Cowprint calendar is coming together!

What a great Cowprint meeting we had on Tuesday evening! It was handing-in day for the calendar images; everyone made the deadline and brought along beautiful images, all very different but all complimenting each other very well indeed. It was a real joy to lay them all out in order, and quite extraordinary how, despite us all going away and doing our own thing, they all flowed from month to month so well. There's a surprising continuity between them which is very pleasing.

Now all that remains to be done is the final scanning and formatting (all thanks to Irene) and it's off to the printer. We're printing just 200 and I'm hoping they will fly off the shelves. If you want one, place your order soon!

 

Front cover: Tim Watson
June: Ruth Barrett-Danes
December: Jo Price

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.

Chicken murderer

Okay. On to the next image. This is for my lovely, cheery, unruly chooks who were untimely despatched by a murderous fox in July. I miss them, even though they trashed the garden and forced me out of bed early on cold winter mornings. And the eggs - oh the eggs... Those I really miss too. Even the best organic ones don't come close.


Anyway, this image will be a two-plate print; etching and aquatint and solar plate. Colour, Texture, line, diagramatic elements... I think my work is moving forward in the way I wanted.

Studio update

Dear me it's been a busy old summer. I've had work in three exhibitions, finished my 20:20 edition, Cowprint calendar print, Go Pig! pig and started on a new image. And in between making cups of coffee for visitors at Wool House and erecting gazebos in the rain for the Red Hot Press Wayzgoose, I've also had the house rewired courtesy of the amiable Simon.

As quiet, tidy and efficient as the aforementioned was, it was three weeks of disruption; much moving of furniture and general 'stuff' from one room to another until there was nowhere left to move it, here in the House of a Thousand Extension Leads. We are more or less done now though, and a good job it is too; well overdue so a massive weight off my mind. Thank you Simon.

I also took the opportunity to have the studio rewired and extra lighting and sockets put in. With a little bit more painting of the walls done, it's really beginning to look like a proper studio. I have much more space to work in now too; major work on property always affords a good opportunity to have a clear out and pass on unwanted items to those who can make use of them. I still had a lot of my dad's machinery and power tools from when he built his aircraft so these now have a new home at the Gosport Men's Shed, newly-founded by Martin Corrick of The Navigation Log fame.


So, with the studio sorted, the calendar image done and almost ready to print, I have no excuse not to get on with making new work and hopefully increase my output a bit. First of all, I think a bit of a sit down is needed...

 

One out, three in

 
We took down Double Exposure at Wool House last week and submitted for Spellbound... and so all three pirate babies toddled onto the walls of the 14th Century wool store; the first time they've all hung together. Although it may not be obvious, they fit quite well with the brief - 'dreams, stories and imaginings that connect us to the wider world'. As I've bearded on about in previous posts, these are stories of an imagined journey combined with some autobiographical stuff. The third image, 'Then strange ground now', is about the homesickness I felt when we returned 'home' to the UK in the 70s. Southampton was home to my parents who had emigrated to Canada in 1953. To me, home was Seattle, Washington where I'd spent the first five or so years of my life. Being dragged from there, where it was always sunny; where there was plenty of space and the colours were vivid, to this other 'home', where little brick houses squeezed shoulder to shoulder, stretching up into the cluttered sky and grey people puttered along narrow, wiggly roads in tiny cars; where it rained constantly... I can still feel that lump in my stomach now, just remembering the journey from the airport. 

Of course, those feelings didn't last too long and although never forgotten, the life in Seattle was carefully stored away in the memory banks of past experience. I do find it odd though, how easily and how strongly I can still feel that particular experience. Indelible; etched on my psyche.


height over flat water, high suspended nothing, then strange ground now, looming, towers tight close-huddling, colour-losing grey damp, dull heartsick ache...

Cowprint

The Artists' Group has a new name and its own logo - get us! We will launch this on our 2014 calendar which will be available in November. We're receiving pre-orders already...

'Tis done!

And here's the finished piece with drypoint Roman lamps and dice printed over the solar plate. Not sure how much of a sense of festiveness it gives but I'm quite pleased with the composition and movement in it.

Saturnalia continued

Here is a proof of the first of my two-plate image for December. It's progressing very slowly and feels somewhat like pulling teeth. I don't know if it's down to some innate obstinacy but I really struggle with working to a brief rather than Doing My Own Thing - however wide the brief is.

Anyway, I am gradually squeezing out an image. I'm thinking that this plate will be printed in blue and sepia, with a second drypoint plate over printed in a rich yellow (blue and gold were the predominant colours used during Saturnalia). I was going to used gold ink but I don't think that will reproduce well for the calendar.

Normally I would have made an etching and aquatint but we're on quite a tight schedule for this project; tight for me anyway because I work oh so very slowly. I'm panicking a bit about meeting the deadline and solar plate is so much quicker, if less satisfying. I'm trying to see it as a good thing though as it's really challenging me and forcing me to work in different ways. I think I'm probably stuck in an etching rut a bit... and my output is fairly feeble so hopefully this is giving me the necessary kick up the backside.

