Last week was a productive week. Not only did I finish a plate I’d been working on for far too long, but my website redesign was completed and the new site went live. The latter was courtesy of the excellent Martin Davis of Still-Moving.co.uk. The final result is quite different to how I originally envisaged it – and much better I think.
Last week, I was really excited to receive my package from Green Door Print Studio in Derby containing prints by ten other participants in the exchange. This is the first time I’ve taken part and only the second year the exchange has been running; 103 printmakers from 11 different countries took part.
I’ve participated in other exchanges but this one has been the best so far, partly because it’s so well organised and professionally presented. The standard of work is high too. A particularly useful aspect is the personalised insert within the folio detailing whose prints I’ve received and who my prints have been sent to. Well done and thank you to the Johnson family for all their hard work.
I received prints from Candice Perry, Chris Rollins, Gina Louthian-Stanley, Judith G Leppert, Julianna Joos, Kirsten Kinnear, Michelle Keegan and Pat Crombie. These should be available to view on the exchange website shortly.
The last couple of weeks have been enjoyably busy in a printmakerly way. I spent a large part of the bank holiday weekend holed up in the studio looking through packaged prints and printing older plates to ‘stock’ my Etsy shop. I rarely revisit old plates, even though I haven’t printed the whole edition, but it was quite fun relearning the plates… remembering where to wipe more for cleaner whites, where to let the ink sit for a richer tone, which to tonk before pulling the final print. No sales on Etsy yet but a couple of my prints have been included in treasuries (these are themed collections of items for sale which Etsy members put together and publish on the site; a little help with advertising has to be a good thing). I also had a meeting with a web designer to discuss revamping my website – get me! That made me really think about my target audience and the message I want to give. I learnt some useful stuff about marketing and how the web works so I’m all fired up to get the overhaul underway.
Production has been slow over the last year or so, partly owing to learning new techniques and partly by experiencing a creative bottleneck (there’s also that little thing called life which tends to get in the way too). I’ve not taken up so many exhibiting opportunities this year so I’m feeling the need to focus on getting my work out there.
Two things which have been on my To Do list for some time are overhauling my website and setting up an Etsy shop. The first I’m going to need some help with but the second I’ve already made a start on. The shop is set up and I’ve listed a couple of prints already. Now comes the fun part of seeing what else I have in stock and what needs printing. Who knows if I’ll make any sales but I’ve nothing to lose in trying.
It was a varied couple of days in the studio this weekend. I spent time working on an etching (printing and aquatinting) and did some layout and design on a leaflet for a friend who’s just going into business; two quite different activities.
I also threw some painting into the mix. A big box of oil paints and gesso arrived on Friday, so on Sunday, I started a self portrait (24” by 18”). It was a very interesting experience. I don’t like what I produced but considering it’s been about 23 years since I last painted (and never in oils), it could have been a lot worse! A portrait was maybe a little ambitious to start with but it’s what I’m drawn to (pardon the pun).
My etchings are predominantly monochrome so using colour will be good practice for me. I enjoyed the freedom and immediacy of mixing the paint and moving it around on the gessoed surface, being able to build up layers so quickly. The etching process takes so long – which I quite enjoy – but it made a pleasant change to be able to work swiftly with the paint.
Even though this was very much a practice piece, I want to work on it some more, playing with colour and light and dark. I was surprised to find this afternoon that most of the paint is dry already, just two days after it was painted. I was expecting it to take much longer. My knowledge of the technicalities of oil painting is virtually non-existent so steep learning curve ahead.
Just recently, I’ve developed a strong desire to paint. Odd because in the last six years, I’ve been rather stubborn about NOT painting, seeing myself as a hardcore printmaker and nothing else. Short-sighted I admit; several people have told me lately that painting would help my etching, especially now that I’m using aquatint in quite a painterly way. I blame my old adversary, time – there never seems to be enough of it for printmaking, never mind painting. 
I love etching and still have 
much to learn and master, but I think part of the painting urge has to do with size. I’m limited in how big I can work by my press and I think I want to work really large for a change. My head is reasoning with my intuition and says that practically, it’s not a good thing to do (time, space, cost…) but my intuition says do it. And as I’ve decided (rationally of course) that I need to listen to the latter more, it’s time to head off to buy paint.
