Carving lino blocks for a companion book to ‘A Short History of Hair’. Hats are also in the pipeline...
Seasonal production line
Gearing up for the annual production line of Christmas card stamping...
printmaking + animation
Inspired to investigate basic animation after a brilliant talk by Joshua Gaunt and Catherine Cartwright at yesterday's 'Redefining Print' symposium organised by Double Elephant Print Workshop in Exeter.
Forest
The first set of 'Forest' double concertina books have sold like hot cakes, so I've made up a new batch. Available now in the shop...
Pattern pimping
Using rubber and photo polymer stamps to add pattern to Paperchase blank notebooks.
Unimagined Treasures
A rather belated post on the wonderful Mark Hearld exhibition ‘Unimagined Treasures’ at York Art Gallery. I only had half an hour before the gallery closed to spend at the exhibition, but could easily have lost the best part of an afternoon. Mark Hearld has created a Lumber Room – “a room of miscellaneous stored objects and artefacts” curated and created following two years of visiting the stores of the Yorkshire Museum, York Castle Museum and York Art Gallery. Many of the objects and artworks in the exhibition have never been on display before. The eclectic mix reminded me of the folk art exhibition by Barbara Jones ‘Black Eyes and Lemonade’ with shades of the bizarre collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. In addition to the curation of this collection, he also commissioned pieces (including the stunning seahorse sign above by The Brilliant Sign Company) and created his own new work: “Works made by me in paper, pot and paint respond to the collection and celebrate its richness and delight to be had in looking on it.” A real visual treat.
Autumn leaves
A seasonal experiment in stencil printing...
Sheffield International Artist's Book Prize exhibition
Clockwise from top left:
• Margit Rijnaard – Untitled, 2015 (cut book with irregular grids)
• Hei Shing Chan – Poetry of a Friend
• Charlene Asato – Lyrical Movement
• Gemma Mackenzie – No Start, No Finish
Left to right:
• Leci Bohn – Fole XYZ
• Jack Oudyn & Helen Malone – Paper, Scissors, Uluru
• Mehr Javed – Object-Book I
• Islam Aly – Orientation Cube
• Kate Castelli – Razzle Dazzle
• Dizzy Pragnell – Of Cabbages and Kings
• Cathey Webb – On the Radio
A trip up north was a good excuse to visit Bank Street Arts in Sheffield to see this year's International Artist's Book Prize exhibition. There was a selection process this year, so it was considerably smaller than the last exhibition in 2013, but it was still a very eclectic and interesting mix. As my selected photos show, I have a definite preference for folded books. Really excited to see Cathey Webb's book 'On the Radio' - the linocut book she made for the project I set when teaching on the Book Arts course at Spike Print back in April. Very impressed with how she finished it off and brilliant to see it selected. Ironically, my book in the exhibition ('A Short History of Hair') was made as a sample book for that project, and we're even alongside each other in the catalogue as two W surnames. The exhibition runs until the end of October...
Last but not least
My final stencil print from the evening course. Very quick to cut and print… a nice bit of instant gratification to round things off. The most successful prints were the ones with lots of roller textures - not quite like a relief print and not quite like a screenprint. I can now see how I can use this process with other techniques. Many thanks to the excellent tutor, Sophie Rae, for a really inspiring course.
Stencil swan
Final week of my stencil evening course and I’m finally starting to understand how I can use the process in my work. Even though they are technically monoprints, I’ve found myself naturally gravitating back to printing an edition. This is useful to compare slight differences though, like density of ink, roller direction and colour combinations.
RWA Annual Open Exhibition 2015
'Fledgling' – Sally Muir (potato print and gouache)
A very inspiring visit to the Autumn Exhibition at the RWA… a really strong year, and great to see a lot more printmaking selected. Especially impressed by the inclusion of a delicate potato print by the very talented Sally Muir… really worth a visit.
First stencil prints
Four colour stencil print on Somerset paper
Four colour stencil print onto plywood
The original stencils before printing
A really enjoyable couple of hours printing at the Folk House stencil evening class… I adapted my 'pot plant' linocut design to make a simple four colour stencil print. Interesting to see how the colour (Caligo safe wash ink) stays saturated on the plywood. I prefer the build up of texture on the paper prints though - it gives the image an extra dimension that's often missing from lino prints. By varying the direction and pressure of rolling, it's possible to differentiate between the foreground and background. The working life of one stencil is obviously limited - I did five prints from these stencils, but I think you could possibly push it to a run of ten prints.
Stencil scamps
Working out stencil print colour combinations for this week's evening class...
Heading South
Packaging up books ready to hand over to the lovely Sarah Bodman to take along to Counter – Plymouth Art Book Fair (Saturday 24 October at KARST).
Stencils + folding
Playing around with patterned papers made on the stencil monoprint course - the random nature of the stencilling is an interesting combination with the geometric folds.
Stencilicious
Just started a new evening class at the wonderful Folk House in Bristol - ‘Monoprinting with Stencils’ run by Sophie Rae. It was a really enjoyable first week, getting stuck in straight away. Just basic shapes with water-based ink, but I was amazed at the variety of tone and texture you can get with just using a roller. Lots of possibilities, but my first thought is that this would be an ideal method for printing patterned endpapers.
Some of my fellow exhibitors…
reduction woodcuts by Caroline Case
woodcuts and bronze/resin castings by Lin Biesheuvel
drypoints by Alison Sloggett
enamel bowls by Karen Murrell
etchings by Barbara Bluett
‘The Emerald City’ screenprint by Rebecca Weeks
The ‘Second Nature’ exhibition at The Island in Bristol by The Out of Print Collective.
Ready to roll
Phew, exhibition all set up at The Island. I’ve used various acrylic plate stands and jewellery display plinths to display my books - it definitely seems to help to give them some height without cluttering things up too much.
Hope to see you at the exhibition - opens tomorrow (4 September) and runs until 5pm on 9 September.