Rain, rain, go away

Every year in July I decide it’s a good idea to sign up for the 20:20 print exchange at Hot Bed Press. Every year half way through September I start to panic that I’ve no ideas, or at least no ideas that are feasible in an edition of 25.

This year was no exception. But then looking through my sketch books (or more accurately piles of loose sheets in boxes) I came across my scarecrow drawings. Subject matter found.

I decided to etch because my collagraph plates start to disintegrate with larger editions (and 25 for me is a larger edition)

It took a couple of goes to get the bite right (the first plate seemed to have developed a sort of grain right the way across the figure) but I’m quite pleased with how she turned out.

A print, a holiday and a workshop

The print

When I started working on the etching for the 20:20 I was just playing with shapes and trying quick resists. I used sellotape to blank out part of the plate and stencilled circles and stars through sequin waste with acrylic paint. When I looked at it I thought that stripes would work in the blank spaces and after proofing I decided that text would improve it.

Looking at it the circles evoked chain link fencing , together with the stars and stripes I thought something from the poem in the statue of Liberty might be appropriate. (Although I’m not sure, given the ridiculous political situation we find ourselves in in Britain at the moment, that I have the right to seem to criticise any other countries attitude to borders and immigration)

So I etched the text onto a blank plate and redid the composition behind it. When it was proofed it wasn’t successful. The text and image fight each other. I may play with it with different colours but not for the print swop.

However I had another go at inking the first aluminium plate using a warmer coloured ink. I liked the look of it after wiping with scrim (but before polishing with tissue). I decided to test print and I was really surprised. I’ve now printed the rest of the edition

The holiday

We went away last week to Port Isaac, a beautiful village in Cornwall. We walked and I took lots of photos. Have got some new ideas for books and prints

 The Workshop

Linked to an exhibition at Salford Art Gallery Sean and Lois at Hot Bed Press are doing a workshop over four days, two weekends. Rather than concentrating on a specific printmaking method or producing a finished image it is aimed at making you look, mix processes, think and experiment. The first two days, looking at line and mark making, shape and composition, were great. No work that I’m going to post but lots of ideas to take forwards, which is the whole point of the exercise.

I am so looking forward to the next session next weekend

20:20

I’ve signed up for the 20:20 print exchange at Hot Bed. I missed lasts years exchange because I left it all until the last minute and the collagraph printing plate fell apart after eight prints.

This year I’m starting earlier and I think I’ll use a more robust plate. I’ve been etching.

A deep bite on top of a failed plate from a few months ago. I wish I could reproduce that texture.

 An attempt at etching zinc without an aquatint. I wanted a deep bite bit with not much tone so I could try viscosity etching. 

The plate didn’t behave as I expected and the etch wasn’t deep enough.

 I  reproduced the composition on aluminium so I can play with it more.

I’m going to try colour inking on this plate and I think I might try another plate developed from this composition incorporating text.

Medieval snails

It’s time for the annual 20:20 print exchange at HPB.

I had an image already in mind. It developed out of the research I did while developing my response to the medieval book. I made my plate and went to the studio to print, but the block, which was printing oddly from the start, started to break down before I’d got half way through. I’m not sure what I did differently when making it but something wasn’t right.

 I did manage a few good prints out of it, but I’ll have to give the 20:20 a miss this year.

20:20 and a New Book

I’ve finished the prints for the 20:20 print exchange, just waiting for signing and numbering.  I have to deliver them to the press for the deadline on Monday.

  
At the moment I’m working on a new book for the book exchange group I work with. I enjoy having projects with parameters and deadlines that have to be kept to. I find it helps generate ideas for other things and there’s the added bonus of exiting books arriving in the post every three months or so.

We’ve had to move from the original host site at ‘artist books 3.0’ as it was shutting down so we now ‘meet’ through a new blog Collaborative Artists Books. We’re still finding our way communicating on the new platform but come over and see what we do.

The new title is ‘Endings and Beginnings’. It seemed appropriate in the circumstances but I think mine has morphed more into beginnings and endings.

I have been working on fairy story related images recently. ‘Once upon a time’ and ‘they all lived happily ever after‘ seemed a good starting point. After playing with the characters that seem to go in between I came to the conclusion that the majority of them are quite interchangeable; the baby/child, the good girl (princess or serving maid), the evil stepmother/queen. I decided to use silhouettes to emphasise the interchangeability (is that a word) of the characters.

At this point I started to explore structural and layout ideas.
  

The text here was awkward and the whole piece seemed a bit empty.
  

Better, but I didn’t like cutting into the pattern to make the silhouettes float.  More importantly I realised that this image had grown to 84cm (the same size as A1 paper – not leaving any wriggle room for printing if I want to use collagraph). If I wanted to keep the text at the sides I needed to lose some characters. I came to the conclusion (due to the lack of images I made while I was doodling) that the hero/prince and stepfather/king probably don’t interest me so they were the ones to go.
  

Think so far this is what I’ll work up.

Next step is to draw up my own silhouettes (you may have noticed the presence of Queen Elizabeth in the mock ups) and work out the border pattern      

More text

I want to incorporate more text into my images so I decided to explore press n peel again as a method of transferring a resist to aluminium plate.  

I was rather please with the results

Just sepia ink...

And with chine colle...

And with a stencil relief rainbow roll...

I decided to use one of the plates for my entry for the 20/20 print exchange. I’m half way there and very fed up of tissue paper butterflies!

Ticking over

We’ve just come back from holiday so not much work has happened recently. Though I have signed and delivered my contribution to 20:20

 and have started a plate which I hope will develop using silk aquatint as part of a collagraph.

 And now its time to go and build a sleigh for Cinderella! Yes, its panto time again.

20:20 completed

6 artist proofs whilst getting the inking and registration right and 25 finished prints for the Hot Bed Press print exchange

 I managed 31 prints from the plate before it started to disintegrate.

Version Two and Seeing Double

I’ve been playing with the ‘Letters and Alphabets’ book again. I decided to explore the envelope motif more. Still using scrap prints so the colours need further consideration. Trying to make something that will be editionable (is that a word?).  

I’ve also been plate making. I signed up for the 20:20 print exchange run by The Hot Bed Press.  I wanted to do this with collagraphs but am not sure the plate will stand up to that amount of wear and tear - I have to produce 25 good prints. So to be on the safe side I have made two.