Top: Self-Portrait: Reflection, Lucian Freud, 2002
Middle: Lucian Freud
Bottom: Decisions, Stuart Luke Gatherer
Following on from my Art practice as meditation? post, I thought I’d share a passage of the book I’m reading at the moment – Wherever You Go, There You Are by mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn.
‘Non-doing has nothing to do with being indolent or passive. Quite the contrary. It takes great courage and energy to cultivate non-doing, both in stillness and activity. Nor is it easy to make a special time for non-doing and to keep at it in the face of everything in our lives which needs to be done.
But non-doing doesn’t have to be threatening to people who feel they always have to get things done. They might find they get even more “done,” and done better, by practicing non-doing. Non-doing simply means letting things be and allowing them to unfold in their own way. Enormous effort can be involved, but it is a graceful, knowledgeable, effortless effort, a “doerless doing,” cultivated over a lifetime.
Effortless activity happens at moments in dance and in sports at the highest levels of performance; when it does, it takes everybody’s breath away. But it also happens in every area of human activity, from painting to car repair to parenting. Years of practice and experience combine on some occasions, giving rise to a new capacity to let execution unfold beyond technique, beyond exertion, beyond thinking. Action then becomes a pure expression of art, of being, of letting go of all doing – a merging of mind and body in motion. We thrill in watching a superb performance, whether athletic or artistic, because it allows us to participate in the magic of true mastery, to be uplifted, if only briefly, and perhaps to share in the intention that each of us, in our own way, might touch such moments of grace and harmony in the living of our own lives.’
I sloshed my way up to the Bankside Gallery in London on Saturday to have a look at the annual RE show which was as rich and varied as always. It’s a bit of a two-edged sword for me because I find it inspiring and motivating but at the same time, a bit depressing as it reminds me of how little time I get to work on my art. A print that really caught my eye was Decadensian by Frederick Morris, a newly-elected student member of the Society. This large etching and aquatint appealed to my penchant for atmosphere and narrative. It reminded me of an updated version of Hogarth’s
During the duration of the show, several of the participants have given demonstrations of their particular medium; Angie Lewin and Gail Brodholt were giving linocut and wood engraving demos on Saturday. Still to come are demonstrations in linocutting, wood engraving and etching by Roy Willingham, Daphne Casdagli and Kate Dicker. The show ends on Sunday 6 June.
I’ve developed an interest in meditation recently. This had nothing to do with my art making initially; it was in response to the emotional and physical strain of over two years of caring for elderly parents with dementia whilst trying to juggle the day job as a children’s social care data analyst, make art, run a home and have a social life. Throw in the countless other things that have to be dealt with and it leaves my brain feeling a little fried at times, something that a lot of people can sympathise with I’m sure. Life for most people these days is hectic at best. ‘Good morning Mr Spearman!’
As the clatter of the shop door closing subsided, all rattling glass and jangling bells, a behatted head appeared above the counter.
‘Ah. Miss Moir.’
‘I have some choice samples for you today Mr Spearman.’ Lycoris Moir reached inside her oversized gabardine and pulled out her notebook with a flourish. The pages flapped and a fine shower of what one would imagine was dust fluttered out and tumbled in the air, catching the sunlight. Instinctively Spearman went to reach forward, then checked himself.
‘Careful Miss Moir, you’ll be spoiling the contraband.’ Spearman’s boot-button eyes blinked rapidly; he appeared nervous.
‘Nonsense Mr Spearman! Contraband indeed! This is a perfectly legitimate service we perform. If only people knew Mr Spearman, if only people knew. They would thank us. Indeed.’ The datamonger looked doubtful and noticing some coppery specks on the glass counter, snatched a cloth from somewhere behind him and rubbed quickly at the glass. It left a smear. Beneath lay large enamel trays containing numbers; some made of copper, some brass, and of varying sizes, piled up just anyhow.
‘I hear Mr Wheelwright’s had a busy week,’ Spearman stuffed the cloth into the back pocket of his trousers and manoeuvred his bulk around Lycoris and hurried to the door. He pushed across the two bolts and let slip the catch so that the door was locked and turned the open sign around to read CLOSED to any potential customers. He scuttled back round Lycoris, who had remained where she was, unmoved by his obvious unease, and towards a doorway at the back of the shop. Spearman drew aside the beaded curtain and extended a hand towards Lycoris, a beckoning gesture.
