Tuesday 29 September 2009

INGENIOUS INTAGLIO

I have just spent a very pleasant weekend teaching an etching workshop in the studio at Hampen Factory.

The process I passed on was the use of a gun arabic transfer as a resist to the biting effects of copper sulphate on aluminum.
It all sounds technical, but once mastered it is an easier way of creating a photographic style etched image without the fuss of light boxes and expensive photo sensitive plate. It creates an image that is one step removed from the photographic original. The technique also leaves room for hand drawing, the crow and washing line I drew in after applying the transfered image.
After only 2 days and with very little previous experience of etching these are some of the
images produce on the course. I am delighted with the results, there is alot to get your
head round on this workshop, but everyone stuck with me and they all went away with a
print they were pleased with. I am so lucky to have such lovely creative people coming on my courses.
The next weekend at Hampen Factory is October 17-18, Mixed media techniques and gum arabic transfer.








Tuesday 22 September 2009

EXPERIMENTATION

I have been having a bit of a play here really, in fact this is the third plate I have made to get these images right!
The base is tile cement on card with Carborundum on the birds, lots of wood glue washes to create the light tones.
Both plates have been inked up using the viscosity method. My worry is that sometimes work looks better here on screen
than they do in the flesh...?


Just a quick kitten update:- Henry and Iris are settling really well and Frank seems to be taking it in his stride!





Monday 21 September 2009

CARRY ON COLLAGRAPHING

I find myself having to print a few more of these images due to Christmas orders from galleries. I will commit myself to a finite number of prints per edition, but will print 5 at a time, when

5 are sold. I will then print 5 more until I reach my edition number. This means I am not holding large stocks of unsold work. But I do get into a bit of a panic when I get low and orders rush in. It also means that the next 5 will be significantly different to the previous 5 as my memory is not as reliable as I would like and I forget how I printed the first lot (despite copious notes).






Wednesday 2 September 2009

SKETCH BOOK WORK

I have just spent the last couple of days playing with some non chicken ideas in my sketch book,

I have started to make collagraph plates of these 2 finches. These 2 drawings are tonal plans, when I have finished the tile cement plates I am hoping to experiment with viscosity inking using the experiments I did earlier in the year as a starting point.

It is good to have a few ideas in hand, I always feel bereft when I have finished a printed piece.

I do have a backlog of drawings which need to be converted into collagraphs or etchings. How do the rest of you cope with more ideas than time or is it that I am managing things really badly?

All these drawings in my sketch book have been achieved using printed acrylic paint, ink washes and bits of collage here and there.