountain seem higher. Mmmm steps a bit too erm steppy and maybe too easy! How about more of a rough path to suggest the hard and worthy work involved. Mmmm what about that bridge? Too bridgey maybe? Maybe it should be more of a rough mountain track all au natural. yes lose the bridge!
Rough 3:

Path rough and stoney, bridge, one of my favourite bits, transformed cunningly into a natural arch and the difficult path switch backing up the mountain accentuated. That's it, perfect!
Artwork:

This was a two colour print, with a graduation in the layers to add more variety and depth.  I do like the background mountains emerging from the mist in a paler colour. Was a nice chance to experiment with rubbing out part of the ink to knock that part of the print back and also try the cutting of the mountain sides in lines to suggest the form. Overall a happy client.

Intermission - A little illustration job

My agent in London NB illustration passed on a nice little illustration job to me recently doing a pitch for a book publisher to take to the Frankfurt Book Fair. The book is a new fully illustrated edition of the I-Ching for which I was asked to do two sample illustrations for page mock ups.  The first half page full colour picture is of a chinese junk, the second a typical misty Chinese mountain with ascending path.

The first sketch I sent (Above) had all the elements , but not enough vavavoom. Not oriental enough, so I spiced it up with more than a hint of eastern promise, sent it off and it was a hit. (Below)

 

The Junk needed a bit of work as it currently looks like a bathtub, which I corrected for in the print sketch. 

Final print. As you can no doubt see the main inspiration for the waves was good 'ole Hokusai's 'Great Wave' and other wave images from his 100 views of Mount Fuji. Although I put a lot of effort into the various sections and shades of blue in the foreground waves. Really wanted to get a sense of depth and distance in, with the feel that the sea was choppy all the way to the horizon. Really pleased with the way it turned out, more so now that I can see it fresh, not having looked at it for a couple of months.

Next post: The misty mountain...

Second lake - First woodcut

After an agonising and frustrating wait of years and years I have finally got down and got on with doing my first 'proper' landscape woodcut. The wood is a Japanese plywood that I have had for a while and used for numerous things other than printing from. The image is the second of the Snowdonia lake series. This time the small lake, Llyn Idwal, reached by following the footpath from behind the youth hostel at the head of  Llyn Ogwen.

The name comes from the legend of Idwal son of Owain Prince of Gwynedd.  He was brutally murdered by being drowned in the lake and as a result of this crime, the lake has a desolate air and no birds will fly over the water. While sitting and drawing I took great care to watch for any feathered creature hurling itself, in defiance of the legend, across the lake. I saw many small birds turning back at the waters edge and although initially sceptical I was starting to almost believe there might be something in the legend. ( Like walkers around Loch Ness, keeping an eye out for Nessie, while knowing it is all nonsense and yet dying to be proved wrong)

Then a Heron, wings flapping slow and heavy with dignity, made it's ponderous way down the length of Llyn Idwal with not a thought for the legends it flew through or that it became the star of my sketch.

Here I have printed the first base colour and am now cutting it out. I am trying a new set of basic Japanese cutting tools, which until I started cutting wood, I hadn't worked out what a couple of the straight bladed tools are for. The main difference between lino and wood  is that wood 'runs on' along the grain, where as you can flick out a piece of lino at the end of the cut to finish neatly in a straight edge, with wood if you are cutting along the grain it doesn't finish neatly it rips on along the grain. So you get the straight bladed tool and cut where you want the particular mark to finish.

This means the cutting takes a lot, LOT longer. All the loose flicking cutting possible with a lino where you cut, flick out the unwanted lino and keep going dies a death with a woodcut. It is, has to be more deliberate and considered. it's cut, mark edge, cut, edge, cut. Though the harder grained wood is capable of holding finer marks than lino as long as the tools are sharp enough. You can also cut a bit loose if you gouge and then as you are cutting lift the v-tool up and out in the same movement. This can give nice fluid strokes which I used at the end for the pattern on the grass.

Detail of the famous myth busting heron. With sharp enough tools and enough patience you can get quite fine detail.

