It's up!

 

After all the months of hard work and preparation, Scratching the Surface is up. We hung the show last Tuesday - Sarah, Sheila, Deb and myself. It took longer than we thought it would; 42 prints fitted into a tricky space like a giant jigsaw. It's always the same - you start off by thinking you're never going to be able to fit it all in, but we always manage somehow.

 

Hanging an exhibition is always fun, if a little stressful at times. We were racing against the clock by the end of the afternoon; the last wall was hung in record time. We're all very pleased with how it looks though.

The private view was well attended and the show is on until 16 June. Wander along and have a look.

Scratching the Surface
Jewry Street gallery
The Art Cafe
De Lunn Buildings
Winchester

 

Monday evening printmaking

Bee by Alison

I am in the middle of teaching a block of six intaglio printing sessions at Red Hot Press. So far the group have produced some lovely drypoints (see photos) and made card cut plates. We'll print these at the next session, then round off the course with two weeks of etching (saving the best until last of course!).

Expressive life drawing by Elwyn

Adrian's stormy ram

Yvonne's delicate flowers

Cementing processes

Monoprint

I wanted to make sure that I'd got what we learned on Ali's course firmly fixed in my mind so I hooked out a drawing from a sketch book and went through the whole process again; first a monoprint to get to know the image again, then the drypoint.

Drypoint

I used zinc this time. It was hard work to get the roulette wheel to make decent marks - I had to rely much more on cross hatching so this print isn't as successful as my last which was much looser and more sketchy. Back to aluminium for drypoint I think.

Wiping was better this time - think I've got the hang of it although more practice needed of course. This print only took just over a week to complete and pull three good prints so am hoping this technique will help me increase my output too. It's all good.

Ali Yanya's drypoint masterclass

Drypoint print

What a great weekend we had last week. It started on the Friday evening with a talk by Ali Yanya who showed us some of his work and talked about his techniques and processes. He also gave us some background; he studied in Istanbul and at the Royal College of Art where Tracy Emin and the Chapman Brothers were his contemporaries. He talked also about the themes in his work and about how he draws every day to keep his hand in. This is something I really need to get into the habit of. It was a fascinating talk and a perfect start to the masterclass.

Monoprint

The course itself ran through Saturday and Sunday; Ali began by having us make a monoprint of the image we were going make a drypoint from. The monoprint was to enable us to get to know our image - the form, tone, light and dark - before we started on the drypoint itself. I've dabbled with monoprinting before but never been able to get it to work properly; last weekend, I discovered why - too much ink. With just a thin layer on the plate, I was able to make the above monoprint. I could get addicted.

Then on to the drypoint itself (see the finished print above). I thought I knew how to make drypoints but last weekend was a revelation; I felt like I knew nothing. Having only ever made them on perspex and renalon, working on aluminium with roulette wheels, needles and mezzotint rockers was a whole new experience. I was able to get a really expressive, 'drawing-like' effect, similar to my own rather loose style of drawing. It's great! Again, I may well be addicted. I struggled with wiping the plate though, consistently over-wiping. Etchers have to put aside the usual practise of taking off as much ink as possible; to get the richest, velvety colours, a lot of ink is left on a drypoint plate which is wiped selectively to bring out contrast. Ali Yanya almost draws or paints with the scrim when wiping. This particular aspect of drypoint printing is going to take me a while to master I think.

All in all, an intense, rewarding weekend that really stretched me as a printmaker. This is a good thing as it's so easy to get complacent about ones work and skills. Ali is an excellent tutor, patient, encouraging and very generous with his knowledge. If you ever get a chance to go on one of his courses, GO. You won't regret it.

Influences 6 - Ali Yanya

Ali Yanya ~ Conversation, Drypoint, 2014

  

At Red Hot Press, we've just have the privilege of being taught for two days by Ali Yanya, master of drypoint, mezzotint and etching. His drypoint is so rich and tonal which he creates not only with a whole range of marks on the plate, but also with very delicate wiping, almost like painting on the plate with the scrim.

