ENAMEL EXPERIMENTS

I have been experimenting with liquid enamel in red, silver and chestnut brown. I like to draw through to colours underneath and wet enamel is easier to handle, sifted colours can create technical difficulties and it is harder to layer. The silver is a revelation, it is soft and subtle and just slightly twinkly. I have also fired glass headed steel pins, this adds another element.
The black letter transfers pull these little abstract compositions together. I can't wait to try these on larger pieces...red spoons? Or the irony of silver enamelled spoons?

SKETCH BOOK PAGES

I have been lent a wonderful resource, an 1867 catalogue from the Paris Exhibition. Thankyou Brian. This has inspired me to try different imagery with the gum arabic transfer technique I like to use in my sketch book.

But I can not help but draw the occasional bird.

So what's in your sketch books at the moment? Check out the blog spot, Wendy Rhodes-Artist, her latest post shows how she turns work from her sketch book into etchings. Fascinating and inspiring.

ENAMEL EXPERIMENTS

I spent yesterday at UWE making this collection of spoons ready for my Open Studio event in June. All went very smoothly, there are usually a few moths that come adrift or flop in the heat of the kiln, but no, I had a morning of hitch free enamelling. But my luck did not hold out for the whole day and not all experiments go to plan, but the more one has technical difficulties the more one learns. At a quick glance these 2 pieces are not completely lost and if I ignore where the enamel has blown off one part to land neatly in a smooth white area I could almost be pleased with parts of them. These are close ups of the sections I like and will repeat on other pieces.

I particularly like the way the text breaks through on the grey.

And through the spaces on bare steel.

With a mistake comes a nothing to loose attitude which can generate other ideas.

ABSENSE OF COLOUR

This is a silk aqua tint and tile cement collagraph measuring 65cm x 35cm and has been a delight to make. I was spurred on by the success of the smaller silk aqua tint experiment I made a few weeks ago. This shows the textures where I have pressed leaves and wall paper into tile cement. The high lights and details on the crows are achieved by painting wood glue onto the chiffon, this is the silk part of silk aqua tint.

This is an enamel on steel, not quite finished yet, I am toying with the idea of adding some colour here and there, but I do rather like the moodiness of it all.

I particularly like the way the transfers react on bare steel. And yes I cut the shapes out by hand.

I am happier with the colours, or lack of colour in this piece, the previous enamel on copper was way too green for my liking.

Both these pieces have been a pivotal learning experience for me and I am looking forward to working further with these techniques.

ENAMEL EXPERIMENTS

I am still exploring the creative possibles of enamel, my last few posts have been enamel on steel and these spoons are an extension of those experiments. I am busy making lots of these for the Cheltenham Open Studio event in June.

I have also been working on these copper pieces where I have the advantage of being able to

etch through the plate with ferric chloride to make holes and lacy edges. The transfers are of the Natural History Museum.

The copper creates this green tinge as the piece is fired, the more firings the greener it goes. To of set the green in this composition I decided to rivet on a couple of red moths...it just had to be done! The spoons are bolted on so they have a bit of a swing to them.

SILK AQUATINT

The holy grail for many printmakers is to be able to print a dense black. In etching this can be achieved through mezzo tint or using a lung damaging resin which is melted on to the plate. For collagraph printmakers it is usually carborundum grit, difficult to ink and only really useful in large areas. Easier to handle and wonderfully affective is silk aquatint.

Using chiffon or silk attached to the card plate using acrylic paint, tones are then introduced using acrylic gel mediums and PVA glue in various layers, the white area on the above plate is a thin piece of card with detail scored into it.

When inked with colour the plate prints like this.

This silk aquatint has tile cement with leaves and wall paper pressed into it to make the textures.

The resulting print is full of subtle tonal contrasts. The chicken print is 5ins x 5ins and the rook is about 10ins x 5ins. Inspired by these 2 experiments I am now working on a much larger piece, wish me luck!

SKETCH BOOK PRACTICE

I have been really inspired by a blog post by a friend of mine about her sketch book practice, http://www.wendyrhodes.blogspot.com/ , it made me contemplate my own need to work in sketch books.

Using a variety of techniques that appear no where else in my work I experiment with ideas and media.

I feel that this is where the hard work is done, where an artist can be privately creative. I often think that the work I do in my sketch books has more spontaneity and freshness than work I produce for public consumption.

I use my sketch books to record and rough out ideas. It is my safe place to draw badly and make mistakes. If I do not make a note of an idea immediately it will often be lost forever.

Artist's sketch books are the support to their work, most are private and it would be a tragedy to rip pages out to display as it is often the juxtaposition of one idea following the other when the page is turned that makes it so interesting to look at.

I love to see other artist's preparation, a sketch book, like a diary shows what is going on in a creative mind. Here are 3 of my favourite books, this one about Picasso's sketch book, full of spare gestural line drawings which shows the development of some of his most famous works.

This book about Palmer full of annotated drawings that look so contemporary, but then quick drawing does not date.

This well thumbed book is full of ideas and techniques to get a sketch book under way. Chapter 1 is entitled, Purposes of a Sketch Book: Pause, record, reflect, move on... says it all really.

So... what is in your sketch book?

Here is the challenge, let me know if you post about your sketch book, the techniques you use and what you use your sketch book for, do you have a favourite subject or technique. Like dieting and exercise, regular sketch book use is on that New Years resolution list. For inspiration check out Sharon's post from September 1st 2010 on
http://blog.sharonmcswiney.co.uk/ . I look forward to hearing from you.