BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR

This is the view of the yard:ARTspace from the street.

And behind the green door during term time I teach 3, 10 week collagraph 

courses on Wednesdays in the morning, the afternoon and evening. We have now reached half term and yesterday explored viscosity inking on the silk aquatints we have been making this term.

From this intaglio inked plate with a touch of chine collee to...

this plate with a viscosity inked surface.

From this blended colour plate to ...

this exciting richly coloured work.

Everyone had exciting results, lifting already successful plates

to ooohs and aaahs when printing.

I first learnt to ink in this way from the artist/printmaker

Peter Wray, now living in Cornwall.

The process was developed in the

1930's by the British artist

Stanley Hayter

Thank you to both these artists for developing this inking technique,

I am sure you will

agree, it brings collagraphs to life.

For details about the next 10 week Printmaking Course at the yard:ARTspace go to www.theyardartspace.com

THE HALF WAY MARK.

This term is moving at speed, next week is the last session before half term for the 10 week printmaking course at the yard:ARTspace. 

This week has been very exciting as everyone has started to print the 

 very carefully made Silk Aquatint plates made over the last 4 weeks.

It is such a sophisticated way of making a collagraph plate.

Rich, velvety dark tones can be achieved together

with subtle tonal variations.

Combined with Chine collee during the printing...!!! Well?

I have to admit to indulging myself this term, with 3 groups I did have to do a number of examples

and demonstration pieces. So I raided some old sketchbooks for inspiration

and hunted through my private chine collee stash.

So far we have all made small 5"x 4" plates. But next week we will be viscosity inking and I will be handing out A4 sized silk aquatint plates to work on for the last 5 weeks of the course.

For more information and how to book onto the next 10 week collagraph course go to 

the yard:ARTspace for details.

A CREATIVE WEEKEND

the yard:ARTspace was host to my favourite workshop last weekend, Sketchbook Techniques.

The key technique I like to share is Gum Arabic Transfer, using black and white photocopies as the printing plate.

Gum Arabic is applied.

Ink is rolled over the copy, the whole thing is then sprayed with water.

The copy is then placed face down onto paper, this releases the ink onto the receiving surface. 

Here are works in progress.

We experimented with lots of materials, ink, quink ink and bleach,

acrylic paint, oil pastel and embossing powder.

Large pages of mixed media mayhem where

produced. All these techniques

can be placed directly into sketch books as part of a drawing practice.

At the end of 2 days the many sheets of experimentation where

made into 4 page booklets. 

The next 2 day workshop covering all these processes will be 30-31 January, 2016, all the details are here.

The next big event in my artistic calendar is Select Showcase, 23-25 October at Cheltenham Town Hall. I will be showing my enamel work on Stand 8, so come and say hello. 

A BUSMAN'S HOLIDAY

So what do artists do at the weekend? Well I have just had a busman's holiday at Hope and Elvis, near Nottingham learning how to solder with the very generous Di 'Tinker' Foster.

Di assembles art treasure and with 

the magic of soldering

creates extraordinary objects packed with memories and symbolism. 

The studio known as Hope and Elvis hosts fascinating and inspiring workshops,

organised by the lovely Louise Presley (on the left).

Here I am hanging on every word as Di shows us how to solder.

With my collection of bits poised to make treasure boxes and charms,

we all made several pieces to take home

giving us lots of soldering practice.

When not soldering or eating Tunnocks Tea Cakes there were lots of inspiring things to look at.

Pieces by Julie Arkel and

Mister Finch.

Even examples of my latest passion, budgies...more about that later.

After 2 days I had a set of things I am happy to take home and a new skill into the bargain. For more examples of this creative weekend check out the Hope and Elvis Facebook page

Meanwhile back in the shed I made a few more labels for 

the up and coming Select Showcase, now only 2 weeks away.

Back to 

the yard:ARTspace for a quiet bit of teaching this week I think.