Embossing

I prepared quite a large collagraph at home to use with the 160gm paper that I bought from Spectrum in Birmingham last week.   I spoke to Andy about how to produce this as an embossing and he recommended sealing it with French polish (which turns out to be mainly shellac).  I only did one coat as I was not going to be inking it up at this stage and left it to dry (it takes ages) for about a week.  Today I went into uni and with Steve Butt's help produced five very nice embossings.  These I will use in various ways - 1 as a simple embossing - 2 as a template on which to draw 3 paint 4 embellish etc.  This is my final week in the print room at university as I have alot to do at home getting ready for my trip to Australia on 1 December. 

Printing Collagraphs

Over the past couple of weeks I've been going into university to print my pre-made collagraphs.  (I find it better to work at home where I have all my materials than bring them all into university and then make the collagraphs). 

Here's some of the results:

These are all of the same plate - inked up differently.  The plate is based on a photograph that I took of Clemens Street during my last module.

This is one of the bolts on the railway bridge.

I had my L6 P/T crit on 8 November.  Here are the notes:  "Etching Plate - drawn, etched, cut and embedded.  Look at Boyle family castings.  Tribal journey.  Scale down (interesting because Steve Butt said to make them bigger) embed into wall and carve into.  Colour - why/what for?" 

I started to look at these points and produced a new collagraph plate using my existing photographs for embedding this week:

It's currently drying.

Plays and entertainments

I decided to see more plays etc locally and in London.  Saw Importance of Being Ernest with Connie at the Old Rep in Brum and then Backbeat (which was so so) in London with her.  Pitmen Painters at Belgrade in Coventry was excellent although the background noises (eg pit, train etc) were horrendously loud.  The highlight has been One Man, Two Govnors with James Corden at The New Alexandra in Birmingham - a cross between a comedia de'l'arte with James as the Harlequin, a 60s farce, a pantomime and I don't know what else - I've not laughed so much in ages.  This is one of the reviews of the London production which actually sums up the Brum one http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/may/25/one-man-two-guvnors-review  A really funny moment was James asking the audience for a sandwich (he was hungry) and getting a response "I've got one if you want it ..."  James then explains that the whole premise of the following action is that he should remain hungry ... but "what kind of sandwich is it?"  as he contemplates what he should do ... the response "humus" enables him to decide - no!   If this was a plant (as were some others) it was a very funny one which went down extremely well with the locals!
Off tonight to see Journey's End at Belgrade - one that I've read about before but never had the opportunity to see. 
Oh, also went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at Stratford.  Not sure about the theatre but play excellent and, again, very funny.

Degas & the Ballet - Picturing Movement

Saw this exhibition on Monday with Catherine.  Really finely put together with alot of themes brought in eg photographic innovation, ballet, movement etc and how they were portrayed.  The RA had sourced alot of beautiful completed works (both oil and pastel) as well as a myriad of studies and it was really interesting to see the process at work.

Negotiated Module - Reference Books

I've had a good few weeks now of producing collagraphs and prints from them.  Learning alot about the processes which I've backed up with the following books:

Anthony Dyson - Printmakers' Secrets - interesting but not vital to my current studies.  However, have picked up an artist called Pilar Munoz who screenprints on wood and manipulated canvas.  Will investigate further.

Julia Ayres - Printmaking Techniques - some quite good information.  Betty Sellars uses cotton organza in layers onto wood collagraph plates.  A good idea is to paint the shapes with coloured acrylic medium to give some indication of tone in the finished print.

John Ross, Clare Romano, Tim Ross - The Complete Printmaker.  Interesting and very good basic stuff.

Brenda Hartill and Richard Clarke - Collagraphs and Mixed-Media Printmaking.  (One of A C Black's Printmaking Handbooks).  Excellent.  I am using it quite alot and finding out MASSES very time I do so.  

Steve Butt at uni is being very supportive too ... what I've learnt from him is that less is more ....

This one is ready inked up and had a layer of red applied - this layer wasn't awfully successful as I used a soft roller and got too much on the print.  The second print I produced went PINK of all things.  