‘Do come through Miss Moir.’
As mentioned in my previous post, I was able to spend quite a large portion of the Easter weekend working on my Green Door print exchange submission; the Datamonger. This image came about as a result of a conversation I had with Georgia, fellow data analyst. I’d been telling her about a trip to the local fishmonger (what exciting lives we lead!) and she decided that as data analysts-cum-statisticians, we are datamongers.
The few days over the bank holiday weekend have been quite intensely printmakerish and really rather good. As well as getting plenty of studio time to work on my Green Door print exchange submission (more on that later), I was able to see Urban Evolution, an exhibition of prints by Anne Desmet at St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery in Lymington. It’s an intimate space, ideal for her linocuts, wood engravings and collages, most of which focus on architectural themes. That’s an extremely inadequate way to describe the exhibition - Anne Desmet takes wood engraving to a whole new level – but I think I need to digest the exhibition catalogue before I can say more. Today at Red Hot Press, I had the opportunity to see a demonstration of a new etching ground developed by Andrew Baldwin at
Image: Anne Desmet, Deserted Pool VMB, linocut 2007
In past years the show has felt a bit samey; same people showing the same kind of work, but this year, there seemed to be much more of a range of techniques and styles. In Venetian Diary III, Mila Furstova had wrapped her etchings of Venetian buildings in sheets of clear acetate covered in handwritten text, rolled into tubes. Jenny Smith’s Circles II and Circles IV are laser cut screen prints, combining a traditional printmaking technique with the relatively new technology of laser cutting. Carol Hensher specialises on printing on fabric; My fingers grasp at floating feathers comprises four white silk evening gloves with hands printed on them using lithographic methods. Fiona Hepburn cuts out hundreds of tiny woodcut and screen prints and fixes them in clusters using pins to create intricate fungal and bacterial forms.
My own tastes are more traditional; I find myself drawn to
figurative works with something of a narrative in them. Personal favourites were Jessie Brennan’s Six Boys, Catherine Anne Hiley’s Untitled I (Dietrich) and Untitled III (Orhan), and Katherine Jones’s Magenta Strip. These are just a few; in a show like Originals, there are so many prints to look at it can be quite overwhelming. Whilst there, we had the pleasant surprise of bumping into Katherine Anteney, one of the directors of Red Hot Press Printmaking Workshop here in 
All in all, it was a really interesting show this year, well worth a visit. Shall look forward to Originals 11.
Images:
Katherine Jones, Magenta Strip
Catherine Anne Hiley, Untitled III (Orhan)
Jessie Brennan, Six Boys
On Tuesday, I paid a visit to Metal Supermarkets here in Was lucky enough to squeeze a couple of studio hours in this afternoon, between the chores, family stuff and general domestic flim-flam, so prepared a couple of small test plates for line work and aquatinting. I’m still getting a grip on how aquatinting works on zinc so this probably isn’t the best time to be experimenting with a new material, but there we are. And the aluminium does indeed feel and look very different to zinc when etched. It seems to take a lot longer to bite in the copper sulphate solution and the marks left around the particles of resin look very different too. Even the inking and wiping feels different and the weight and density of the plate in the hand. Odd how familiar one can get with (and attached to I suppose) the feel of a piece of metal.
The photos show the difference between pine resin aquatint on aluminium (top) and zinc (bottom).
I’ve always wanted to have a go at mezzotinting; I love the soft, velvety quality which can be quite ethereal at times. I don’t fancy rocking my own plates though and my burnishing skills need improving so, for practice, I’ve aquatinted a plate and bitten it all over. This gave me a grey surface to start with and allowed me to burnish the image up.
A recent life drawing gave me a fairly simple form to start off with as I didn’t want to do anything too detailed (hence the headless torso!). It’s quite hard to see what you’re doing actually; I don’t know whether it’s easier on a mezzotint but it’s a bit trial and error on my aquatinted plate.
I don’t think I left the plate in the etch long enough though – I’d like to try again and bite it darker next time so I can get a better range of tone. I shall continue to tinker with this plate, maybe bite it again. That’s the great thing about etching, you can keep reworking the plate. Etching rocks.
