ESCALATING ENAMELLING

I know, I can't seem to stop myself at the moment. I can fit these label shaped pieces of copper or steel, 4cm x 8.5cm into my kiln. It is a bit like working pages of my sketch book.
Layering, scraping back adding silver and gold leaf and then reworking.

These were directly inspired by my holiday in fossil filled Dorset.

The piece on the left started out as the piece of copper at the top of this post.

I am beginning to amass a body of enamelled work but I am still struggling with the one off nature of each piece. I can't quite shake off the printmaker in me. I think it is safe to say I am stirred by this technique...sorry!!

BESIDE THE SEA

In Dorset to be precise. Rob and I have had a happy few days camping near Lyme Regis where I indulged my passion for interesting stones.
And stones are very interesting on the Jurassic coast. Full of fossils, like this star rock, each star is a cross section of a plant stalk.

But the thrill is finding fossils on the beaches, here are a few of our haul. Nearly every pebble has evidence of a former life.

I am particularly excited about this sea urchin pebble which found me. The more you don't look the more fossils you seem to find.

Inspired by seeing Ravens for the first time on a cliff walk, I came home and did some more drawing in my small sketch book.

Still experimenting and trying to let the ideas bubble up.

This corvid is carborundum with deeply etched copper plate printed together with the addition of red cotton to add a bit of movement. The etching is soft ground textures from fabric, am I in danger of including textile and stitch...?

But I can't seem to get the black bird out of my system quite yet!

SKETCH BOOK EXPERIMENTS

I seem to be in the mood for developing some ideas, so with my A2 sketch book calling to me to fill some pages, I have been pre preparing them with emulsion paint and Quink ink.
More layers of ink and paint, combined with bleach and printed wall paper and images are emerging.

I am hoping to develop these crow drawings into a series of collagraphs.

Mean while back on planet enamel.

More experiments and more play, these pieces seem to need to be next to each other.

Both enamels started out like this. These two pieces of copper sat in ferric chloride for a day, unfortunately the label on the left came badly apart, but with a bit of ingenuity and a lot of luck I fused it together with the crow image to make the piece above.

It feels really good to be making work just for the enjoyment of making at the moment. It is so easy to loose that feeling. I heard a great radio program by Grayson Perry on Sunday, he works with the motto Creativity is Mistakes, so true.

ETCHING AND ENAMELLING EXPERIMENTS

I have spent the last two days etching a set of soft ground copper plates very deeply in order to enamel them later.
I love the way the copper is eaten away by the ferric chloride

leaving me with a set of moth eaten labels in copper.

Before I start enamelling on them I have inked and printed them. This has given me a

a set of prints that have a textile feel to them as the soft ground faithfully reproduces the textures impressed into the plate.

Still working on the label idea I experimented further with enamel. Gold leaf, screen printed transfers and using watch parts as stencils.

These two pieces are the result of a days playing.

BURIED TREASURE 2010

This post is from this time last year. I am re posting it as part of Seth Apter's Buried Treasure 2010 project to be found on his blog The Altered Page. He has asked folk to collaborate by re posting favourite past posts. I felt that it would be apt to post this one as a celebration of my blog being just over a year old now...Happy Blog Day to me.

Enjoy going back in time.

I have just spent a wet week in Bude, Cornwall with my husband Rob and son Toby. While they spent the days frolicing in the waves in wet siuts, I had an enjoyable time exploring rock pools and collecting stones.
I find seaside pebbles irresistable, the Bude coast line is edged with these gorgeous stones before the sand appears when the tide goes out.

The rocks on the edge of the beaches are covered in the deepest blue clusters of mussels

and although the orange fishing net is really rubbish it looks fabulous against the blue.

I knew I would have sometime left to my own devises so I cut up a larger sketch book to make this square format, 11 x 11cms and at the end of the week decorated the front with beach finds.

I managed 2 to 3 drawings a day, some on the beach, some inspired by the day.

I prepared pages with acrylic paint and wall paper before coming away,

and used collage to inspire some pages.

I am left with a personal reminder of a lovely holiday that is easier to look at than a set of photos.

PRINTMAKING PROGRESS

My work is beginning to take on an independent life of it's own. Once made it needs to leave home...if you see what I mean?
Atonement (the pelican) has been accepted in the RBSA Print Biennial 2010. The exhibition opens on the 15th July to 21st August. For those of you who are printmaking fans the exhibition is a must. The gallery is round the corner from the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery which is also worth a visit as it has a fantastic collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Check out the RBSA web sight for details, www.rbsa.org.uk

These 2 crow images are appearing at Art in Action this year. I am delivering a collagraph workshop on the Saturday and the collagraphs are forming part of the teachers exhibition and one will be in the Nature in Art area.

Art in Action is this weekend 15th -18th July at Waterperry, Oxford. It is an incredible day out for lovers of art, there is every kind of art form being demonstrated and you get to meet makers face to face in action. Sharon Mc Swiney will be in the market place tent and I am running a couple of high speed collagraph workshops on the Saturday afternoon. Come and wave at me. For more details www.artinaction.org.uk

SKETCH BOOK EXPERIMENTS

I have been neglecting my sketch book recently, I now need to do some solid playing to generate and consolidate a few new ideas. I start when I am feeling at my most lack lustre, not a creative thought in my head
and spend a day filling up pages with random wall paper and paint texture with a wash of ink for good measure.

I then start drawing incorporating and covering whatever the mood takes me. Having something already on the blank page helps hugely, I have never got over the blank page thing!!

Spending time working in this way gets me kick started again, this sketch book is a small 4inch square trifle and I now can't wait to do more pages. Who knows where it will lead?