Abortive attempt to work in the print room

Still unable to get into the uni print room - reasons have been - closed; no technician around; technician around but filling in for another staff member; technician briefing foundation students on H&S issues etc.  However, I do have an appointment on Tuesday so will try again on Monday ... if not Tues.

Came back home and thought that I would experiment with existing photographic images transfer onto bricks and wood as part of my original programme.  However ...

As soon as I put the prints into the water to remove the paper backing, all the print came off .... I had been expecting to have the transparency available so I could apply it using turpentine.  But this was not to be ... back to the drawing board!

So ... I revised my Programme and sent it off to my tutor ....

Photographic Course

This is running at the Botanical Gardens on Thursday nights.  This is what I've produced for my homework so far:

The brief for this was Bottle.  I am quite pleased with the sunshine through the wine but the main label is in shadow so I should think about spot lighting various parts of the image. 

An exercise in depth of field making the salt in focus.

These two have the brief of Shape and Space. 

Back to University

I've done what I said I would and produced a number of collagraphs to start printing up at uni.  I've had my first tutorial with Stuart Whipps for my final module and he has said okay to do the processing but I need to underpin it with context.  I am currently thinking about the things that I return to again and again for this.  My programme needs to be uploaded by Fri 14 Oct so only a week to get that sorted.

In the meantime, and what I've been doing since my last post, my mother-in-law has been extremely ill in Milton Keynes - spent her 90th birthday in hospital so my sister-in-law is over from Australia; and a long time friend has died very sadly after a three year illness.  I've also been to London, to Hartlepool and to Anglesey for holidays.  Had a new bathroom and loo and have had a bit of a Stanley Spencer fix going to Sandham and Cookham and again to Compton Verney to see the garden paintings which on balance turn out to be his lesser works albeit very interesting.

Trying to up my photographic skills so am doing an evening course based at the Botanical Gardens. 

Creative Collagraphs

This two day course at the RBSA Gallery which I attended this week was conducted by

Celia Nancarrow

Celia Nancarrow graduated in Fine Art in Birmingham and now specialises in collagraphs. The infinite varieties of materials that can be used in creating a collagraph make this type of printmaking particularly exciting, and using both methods of inking up (intaglio and relief) creates a unique image. The work can be abstract, figurative or have the simplicity of a Japanese Print. Some prints express themselves better in black and white than in colour and vice versa depending on the subject matter or mood that is being expressed. The work usually has a theme and is developed to produce a series on that subject. For example there are 8 different prints based on the mystical island of Anglesey. Its ephemeral light qualities and ever changing moods are a fascination and the challenge of reflecting the extreme tonal values inherent in the Welsh landscape can be met by the flexibility of the collagraph.

I used one of the photographs that I had taken of Clemens Street as a starting point:

I am quite pleased with what I produced and will be constructing a number of collagraphs ready for when I return to uni in September.

Calligraphy

Just started a Saturday drop in session in foundational handwriting at The Pen Room in Birmingham
www.penroom.co.uk - a really fascinating place.  Good tutor too ... Sandra Sandilands http://magistrauk.blogspot.com.  It's very therapeutic and calming to be writing carefully but very difficult too ... you think that you have got a handle on one of the letters and it then slips away ....

RA Summer Exhibition

Well my family have returned to Australia, I am now recovered from pharyngitis and various complications.  Went to the RA Summer Exhibition in London and had a super super time.  The following artists were particularly of interest:

Julio Brujis - Takayama (Collaged Photographic Prints); Guy Sargent - Place des Heros, Arras (Architectural Photograph); Richard Kirwan (Giclee print)
Anthony Whishaw RA (Acrylics) Anthony Eyton RA (very much enjoyed his oils - particularly Two Rock Forms, Uluru), Tom Phillips RA The Remains of the Day I & II - oils which had been cut into sections and re-applied to the background like a mosaic) + his epson & silkscreen works ; Keith Tyson's Deep Impact; works by Barbara Rae RA; prints from Bill Jacklin RA; Jim Dine; Melvyn Petterson; Norman Ackroyd RA (St Kilda - Soay and the Cambir Etching was particularly appealing); Rob Ryan, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw PRA; Eileen Cooper RA; Max Marschner (White Dog - photo etching); Jennifer Dickson RA; Anthony Frost's abstracts (just been reading his recent interviews); Celadon vessels from Edmund De Waal who I also saw in Middlesborough but who Catherine reminds me is the author of the Hare with the Golden Eyes which is my next read.  Back to the exhibition with stunning works by Ed Ruscha of Ghost Station a mixografia print on handmade paper a snip at £11,700 and wonderful; and Anselm Keifer.  What a great thing it is to have all these artists together!  I could go on but ... just to say that it was really good to see Paul Hipkiss' relief print of Towanroach Pumping Engine House from Chapel Porth Beach.  But where were submissions from my tutors?

New Camera

Well it was new a few months ago when I went to Focus on Imaging and brought it - a Sony 390.  As usual I am a slow burn on new equipment but went to the Botanical Gardens and took some pictures although I'm not sure that the colour is quite right.  Back to the manual .... oh, there isn't a manual!

These are unmanipulated and I am quite pleased with the composition.

Summer Holidays!

The main thing this summer is a visit from my Auzzie family which is half-way through ... having a great time being a tourist going to the London Eye, to the Natural History Museum (dinosaurs), to Warwick Castle, The Black Country Living Museum etc.  My granddaughter particularly wanted to go to see Westminster Abbey and I think we were all 'blown away' by its history and majesty.  Definitely worth another look in the winter when there are fewer tourists (what are we if not that?)

Went to the Compton Verney private view for Stanley Spencer & Capability Brown summer exhibitions at which Sir Roy Strong gave a very good speech.  Planning to go to the SS museum in Cookham to see Spencer's War - the Art of Shipbuilding on the Clyde with friend Catherine.  We are also due to go to the RA Summer Exhibition at the end of the month - this will be my first time there.

While in London with the family, nipped in to the National Portrait Gallery - 20th century portraits always interesting - particularly how the artist has interpreted the sitter.  Saw the BP Portrait Award but was rather puzzled by the overall winner.  Good standard otherwise.

Aims for summer - some holiday - Art in Action at Waterperry Gardens - Creative Collagraphs course at RBSA (prepare something for next RBSA selection panel) - Festival of Quilts at NEC - more photographs - learn how to use new camera - prepare for L6 final year at BCU.

Oh yes, I have pharyngitis so haven't been able to speak for a week ... two more to go apparently!

Widow Tree

I produced some drawings of what I had in mind from the Widow Tree

My next steps were to buy some thin ribbons and use some wool that I had in the house to produce my Widow Tree - I looked around for different types of branch and it seemed important to use one that was old and obsolete. Of course, the branches used in Germany are fresh and green.

It was quite therapeutic threading the ribbons.

I quite like the contrast with the previous German pictures.





Germany

I went Walking in the Ahr Valley for a few days which was good fun - nice people - interesting place etc.

The Germans in this region have just celebrated May Day with very tall stripped pine poles onto which is mounted a small pine tree mounted in the centre of each village.  The trees are decorated with streamers and sometimes with a wreath. 

In addition, one finds similar leaved branches mounted outside the houses of the girls who are entering the May Day parade competing for the May Queen title (ie of marriageable age).  The young men from each village attempt to steal the main tree and take it back to their own home, but will also note where the girls live.  Assume this is a courtship ritual - linked to fertility and spring.  The girl who is designated the May Queen has numerous streamers from HER tree. 

This was seen all over the villages in this small valley just south of Bonn - it is the only place in Germany where red wine is produced. 

This made me think about the older women - what would they have?  Perhaps a widow tree.  I envisage a bare or dying sapling and gray/white/black ribbons. 

Onwards and upwards

Quite disappointed with my mark ... but them's the breaks!