The block inked up with the third colour. The main difference with the wood was the way it absorbed my water based inks. Obvious really with hindsight. I should have sealed the wood with a size or PVA first. It meant I had to considerably over ink the block to get any kind of saturation of colour on the print, and apply much more pressure than usual to transfer that ink over. Which meant that any delicate detail I had painstakingly cut became crude due to the heaviness of the ink and pressure.

Peeling of the third colour. Seeing the mirror image, which looks like the complete base of a hill, makes me want to do a much bigger print of something more monumental and show its complete form rather than chipping away at the edges.

 Third colour applied, a chocolate brown. While drawing the water in the lake had looked a rich brown to me and I wanted that in the print.

Last colour applied and as usual it seems to change the whole balance of the print.  I deliberately chose a similar sketch and composition, along with colours to the previous Llyn Ogwen print as I wanted the wood to be the main difference and see what a difference it made. 

The difference? Other than the more deliberate technique needed in cutting and the change in inking up it felt, paradoxically for a harder and more durable material, to be softer and more subtle in effect than lino. Fine detail suffered due to the over inking/absorbtion issue, which meant I wasn't completely happy with the subtlety of the colour range but they are issues of my inexperience with plywood rather than intrinsic qualities of the medium. The hills did seem larger, and as previously, mentioned more 'monumental' than the Llyn Ogwen lino which I liked.

I got a strange (well perhaps not that strange) urge to try and arrange a trip out to New Mexico and monument valley to attempt the sculptural landscape out there.

I will 'wood up' again but it will need a different bigger and bolder subject matter and work will have to be done on the ink absorbtion issue. Oil based inks??

This looking for the monumental will lead my eye on my next drawing trip to Snowdonia, while the next print will be back to lino. Perhaps only 2 colour with more cutting, perhaps finally a multi-block print!

First lake print - Last of the year.

Happy New Year! and welcome to the first post of 2011. Christmas only just finished and already it feels like months ago, the beautiful snow has melted and the cold winter rains have begun. Although a rain draped landscape can and does have its own dramatic potential, it is harder to get motivated to go out for a drawing walk in cold biting rain than it is to go crunching through fresh fallen snow. Even at -10 the fingers stop hurting the more involved you get in the sketch.

Although to be honest it was more the fingers stop hurting the more involved you get in pressing the shutter on the camera. An hour wandering around the fields and stream behind the house left me with a wealth of interesting viewpoints, compositions and patterns to experiment with later in the year, when I have a gap.

I get all excited at how deep blue black water looks against snow, it also moves more like oil than water, sluggish and thick although it was about -9 when I took this  picture with ice like tissue paper forming over shallower water. Watch this space for the series of snow based print shenanigans later.


In a couple of weeks I have the first show of 2011 at Oriel Gwynedd, Bangor. My last print of 2010 was the first of a new series I am planning for 2011/2012 which will show at Bangor as an introduction to the series, which is initially based around the lakes of Snowdonia. I say initially as I am sure it will  branch out into Quarries, sheep, mountains etc.

The first picture is Llyn Ogwen.

Below is the moment of truth when the paper is peeled back from the block, this is the third colour. 

The whole print:

The final colour is applied;

As the start of a bunch I am really happy with the way it turned out, especially the cutting on the clouds to give tonal variation and depth with only the first two colours. Also the overall sense of space and depth between the rocks in the foreground and the hill behind turned out just right. Or as I remembered it anyway.

I am now working on print two which I have decided to do as a woodcut. Something I have been promising I would have a proper go at for ooh only about two years. Will put up some pictures as soon as I have them.

The Bangor exhibition is from 22-01-11

Wine society

South African Wine

Californian

Lino cut and ready to print

Inked up with 'magenta' for the colour separation and showing registration marks

Colour separation

pink (Magenta) cut away and inked with the black

Final print

Turned out to be a nice little job, producing 12 inside spot illustration and the cover for the Wine Society's Quarterly catalogue. The small pictures had to be printed as one colour ( supposed to be Magenta but ended up more as a kind of pink!) and black separations, so it was an interesting challenge to produce dramatic images within this limitation rather than the range of colours and graduations I usually employ to get the story across.
The use of black to hold the composition together and show the various elements of the print became key and I found myself cutting much finer and more descriptive lines than I would perhaps usually do. A good example of this and my favourite of the series is this print of San Felices de Bilibio statue & church in Rioja.