Happy New Year

A New Year and this week the studio has been fully active again, with new screenprinting and relief printing courses underway.  Preparations are also taking place for an exhibition next month at the Cranleigh Arts Centre. 

After a few weeks off it was good to get back in the studio and carry on working on the monoprints that I have been experimenting with.  In the week before Christmas I had started to print on some canvas.  The differences from paper are subtle but noticeable.  It takes more of the ink than paper but I have found that it is necessary to print a bit firmer because the texture of the canvas means that a light touch results in missed areas.  So it is a fine balance between pushing firm enough to transfer the image, and not too hard resulting in the ink running further than wanted.

The first canvas I tried was quite a coarse weave so I have also tried a finer weave as well which does hold the details better.  The primer on the canvas also seems brighter than the paper I was using so the quality of the colour changes as well.  All of these factors can make quite a difference to the overall print.

Having finished the first couple of prints on the canvas I have also stretched them on to canvas.  The end result is very satisfying as they create an interesting perceptive twist.  The monoprinting style shows that the ink is brushed on, but the actual printing creates a flat surface.  Being on canvas as well then makes it quite hard to see if the image is printed or painted.

I have been working simultaneously on paper and canvas with similar images, I know its hard with a photo but see if you can tell the difference.   Overall I feel the canvas prints are stronger and look forward to trying some on a larger scale.

A Few Circles

Following on from my initial experiments with the monoprinting with the screenprints, I decided to do a small series of prints to investigate further what happens with the colours.  I ended up doing around 30 prints of circles.  Using a number of background layers and then overprinting these with a set of second colours it resulted in a whole matrix of possibilities.

Below are a few of the results.   It has been a fascinating process because it has revealed some of the potential depths of colours that can be achieved with overprinting that do not come out in the same way with a single print.  It opens up a whole new range of possibilities for working with this approach which I’m looking forward to trying in the New Year.

                                                                           

Second Layer

First Layers                                                                                               Results

Party Time

Last week we had the studio Christmas party at Ochre, a chance for a print swap, a few talks, news of what is happening next year and a chance for a good natter between fellow members.  There was an excellent turn out of over 50 members and guests.  I had the opportunity to talk about the work that I have been doing during my residency and I include some of my photographs of things that catch my eye. 

I rarely work directly from these photographs but I showed them as they are of things that have caught my eye.  I have always been fascinated by patterns both natural and man-made and these observations are the sort of thing that filter through and then come out at unexpected times in my drawings.  So I personally feel that these observations have a direct influence on my work even if the connections are not directly apparent.  Looking, observing, analysing and interpretation are all part of what contributes to any artist’s work.

A handful of my photographs are below.

Layers of Colour

It may have been a while since I last posted but that is partly because so much has been happening in the work that I just want to keep working at it.  However it is time to take stock a little and review the recent activity.  So I’ll just start with one piece that reflects what has been happening and save some of the others for later.

Since the first attempts with the monoprinting with the screen I have been experimenting further and also building up layers of colour to see how they mix and deepen. So the picture below shows a first print.

This was then followed with a print similar to this.

The combined effect becomes as follows

The second coat of crimson in the lower half really enriches the turquoise in the first layer.  While the yellow mutes the purple it turns the turquoise into a glowing green.

I then finished with the same line imagery as ealier, but also using different colours within the print.

These early results have been encouraging and I am following them up and will show more later.

Howard Jeffs RE

Howard Jeffs is a painter and printmaker who lives in Bath and France and it is the landscape from these two areas that influence his work.   In a talk last week he showed us his studio in France where he works on his monotypes.  These mainly consist of two plates one with the background colour and a second with the drawn aspects usually in black.  These he creates in a free manner applying ink and then wiping away unwanted areas.