Artist's Statement

My artistic practice is concerned with memory and loss.  My current psycho geographic textile piece explores genius loci (sense of place) as “a site of mystery [which] seek[s] to reveal the true nature that lies beneath the flux of the everyday”. [i]

Psycho geography is a multi-faceted artistic and literary movement which seeks “new ways of apprehending our urban environment”.  I have focused on a small street in Leamington Spa as a microcosm of changes in the urban landscape as small shops close under a multiplicity of economic and social pressures.  I am interested in how those imperceptible and irreversible changes to our urban landscape signal an ongoing change in our culture.   

My piece contrasts a horizontal movement across the topography of the street with a vertical descent through its past portrayed through a series of printed images layered like an archaeological dig.

The first layer is a plan view of part of the streetscape.   The second is a series of photographs of detail found within the street – some recognisable and others more ephemeral – the final layer represents memories and thoughts just beyond grasp. 

The three monoprints on the wall represent fleeting recall fixed in time by being formally encapsulated in a frame.

Influences include:  Colin Booth, Rachel Whiteread, Natasha Kerr, Lizzie Cannon and Carole Waller; writers – Peter Ackroyd and Iain Sinclair; photographers – Ed Ruscha, John Gossage and Peter Fraser, and architects involved with the redrawing of place – Lebbus Woods and Daniel Libenskind.  

---

[i] Quotations from Psycho geography by Merlin Coverley (2010) Pocket Essentials

Project completion (on schedule!)

Went into Bournville yesterday to hang my pieces - this went really well.  I slung the fishing line over the beam then attached it to each end of the dowel.  While I climbed up the ladder to secure the first side a level 4 student held the piece then we levelled it up and I secured it to the other end.  It went up much quicker and easier than I thought.

My piece contrasts a horizontal movement across the topography of the street with a vertical descent through its past.  I wanted to portray this vertical descent through a series of images layered like an archaeological dig. 

• The first layer is a plan view of part of the streetscape. 
• The second is a series of photographs of detail found within the street – some recognisable and others rather more emphemeral (like memories)
• The final layer represents thoughts and memory just beyond our grasp. 

In contrast the three monoprints on the wall are fleeting recall which are fixed in time by being formally encapsulated.

Panic

Blogger went down for two days ....

Heading towards completion

Today I have repaired and repainted the walls of the studio against which I'm going to display my work.  I picked up the three framed monoprints from the art shop in Harborne and have sewed and attached my three fabric pieces to one long dowel (after alot of thought and first and second tries which didn't seem right).  This is good news and leaves me with tomorrow (Friday) to install my pieces and then the weekend to edit and prepare my supporting work.

Negotiated Module

I went to Cornwall for the weekend to stay with my family and play with the grandchildren.  My son and I discussed my project and he has not only suggested using dowel (we tried out some samples and I think he is right) but also gave me some 20lb transparent fishing line and showed me how to tie a Uni Knot to secure.  As I promptly forgot he found me a great website - www.animatedknots.com so I can refer back to it.

What next?

Had a useful session with tutor today on what is actually required for the hand-in date of Monday 16 May at 3.00pm.  Dare I say that most of this is in hand for me but I do have an issue about hanging the panels.  Have highlighted the area which I will use :

Hanging from either of the two cross beams of the A supporting the roof in Ruskin Hall.  All work-in-progress will be removed so I have been looking at different ways of securing the panels.  Have rejected wood/bamboo canes; thin metal rods; curtain rods; curtain header tape with tabs over the A.  I am currently investigating thick white cardboard through the tabs I've made at the top of each panel with fishing line attaching them to the beams.

Watch this space!

NEXT YEAR ....

I have been reading up on the Psychogeography and I definitely want to continue next year with the Block Idea working on Defoe's ideas in his seminal work A Journal of the Plague Year where he blends fiction and biography .... local history and personal reminiscence.  I have also been researching methods of print from Installations & Experimental Printmaking by Alexia Tala where artists like David Rhys Jones are referencing Charles Baudelaire and the flaneur as a detached observer of the modern metropolis - Jones prints photos onto ceramics.  http://www.davidrhysjones.com/ 

His work Spitalfields 2006 is described thus:  "This journey focused upon ChristChurch, Spitalfields and the surrounding streets. The church was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor in the English Baroque manner and was built between 1715 to 1729. The church sits in an area of London that has a rich, sometimes dark history; and still retains an 'aura'."   This references the urban gothic often linked with Psychogeography although the term is loose and can encompass many areas.

