I have recently undergone a conversion moment and discovered screen printing. Rather I have discovered I can screen print and I really like the medium. My occasional past attempts have always been frustrating and disappointing so I have by passed the process but this time was different …success at last. I eventually achieved the quality of mark and the scale of imagery that I wanted. It took a lot of mistakes until I felt remotely in control of the technical aspects & registration. Most importantly I discovered I could use the medium in expressive and experimental ways.

The prints shown here are my work in progress exploring personal ways of interpreting the poppy imagery of war & remembrance. Trying to make new work with poppy symbolism that might be even remotely original and personal was a daunting process. However, technique and subject matter worked together. As is so often the case the process combined with chance & accident to become the generator driving ideas.

This weekend at Llanfair Waterdine http://www.llink.org.uk/art.html and at the Grange in Ellesmere http://www.thegrange.uk.com/Grange/Book_Arts_Open_Day.html the first prints and the artists books made with them will go on show.

 

 

Taking part in arts events means that I must review my work no matter if it has been done months or even years ago to see if it is suitable to exhibit. The Chester Print Fair this weekend is no exception. On the poster it states …. prints from £10. That offers me the challenge to clear out and sell past work I have moved on from. I always find it hard to decide on a price for my work and now I need to determine that something is worth only £10 or maybe £15 or even £20. Should selection be determined by size, failure to sell, age, or because it has been cropped from a larger piece of work in the search for a better outcome? Should I put the selected low priced work in a “Bargain Box” or slip it between the other pieces I am happy with in the browser? All this causes mild anxiety as reviewing my work leads me to consider my “progression” that most enduring and favoured of educational measurements. Then comes fear … Am I actually regressing and endlessly reconsidering and reconfiguring work that I should abandon to the paper recycling? Worse still I could conclude that my prints are all failures as they do not conform to the zeitgeist and my techniques are full of faults.

Time to stop, make coffee, rummage, reassess, reassure self and resolve the dilemma by simply putting work that I like in a pile. Finally everything is sorted … I have evaluated, progressed, identified failure, censored, cropped, adapted, reworked, remounted, renamed, relabelled, checked and priced everything.  “Bargains” at £10 rising to perhaps £…. will be the preserve of the odd experiments resulting in prints that are perfectly OK but will never be printed again or “editioned”. Alternatively, I could just label the box … “Cut up for card making” as any resulting cards made will at least be contemporary, unique and original. In addition … they always sell.

 

 

This month (Advice for Artists) Overcoming Creative Block is currently keeping me focused as I have been posting a drawing a day on https://www.facebook.com/28DrawingsLater.
The ideas have been brewing for a while and my sketchbook is littered with scribbles on scraps of paper. After I came to the end of the Advice for Artists and Photographers series I determined to develop the ideas but it has taken until now. At present I am drawing … will the drawings develop into etchings? I’m not sure yet as there are other ideas for prints on my drawing board.
Right now I have to keep drawing … It is pure enjoyment (when it goes ok that is!)

Some of my prints are currently exhibited at the Hay Makers Gallery, St. John’s Place, Hay,  until 16th November. See http://www.haymakers.co.uk/visiting_artists.html
The  Gallery, in the centre of Hay on Wye, is a real treasure trove full of varied and beautiful original art and craft work.

I have put in the work shown here and other prints which can be seen under ‘etchings.’ Mainly they are from my circus series supplemented with other work that will hang well together.
I have also been working on an artists digital book using the prints as illustrations but have to experiment further with different papers before I am satisfied with the design.

Between other projects such as Encyclopedia Britannica shown in my last post I continue to work on circus and dance drawings. It is to drawing from life and the moving figure that I constantly return as I am mesmerised by the skill and beauty of the performers. Ideas for further prints are not yet resolved but I remain optimistic that some designs worth pursuing will soon emerge from the endless pile of quick watercolour sketches.

Although I make Artists books I have never, before now that is, undertaken to create an altered book. Then the opportunity to transform a 1950’s volume of Encyclopaedia Britannica presented itself earlier in the year along with a planned exhibition.

