Change of plan

That wasn't the weekend I expected. Had planned to spend Saturday at the art gallery on a life drawing workshop but owing to Act of Aged P, I spent a large part of Saturday cleaning and wading through a mountain of washing. She is fine now but didn't feel I could leave her on Saturday.

Anyway, silver linings, blah, blah, blah, I did manage some time on the current PB. Line etched the skeleton and spit bit the surround with a coarse aquatint. It's come out really well too. I need to get this image finished by the end of January so it was good to have the time on it I guess, though I was really looking forward to the life drawing. Haven't done any for a month so going into withdrawal somewhat. New class starts up Tuesday evening - different place, different teacher though. Will see how that goes.

 

Influences 5 - Freya Payne

At 36 ~ Freya Payne, etching, 2005

I wasn't yet etching when I first came across Freya Payne's work in Printmaking Today in 2006. I was getting some pretty good tone and texture with card cuts but there isn't that versatility of being able to rework and rework and rework the plate like there is with etching. It wasn't until 2009 that I began to use pine resin aquatints to attempt to achieve really tonal / textural effects with etching. And now, five years later, I still can't achieve anything like what Payne does with the plate.

Amateur ~ Freya Payne, 2007

I like portraiture and it remains integral to my work, but I guess my main focus is narrative. Some of Payne's earlier etchings have narrative themes. I particularly like the image below - rather Rego / Hanselaaresque.

Looking for exits - Freya Payne, 1998

In an interview with Katherine Jones (Printmaking Today, Summer 2006), Payne is asked what it is about printmaking that interests her. She replies:

'I love both the physical process and the extended possibilities of a way to draw. The stopping and starting, the slow alchemy of acids and metals; the way drawing becomes an accruing of marks, layer by layer, on a surface physical enough to handle so much alteration, but which still gives an image which feels complete - the journey of the making unified in the final image.

The prints are often testing grounds for installation or sculpture and get fed back into prints as props. The boundaries between what leads the work - concept or process - blur.'

Sisyphus ~ Freya Payne, 2007

On the subject of process, Payne says this:

'When all else is in flux, printmaking gives you somewhere to begin, some parameters, technical anchors. It also gives you a valuable space between the act of making and seeing the result. Often I have very black periods when I lose faith in what I'm doing; this space can be a life raft.' 

How true this is. I've lost count of the times when I've become stuck with an image and found... comfort? Reassurance? New momentum? Simply by cleaning up the plate, degreasing, adding an aquatint and beginning to stop out. All begins to flow again. And the ritual of preparing a new plate when the image isn't fully formed in the mind - the process of filing down the edges, taping the back, degreasing and applying that first hard ground - then the image is ready to trickle onto the plate. I wonder if it's the same for painters preparing a canvas or sculptors doing whatever needs to be done to their chosen medium. I'd be interested to know.

To Turn Again ~ Freya Payne, 2007

Women ~ Freya Payne, 2008

Influences 3 - Marcelle Hanselaar

Self-portrait of Yesterday ~ oil on canvas, 2012

I first came across Marcelle Hanselaar's work some years ago in an article in Printmaking Today (I'll find the issue number and post it for anyone who wants to track it down) and saw some of her etchings at Originals shortly afterwards (or was it the RE Summer show...). I'd been quite captivated by the tiny reproductons but seeing the actual etchings was a very different experience; the powerful rawness, was quite stunning. I spent some time in front of them and found it quite hard to tear myself away.

Le Petit Mort 10: Notes From an Incomplete Journey ~ etching and aquating, 2005

Stormwarning ~ etching and aquatint

She is in the same camp as Paula Rego for me; dark, violent narratives in which people (quite often she herself) and strange creatures coexist in nightmarish scenarios. Dogs seem to figure frequently in a rather Jungian Shadow-type way. Bizarre, macabre and faintly comical.

Open Sesame ~ etching and aquatint

Le Petit Mort 6: Notes from an Incomplete Journey ~ etching and aquatint, 2005

Etching and aquatint

In this short film, Hanselaar talks about her relationship with the medium, in particular oil paint. She talks about the intimacy which develops over time (she says it took twenty years for her to really get the measure of it) and one gets the sense that it would be impossible to separate her from her art and vice versa. The interviewer asks 'Who is Marcelle Hanselaar?' She replies, 'I have have no answer to that but I paint about that.'


Marcelle Hanselaar - Postcard From The Edge from Beats Shots on Vimeo.

Pirate Baby trots on

Two more aquatints done and a little testing of colour. These won't be the final colours... just testing to see if the colour would lighten the image as it seems a bit daerk at the moment. Still too dark so some burnishing needed and a little line work to add detail. Overall though, seems to be coming on okay. Think it's time to make the solar plate for the background next though, to see how the etching looks against it. It will affect the colour of course. Still struggling to motivate myself with this one... but onwards and upwards.