And so, on to the next project. The artists' group (we now have a name - more on that later) is producing a calendar for 2014; we each drew a month at random and will make a print relevant to that month. I drew December. No Christmas references from me - I'm basing mine on the Roman festival of Saturnalia which ran from 17 to 24 December. I guess in many ways it was like a precursor to how we celebrate Christmas now as they did many of the things we do - feasting, gift-giving, decorating their houses with greenery. However the Roman festival was based around the worship of Saturn, god of agriculture, harvest and abundance.  One of the central elements was role reversal; masters dressed as slaves and waited on their servants, and gambling, usually illegal was allowed at this time.

More on this as the project progresses.

Double Exposure

Creative opportunities are coming thick and fast at the moment. Friday night, we had the private view of Double Exposure, an exhibition of original prints by Red Hot Press members, and a whole range of work, from painting, drawing and sculpture to digital installations by the artists at unit11studios.

The exhibition is housed at the recently reopened Wool House, a 14th Century building here in Southampton that used to house the city's maritime museum. That was its last use anyway; as the name suggests, it was originally build to store wool for export to the continent. It's a wonderful place - a stone structure with a beautiful wooden-beamed vaulted ceiling. The building has been closed for the last year or so as the artefacts have been transferred to the new SeaCity Museum (once the magistrates court).



The Wool House Project has been set up by Element Arts, a group of local creative who are passionate about the arts and really committed to doing what they can to promote it in the city. As with all the small arts organisations in Southampton, they have no money and are staffed by dedicated volunteers who give of their time generously. Element Arts, Red Hot Press, A Space, the Art House to name just four; without these, Southampton would revert to the near cultural dessert it was ten, fifteen years ago. What a privilege it is to be involved in this burgeoning creative scene.

Double Exposure is on until 2 September 2013.
 
 

Ceremonial

Here they are, all 25, printed, cut to size, numbered, titled and signed. Most satisfying. I finished printing them a couple of days ago and in the evening, when the last one had come off the press, I had the most contented feeling of completion. It felt almost like a ritual... ceremonial as I cleaned and dried the plate for the last time, covered it in grease, wrapped it, labelled it and stowed it carefully on the shelf with my other finished plates. It was a strange feeling; a feeling of finality but in a good way. The feeling of a job well done. Can't say I've noticed the feeling before... it wasn't unpleasant. It's been quite a long haul this project; it's been a few years since I printed an edition bigger than ten, and each of these took an hour to ink, wipe and pull. I only pulled two duff ones in an edition of 25 though so that's not bad. I've improved somewhat since the last big edition where I must have printed almost twice as many rejects as good prints.

So, 20:20 is done, wrapped in tissue paper and ready to hand over (though not for a while yet) and it's straight on to the next project: the Artists' Group 2014 calendar. Watch this space.

20:20

The projects are coming thick and fast at the moment. The Artists' Group is about to start a new project (more of that in coming months) and I've just finished my plate for 20:20.

20:20 is a print exchange with a difference in that it works on a print workshop level. I'm taking part as a member of Red Hot Press of course; 20 of us are submitting our editions of 25 prints on paper 20 x 20 cm. It's run by Hot Bed Press in Salford - further details here.

Alektorophobia
Etching, aquatint and spit bite
15 x 15 cm
Edition: 25

Photopolymer etching or solar plate

That's what I learnt how to make this weekend at Red Hot Press. It was a great two-day workshop in which we created intaglio and relief plates. The above is a two-plate print; the sepia is intaglio and the yellow, relief (that's supposed to be a honeycomb by the way, not tyre tracks through road marking paint. Having painstakingly laid out the intaglio element of the print, I was rather winging it with the relief. I quite like it though - not bad for a first attempt).

My plan is to use this technique in conjunction with regular etching and possibly some monoprint thrown in for good measure. The detail you can get using the solar plates is amazing and far exceeded my expectations - the bug wings for example. I'd like to introduce some diagrammatic elements into my images and this technique seems ideal for that (it is an industrial process after all). Hopefully it will speed things up as well - no more spending a couple of days solid transferring copperplate handwriting backwards onto a plate!

Studio revamp

The studio is undergoing something of a transformation at the moment. I’ve been using it for about four years now; it’s a lovely space and I feel very privileged to have it but as I slide further into middle age, I find I’m struggling with the lack of natural light in there. My eyesight seems to be deteriorating exponentially and etching plates are particularly difficult to work on in poor light.

 

So, having had a good clear out (the studio was stuffed full of chicken paraphernalia from over the winter and generally in a total mess), I removed some of the shelving and racks on the walls and am in the process of painting them white. I’m about a third of the way done so far – painting brick is a slow process – but already I’m noticing a difference.  The next job is to have the place completely rewired with more sockets and lighting added. After that, I shall investigate some sky lights which is what will really transform the place. So, watch this (creative) space.

ImPrint: it’s up!

 Yes indeed, the work is hung, the official opening had, the wine drunk and even a few prints and cards sold. The show comprises a diverse range of work by ten members of the Red Hot Press Artists’ Group and one of the studio directors: linocuts, card cuts, wood engravings, wood cuts, collagraphs, mono prints, gum transfer prints, drypoint, etchings and aquatints. All print life is here – well, most of it anyway. Certainly we covered most of what Red Hot Press is able to offer facilities for, the one exception being screen printing.

As a group, we’ve only been meeting just over a year, so it was an ideal opportunity to celebrate what we’ve been working on over that time; and having a deadline to work towards is always a good motivator. It was great to see the end products of projects we’d watched develop over the last few months, all of which were of a very high standard. A thoroughly satisfying first outing for the Artists’ Group.