He explained how he appreciates the freedom of approach that the monotypes offer and the possibilities for experimentation.  That there is a lot of chance to it, but the key was to recognise when something was happening and then to build on it and exploit it.  He also described printmaking as being a bit like cooking, ensuring that you have all the right equipment and ingredients around you before start helps the process.  He also mentioned that he recently started mixing his on inks from pure pigment and felt that the colours were more alive than ready mixed inks.

Working with monotypes he felt had also influenced his painting in the way he applied his paints, at times sweeping or dragging the colour.  But it is also a two way process as painting influences his prints, particularly with the use of carborundum.  He felt that this offered a painterly way of creating line and form within a print.

In a similar way he also uses sugar lift with etchings.  The aspect of etching that he appreciates most is that each plate has a history in it that is then transferred to the print.  I felt that the etchings he showed us had a more intimate feel, close ups of trees bringing you in to the subject.  These contrasted with the monotypes and paintings which seemed to take in the grander sweeps of broad landscapes.

The talk gave us a fascinating insight into the working methods and ideas from an artist who was very generous in his discussion of technique and attitudes to printmaking.

Further Adventures with Monoprint

After my miniatures, I thought it was time to be more adventurous with some larger pictures.  These images are 54cm by 42cm, so not huge but quiet a step up from before and do present some more interesting technical challenges.  You have to be quite swift in applying the paint, so not to have problems with paint drying in the screen, and firm with the squeegee when printing not to miss areas, but it comes together after a few goes.  So far I have been using two drawn images in the foreground which have blends in them though on one run it ended up looking like a single colour.  These are the effects of the combining layers of paint sometimes balancing out. 

I am enjoying the monoprinting side as it is very free and interesting accidents happen along the way as the paint moves on the screen.  It is all a learning process at this stage particularly with the colours.  In particular I’m interested in seeing how the two layers of changing colour enhance or distract from the movements already present within the drawings.  See what you think.

Hughie O’Donoghue RA

Last night Hugie O’Donoghue gave us a wonderful talk about his some of his recent paintings and prints.  He is primarily known for his large figurative and abstractive paintings that explore myth and identity.  He showed some paintings that had recently been on displayed in Prague and one that will be at the RA next summer.  He explained how he felt that working with the figure it was important that the work should be life size which is why so many of the canvases become so large, one was about 16ft by 8ft.  In the photo he was standing next to it and it really emphasised the huge physical effort that must be involved in making such works.

He then moved on to some of his print works, starting with another large piece from about eight years ago, a crucifixion triptych.  This was also large scale with each section being 8ft by 2ft.  He described how he encountered working with carborundum (in a manner similar to the Gotez technique) to make these images.  Compared to direct etching he felt it offered a more painterly approach.  He also liked the way that if he made a mark and then corrected it, because the medium was drying evidence of the first mark remained, showing traces of his thoughts. He also liked the method as it allowed him to work on the plates in his own studio rather than in the printing studio.

He then showed a set of colour prints based on the lives of people from the West Coast of Ireland where his mother was born and a region he still has ties to.  These images were much smaller and a few had been lent to us to show at our Summer Exhibition.  Having seen them earlier in the year it was interesting to learn more about then as they had a great intensity of mark and colour.  While smaller, about 1 ft by 2 ft they still were life size in that they had a close up head in the image.  Hughie described how he would draw one plate, with the carborundum for printing in black, and use a second plate for the application of colour.

Finally he showed a series of monoprints that he produced during a 2 week stay in Venice with printer Simon Marsh.  During that time they were producing up to 10 images a day, adjusting and reworking plates to refine the images.  On arrival he noticed a sculpture near where he was staying of a figure carrying a drum, while carved in stone it had a metal nose, and he used this head as a starting point for many of the earlier prints.  Later also being inspired by graffiti he discovered nearby.  It was interesting to see the development of these sequences of prints as areas were wiped away or strengthened as the images progressed.

An excellent evening I feel we were privileged to encounter an artist who has evidently pursued a career producing work that is highly important to him rather than being swayed by current fashions and in doing so has created an extraordinary body of work.