Pirate Baby and the Plastic Bag Pharaoh

Managed to get the first acquatint done on PB4 this week; proof below. It looks a little dark but with successive etchings and some burnishing maybe, it'll work well I think. It's a good state. It won't be printed in black... sepia probably. Well, Pharaoh anyway. Still thinking about colour for the other elements. That won't come together until much later in the process. I'm pleased with it so far though.

I've been feeling a bit demotivated with this etching the last few weeks. It's partly looking at all the Meadus paintings I think, got a hankering to paint. Silly excuse really. And I can't think of a subject to paint either - even sillier excuse. 

Anyway, the first Cowprint meeting of the year is next week and I wanted to have something to show for the two months since we last met (other than the Chicken Murderer) so that spurred me on. There's nothing like a deadline to get you working, even if it's self-imposed.

The Year of Solar Plate

Having reviewed Cowprint's year, it makes sense to look back at my own creative achievements during 2013.

Creatively, the year got off to a slow start as the chickens were keeping me busy with mycoplasmosis, eye operations and feather-plucking, as well as the usual round of mucking out ans feeding etc, so I didn't really get back to printmakung until March. We had dates in May for our first Cowprint exhibition, Imprint, so that spurred me on as I felt that as founder and chair of the group, I ought to produce a new image. Our first session of the year had been a New Year, Old Project session where we had dug out images on which we had got stuck and bounced new ideas around. This was particularly successful for me as got this image going again and finished.

'Roll on civvie life!'  Etching and aquatint

There was a lot to organised for the exhibition and private view; advertising, the hanging, list of works, drinks, sales sheets, browsers etc. All good experience though and the exhibition looked great.  

My next project was to make my edition of 25 prints for the 20:20 print exchange run by Hot Bed Press in Salford. I've not done this project before and it's been a while since I made such a large edition (I'm not a great fan of editioning), but actually, I really enjoyed the whole process. I only pulled a couple of duff prints which signalled to me that my printing skills are vastly improved since my last biggish edition. The spit bite element of this image worked quite well too; need to explore this further.

Alektorophobia - etching, aquatint and spit bite

I've been feeling for some time now that my work needed to change direction; move on as it was feeling a little stagnant. I'd been thinking about adding extra elements, diagramatic elements and layering so in June, I did the solar plate weekend course at Red Hot Press as I thought this technique might help me speed up my processes. What a revelation! Solar plate gave me exactly what I needed in that I can use it in conjunction with etching and drypoint, printed intaglio and / or relief. The plates are quick to make and the quality of the detail is so good, I can use it to make images that would take me ages to etch and wouldn't give the effect I'm after. Here's the two-plate print I made on the course, one printed intaglio, the other relief.

'Singing Masons' - two-plate solar plate print

After that, work began in earnest on the Cowprint calendar image, a panicked combination of solar plate and drypoint as I didn't think I had time for an etching. As it happens, it worked out really well. Thank the gods of printmaking for solar plate!

'Io Saturnalia! - solar plate and drypoint print

The organising and marketing of the calendar kept me pretty busy throughout the summer 
and Autumn; it was a new experience for me working on this sort of commercial venture.

During the Summer I had work in three shows; Double Exposure and Spellbound both at Wool House, and the Red Hot Press Summer show during Open Studios. I did some volunteering at Wool House during August which was great - historically interesting and I met some lovely people.

September was all about the calendar but I also managed to squeeze in a quick 3D project - some drypoint on a plastic piggy bank for the charity fundraiser Go Pig! It was a bit last minute so didn;t work out as well as hoped... I'd quite like to try something similar again though in the interests of getting my prints 'out of the frame' so to speak. More thought needed about this.

Homage to Francis Bacon - drypoint on plastic piggy bank

 





















In November my December print hung alongside my fellow Cowprinters' calendar prints at Red Hot Press for Printer Wonderland; it was sell, sell, sell those calendars! The d.@rt Centre Christmas Fayre at the beginning of December was another first for me. Again, lots to organise but good experience.

In between all the calendar and pre-Christmas hustle and bustle, I still managed to find time to work on my last print of the year, The Chicken Murderer. In this print I was able to combine etching with solar plate for the first time in a two plate print - most satisfying. I've been using more colour this year too... not consciously, it's just the way the work has gone. This too is a good thing.

The Chicken Murderer - Etching, aquatint and solar plate

So, 2013 was a very productive year full of new ventures and exciting developments and I am very happy with the way my work is travelling. Time now to think about planning for 2014.

Finished at last

What do the Christmas holidays mean to me? More studio time! The Chicken Murderer is finished (although I need to take some good prints on good paper). I decided it needed something to link the fox and the chicken foot, hence the barbed wire. I also felt a lighter background would work better.

So, here he is in all his bitey ferociousness. Next project already under way...

then strange ground now

PB3 is finished all ready to accompany PBs 1 and 2 in the Summer show.  He was surprisingly quick to do; at least, he took a fair old time but maybe I was just more focused. Deadlines'll do that I guess.