Here it is … finished … my collaboration with Artist Angela Martin for Herefordshire arts week h-Art. http://h-art.herefordshire.gov.uk/ It is part of the exhibition in the beautiful tithe barn at the Sidney Nolan Trust at The Rod just outside Prestigne. http://www.sidneynolantrustorg

We entitled our finished Volume … Seeds of Enlightenment and it was inspired by our ongoing project ‘Art Allotments’ where artists send each other envelopes of their rejected/failed art work and make new collages/art work from what they receive. See more at the blog on artists newsletter
http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/605604

Our exploration excavated the roots of Encyclopaedia Britannica and took a sideways look at the dissemination and dispersal of the seeds of knowledge and parallels with the seeds of creativity. First the centre pages of Volume 9 were dug out. This created a space to display a collection of seed packets we made from the extracted paper. We created our own thistle logo and an Art Allotment brand of Prescott & Martin seeds. Each packet contains thistle and paper seeds made from the cut away pages. The resulting varieties are named with reference to Scottish enlightenment philosophers and scientists influential at the time of the founding of the first Encyclopaedia Britannica in Edinburgh in 1768.
In the display the encyclopaedia is in a box or ‘propagator’. This box relates both to providing the right growing environment and to the boxes that transported the original Encyclopaedias. We added compost and materials to ensure the (seeds of) knowledge in Encyclopaedia Britannia would have good conditions to grow, spread, adapt, hibernate, germinate, regenerate or even to ferment. Throughout we recognised the importance of “weed seeds ” that grow along the margins through dispersal and diasporas and, importantly, can survive hostile environments.

Here is the work in progress at an earlier stage.

After Herefordshire Arts Week the exhibition will travel on to Bristol and later Manchester but details have yet to be confirmed. You can view the other volumes n the exhibition at (http://www.flickr.com/photos/encyclopdia-britannica-challenge/)

Recently I travelled through the inspiring landscapes of the Outer Hebrides an experience which has taken time to be absorbed and reflected upon and which continues to influence me.
The results so far in my work are a small book entitled simply “Sacred” and a departure from figurative work and a return to etchings of birds, rethinking and developing earlier work.

This recent work, together with other new books and a selection of drawings and prints is currently on display for Shrewsbury Open Studios. http://shrewsburyopenstudios.co.uk
Last weekend and this weekend July 13th & 14th. I am sharing my house and studio with four other artists. Though working in a range of very different media we are all linked in one way or another. Two printmakers who make books, myself and Jacqui Dodds. http://jacquidodds.blogspot.co.uk Russell Parry http://shrewsburyopenstudios.co.uk/portfolio/russell-parrys-v-art-journals/
Sue Challis http://shrewsburyopenstudios.co.uk/portfolio/sue-challis/ video & installations
and Judi Willerton http://shrewsburyopenstudios.co.uk/portfolio/judi-willerton with mixed media work.

The amount of my work in progress  just begun, getting there and almost finished is mounting up. However, one project is finally coming together. The coloured etching proofs for my planned artists book  ‘Advice for Photographers’ are now  printed..  I am still debating over the final 2 images and the exact titles for each image but here at last are some of  the first proofs.

Advice for Artists  now runs to four books and all are selling steadily at book fairs. The next venue, in just over a week, is  BABE … Bristol Book Arts Fair, on April  20th & 21st. See my work there with Marches Book Arts Group  at The Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol on the Waterfront. http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/babe-2013-bristol-artists-book-event.

I am delighted to have a large print “Tidings” (collagraph with gold leaf)  exhibited in “Dunaire” which opens to the public  tomorrow  at The Cross Gallery, Francis St. Dublin8.  http://www.crossgallery.ie

The exhibition runs until December 22nd. This is a fine art print exhibition by the artists of ‘The Leinster Printmaking  Studio,’ Clane, Co Kildare and their artist colleagues from many parts of Ireland and further afield. The subject matter for the exhibition is based on Dunaire,  the poetry anthology of Gaelic poetry from 1600 to 1900. It was compiled by The Irish scholar and Gaelic poet; Sean OTuama, translated into English by the poet Thomas Kinsella,  and published in 1981 by the Dolman Press.

In Gaelic poetry an abiding theme is lamentation at the loss of lands, possessions and the need to emigrate. Many of the poets were bards to the Irish Chieftains up to the beginning of the 17th century, when the plantation of Ulster, the final province to be possessed, saw the flight of the Earls of Ulster, mainly to Rome and Spain. Because emigration was such a big part of my Irish & Scottish ancestry I was immediately drawn to this theme as subject matter for making prints. The required size was also a challenge. I had not make a print as large as 70 x 70 before  with a press. It was too big for my press and so I made the prints at the Regional Print Centre in Wrexham where the paper only just fitted onto their large etching press. This had a knock on effect that the greater pressure meant that while I got excellent definition to my prints my collagraph plates had a much more limited life. So I ended up with a series of unique prints/proofs, variations that I was satisfied with and  one edition of 2 prints. These can be viewed under Prints subheading “Collagraphs”