Another artist I found interesting was Janet Curley Cannon who works with inkjet transfers and mixed media.   She says of her work : "My art is an observation of the here and now as gleaned from the surfaces and structures of the urban environment.

"I'm interested in the overlooked and the everyday, places on the threshold of change. I use the visual ephemera from forgotten surfaces in order to capture and convey the interests and concerns of contemporary life"  www.janetcurleycannon.com

I will be able to use my 'ruined' inkjet images with pure turpentine to transfer onto wood and other materials.  Another option is to use InkAid Medium which will work with any surface that will absorb it.  I think I will 'collect' scrap wood and try out the technique.

Quote from the book p8 "When artists show their work today, they do not intend to technically educate; they want to communicate their ideas to highlight their concerns". 

I'm quite excited about the possibilities for the summer.



Completed printed section of Negotiated Project

I spent a very satisfying day in the Fabric Printing workshop yesterday ....

I printed the top layer of very sheer fabric and this went well ...  After lunch and chatting to other students I spread out the third layer and printed onto it with circular images and random black lines then added paint brushed fabric ink ....

I used the ink to add a very small amount of blue, yellow and red - echoing some of the colours of my original photographs.  The printed circles also referenced the original photographs which were applied to the second layer.

The two images (above) show the layered effect of the fabric layers as they were laid out on the print table.

I was quite pleased with the way that they had turned out ....

Success (.... perhaps)

So I started from scratch again ....

Got my photographs reprinted onto the new Lazertran Silk transfer papers at Osbornes in Harborne, then started to iron them onto my banner. 

Didn't work, so I went back to the instructions and realised that I was probably using the wrong type of material.  A quick phone call followed by a trip to Barry's Fabrics in Birmingham for Habatori Silk rather than a synthetic material and I was up and running again.

Things seemed to be going well for once and I put the completed banner in the bath to soak off the backing paper.

Did I speak too soon? - there was quite alot of 'drift' from the images - caused either by too many images soaking together or by too hot water.  However, I was planning to manipulate the banner with applied 'embellishment' (this is not in the embroidery state) so I am holding my breath somewhat.  Have sewed pockets for poles to support the banners and will take them in to uni on Tuesday to work out the schedule for the next step.

AAARRGGGHHHH!

Spent the sunny Easter Saturday morning cutting up my photographs and getting them ready to apply to my silk banner ....

Then, when I started to iron the images on, I ran into a serious problem - the images wouldn't transfer from the paper onto the silk no matter how hot I had the iron.

I stopped to go for a walk and then came back and did some research to discover that I'd printed them all onto the Lazertran Silk transfer paper using my INK JET printer - I should have used a TONER based printer.  Of course, the last time I did it at home I had a toner printer.  

Anyway they are all useless and I've wasted alot of money.  So I've reordered the Lazertran from Fred Aldous - checked with the print shop in Harborne that they can do them for me from a suitable memory stick and packed everything away for the weekend.  I'll carry on on Tuesday - good job that I've given myself alot of time to finish this before my deadline on 16 May.

Stravinsky's Rite of Spring 3D Performance

I went to this last night at Symphony Hall - this (and the image) are from the flyer:  "The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and extraordinary dancer Julia Mach perform Stravinsky's primeval Rite of Spring live, while digital wizardry interacts with them in an astonishing interplay between reality and fantasy, translating real-time computer-generated stereoscopic projections into a virtual reality space".

It was really amazing - the music, the dancing and the computer manipulation ....

Finished scanning & printing my photographs

This has taken all day long - firstly I couldn't get my Photoshop Elements 9 Organiser to work properly so I edited a few of the photographs in Edit then decided that I would use my Lexmark printer to action the printing. 

These are some of the images printed onto Lazertran silk ready to be reviewed and applied to my silk banner.  I decided to use colour rather than black and white so that some of the amazing colour and detail could be seen in the mundane.

Anyway it's glass of wine time.