Now for my next project...

Nearly ready to go

Here’s my edition for Green Door International Print Exchange 2012, all trimmed, numbered, titled, signed and dated. There’s nothing so satisfying as a pile of prints… a whole edition, fresh and neat. Just need to cut the tissue for wrapping and they’re all ready to go.

vires, virtus, maiestas

The image for my Green Door IPE 2012 submission is now finished, well ahead of schedule (get me) – now the business of printing the edition. It’s been awhile since I printed a whole edition but this is a mini one (just ten) and on a dinky little plate(10 x 7.5cm) so should be a joy to do (hopefully!). There’s great satisfaction to be had from tearing down the paper, pulling the prints, trimming them and cutting the tissue for wrapping; one ends up with a neat little bundle to parcel up lovingly and despatch north.

I particularly like this print exchange because it’s so well organised and the standard of work is high. The parcels of prints we receive back are so well put together and give details of those who took part and those whose prints one receives. I take my hat off to you Green Door; job well done.

Spit bite with copper sulphate

Still feeling inspired by the first meeting of our new artists’ group last week, I managed to spend a sizeable chunk of time in the studio over the weekend - and made good progress with the Captain. I tried some spit bite which wasn’t so successful. Using the copper sulphate solution straight from the bath etched a little, as you can see from the above scan; I kept adding more of the etch every five minutes or so, which produced the sort of effect I wanted. However, the bite was so shallow and delicate that I managed to remove it completely when I degreased the plate for the next aquatint. Back to the drawing board.

On googling ‘spit bite with copper sulphate’, I found this rather interesting site which recommends mixing a solution of 800g copper sulphate crystals to 1 litre of water; a much stronger solution than in the bath (which is also partially spent). The images of test strips on the site look promising so my goal for this week is to try it out.

It's all in the wiping

The background aquatint is done. It’s a bit darker than I’d planned so the text is hard to read (more so on this scanned version) but I don’t think I mind that. I warmed the plate for the final wiping of the central figure for greater contrast but left the plate cold for the background. Tried wiping it warm to make it a bit lighter but it didn’t look right.

I think this image is finished but I’m not quite sure… I’ll put it away for a few days and come back to it with fresh eyes (hopefully). In the meantime, I’ll consider what Captain PB’s up to next.

out, out towards the horizon

Finally finished working the text onto the plate; must have taken five hours just to do that bit. The text is just nonsense really. I didn’t want it to say anything specific but to suggest a sense of travelling.

This afternoon I put an aquatint on the plate to darken the area around the figure so that the text recedes a bit. There’ll be a bit of trial and error here to get the tone right; I want the background to be dark enough to bring out the figure without losing the text.

Working away on the text this weekend. It’s intricate and slow-going but with a bit of John Dowland on the old ipod, I’ve been able to get into that zen-like state where there’s nothing but the line you’re making - it takes as long as it takes. Hoping to get the majority of the text finished today so I can etch next week. My plan is then to aquatint over the text so that it sinks into the background. I have a mental image of how it will look but part of the magic of printmaking is that quite often, things turn out differently to how you imagine.

You can’t keep an old etcher down

After a hiatus of about six months, it’s good to be etching again. I started this image as a wood engraving but the call of the aquatint was too strong, so here he is on a 20 x 30 cm zinc plate. I’m trying to work more quickly and haphazardly, not so meticulously with this one so we’ll see how that approach goes; I’m pleased with how he’s coming along so far though. Working on some text to go with the image now.

Whilst I was at it, I mixed up a new batch of copper sulphate solution – quite a pleasing New Year ritual. The vibrant blue of the copper sulphate crystals and the way they turn green and yellow when mixed with salt and hot water, then back to a blue solution made me think of Spring. Not that I’m wishing my life away, but the days are getting longer now…

Lucian Freud: The Painter's Etchings

‘Etching’s not drawing exactly, but it’s a sort of drawing.’
Lucian Freud

I’ve just realised that it’s three months since I last touched an etching plate – well, worked on one that is. Three months. THREE MONTHS! That’s a quarter of a year. Way too long. I’ve been drawing and painting a bit during that time, so not completely idle creativiely, but it’s definitely time to get back to my core business.

I’ve been thinking of making some etchings with just line work; working more quickly and energetically, straight on the plate without preliminary drawings. I think I became bogged down with the process of aquatinting and with working and working and working the plate… the last few images have taken three or four months each to complete. I need some quick-fix-instant-gratification etching – not that etching is ever quick-fix exactly.

As a prelude to this, never being one to rush into things, I’ve been looking at Lucian Freud’s etchings. Fantastic things; beautiful, skilful, intuitive, sensitive, atmospheric… most definitely inspiring. Here are some for your delight and edification. And if you want to investigate further, get Lucian Freud: The Painter’s Etchings. An excellent book.