Ali Yanya ~ Portrait of my father, drypoint, 2013

Ali Yanya focuses mainly on figures in his work (right up my street!). There's a mystery to these figures, things left unexplained. What are the two men talking about in Conversation? Why is the newspaper blank in Man reading a newspaper and what are the two shadowy figures behind him? His composition is amazing too; in Portrait of my father, all but the head and a band is left white, and the diagonal band of black which locates the head and gives it weight. Fabulous.

More to follow on the workshop itself.

Ali Yanya ~ Man reading a newspaper, drypoint monotype, 2014

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.

Homage to Francis Bacon

I had another creative project on the go this summer, a slightly more unusual one. It was a charity fundraiser called Go Pig!, started by a colleague at work to run in tandem with the Go Rhino! initiative, a community project set up by Marwell Zoo to raise awareness of the conservation issues surrounding rhinos in the wild. Large rhino sculptures were decorated by local artists and placed around Southampton for people to enjoy. And very popular it was too.

Our pigs are somewhat smaller (transparent plastic piggy banks) but all two hundred were distributed swiftly with the brief to decorate and fill with cash by whatever means; this will be donated to the same charities as Go Rhino!.

Something like 70 of the 200 pigs have been decorated so far and photos sent back to my colleague to put on the intranet at work. There are some fabulous creations and pig-related puns abound.

I thought my own contribution ought to have a printmaking element to it so I have made a portrait of Francis Bacon (see what I did there? Groan...) in what is effectively drypoint on one side of the pig. My plan was to shine a strong light through it so the engraved grooves would cast a shadow, showing Bacon's face. As the pig fills with coins (hopefully), the shadow will gradually disappear but the portrait will appear in white on the pig itself. That was my plan. I have got some really great shadows from flat perspex drypoint plates in the past (a useful way to see what the final print might look like) but concave plastic - or is it convex? - that's not so simple. Add to that the fact that the plastic fractured as I engraved it, and the white spirit I used to take the permanent marker drawing off with turned the plastic opaque, and you will understand me when I say that it didn't turn out quite as I had hoped. Not my finest hour... which is somewhat embarrassing as I had a few people telling me they were expecting Great Things from me. We covered a lot of stuff on my Fine Art degree course but decorating plastic piggy banks got missed off the syllabus somehow. Or maybe I was away that day...

Anyway, picture of the shadow above and drypointed side below.

Tinkering with drypoint and etching

These are some recent drypoint doodles just for something quick and easy to do.  the second pull is actually better I think - the first is a bit too dark.

This etched pinecone isn't finished yet, needs more tone to 3D it up a bit (technical term).  Maybe more line work, maybe some aquatint.  Looking a bit lip-like at the moment.  It's actually part of a larger image which I'm working on so the foul bite will be taken care of. 

Cardcut workshop

How nice it is to be able to just get up and walk away from one’s work and not have to pack everything up. The luxury of a studio.

Think I’ve done as much on the cockle as I can for the moment – need to etch and proof before I can do any more so that will have to wait until I can get down to the workshop; not for another three weeks unfortunately. Need to buy my own press!

Will be teaching a cardcut workshop soon (subject to enrolments) so I need to do some prep for that. This will be a two-day course, Saturday and Sunday, which I’ve not done before. In the past, it’s been offered as consecutive Saturdays, giving plenty of time for students to finish plates and varnish to dry, so will see how this goes. Teaching is exhausting but I do enjoy it. It’s great to see what the students produce having learnt a new technique. And I’m always up for a bit of printmaking evangelism!

Top:Jo Price

Ginger Nut

Bartleby Series

Cardcut and drypoint

Edition: 15

Bottom:Jo Price

Mr Boythorn's Canary
Bleak House Series
Cardcut and drypoint
Edition: 15
All images copyright Jo Price

Wood engraving
What's that all about? I'm an intaglio printmaker by default; etching, drypoint and cardcuts. Personal circumstances, those annoying things that get in the way of one doing what one really wants to do, have all but wrenched the etching needle out of my inky hand and taken away the copper sulphate bath.

After a period of vowing never to print again, here I am, spitsticker in hand, discovering the wonders of end grain boxwood, lemon, pear and maple. Mostly maple because I'm not rich or very good. However, I am hopelessly hooked.