Etching and monoprint

Back to the printmaking briefly. Had a rare day printing with friends at Red Hot Press last week. Still on the Greek theme - etching and monoprints.

No escape...

Feels good to be starting a new etching... apart from my small North and South print at the beginning of the year, it’s been a while. Not quite sure where this one will go but it will have monoprinted elements as well.

A couple of months ago, we had a session looking at our progress so far with North and South. One of my fellow printmakers said to me of my image, ‘it’s very you.’ It got me thinking about the work (and lack of!) I’d been trying to make over the last eighteen months or so, and how I’d been trying to move away from narrative ‘illustrative’ images. Without much success. It was a really useful comment as it made me remember that you can’t really escape yourself when it comes to making art - you have to make the work you make. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to progress and push your work forward - it’s still perfectly possible and vital to do that. You just can’t force your work in a direction it doesn’t want to go. So, for me it’s back to weird, slightly grotesque narrative images. The techniques will change though, and that's what will push the work forward.

And if anyone is wondering where the life drawing has gone, that’s all on hold at the moment as too much other stuff going on. I imagine I'll get back to it at some point.

Looming deadlines

We're nearing the handing in deadline for our collaborative box set. Not usually a fan of printing editions but I really enjoyed this one. And what could be more satisfying than a pile of prints, trimmed, numbered, titled and signed?

Preparing for Prometheus

Had a great day monoprinting at Red Hot Press on Friday. Working on a series of prints relating to the Prometheus myth. These are a few small trial prints which I want to develop further. Still using the colour combinations found on Greek ceramics and experimenting with light on dark. Going in the right direction I think.

Weekly drawing challenge number 4

Week 4 - an excess.

What does Cerberus have if not an excess of heads?

Black biro on a piece of discarded monoprint.

A day of exprimenting

It's been a slow summer creatively for a whole raft of reasons. Did get some monoprinting done whilst covering the workshop one day last month though. Unusually, I had no plan before I went, other than monoprinting with stencils. This is what happened. 

Inking up some lace, feathers and string reminded me of dancing figures. I then started thinking about a book I'd read recently, Georgina Harding's Painter of Silence, in which one of the characters makes rather abstract faceless characters from cardboard and winds cloth and string around them. Add PBs estate agents into the mix with a side order of Drownies from Fallen London and this is what came out. A fun and productive day working very freely and spontaneously.

Almost there

I think I'm pretty well there with this image now. I'm happy the plate is done and the monoprinted background it more or less there. Too speckly in the top right corner; losing the datamongers a bit but I can sort that in the edition. Which will be variable of course. Yay!

Forging on

More changes of plan this week. Was supposed to be in London today on business but that has been postposed so I had a relatively free day to spend in the studio. Bonus.

Surging ahead with PB7, 'As flies to wanton boys': the rise of the Precariat. My brand new roller arrived today just in time for me to start experimenting with monoprinted backgrounds to pull this image together. It's beginning to take shape now, though there's still a lot to do. I'm clearer about where it's going now so hopefully on track to finish it well in time for Imprint2 next month.

Monoprinting

It's been good to have a couple of days in the studio this weekend; all that essay-writing and data work was sapping my creativity. I'm now thinking about monoprinting and preparing for a course I'll be teaching soon so here are a couple of direct monoprints of Netley Abbey, a late mediaeval monastry, now just ruins, fairly near here. I had fun with the old stonework in this technique... suits it quite well I think. These were very quick to do, just a couple of hours each, so a change from etching which always seem to take me months to finish.

 

Patience

Of the last thirty days, we have visited a hospital or doctors' surgery on 15 of them. That's a lots of medical appointments... all for the Aged P of course. It is stressful and exhausting and that's before you've started on all the personal care at home etc, but such is caring for an elderly person in declining health (whilst holding down a job and an art career which is getting busier by the day (a good thing!).

The art-making has suffered this month though; don't really have the energy for etching at the moment. Have made a couple of monoprints however, developing some of the waiting area drawings. Not sure where these are going at the moment... just doodling really but I'm hopeful they will evolve into something interesting.

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.