I tried out some cyanotype prints the other day, when the sun was really strong. I’m not happy with the result, it’s too blue, there’s no white, no contrast. I gave the prints 5 minutes in the sunshine and I think I might have over-exposed them. The instructions on the packet of chemicals were vague – 3 to 30 minutes depending on conditions. I’m going to try some in a UV Unit next, as that will be accurate.
I was off gallivanting at a gig (no surprises there) the other week and had a quick scribble as I listened to a solo musician called Y Pregethwr (The Preacher) who played an extraordinary, haunting and avant garde set.
My beloved Nana and family and friends of her generation often said “gallivanting”, usually in a slightly critical way, “Are you off gallivanting AGAIN?” It’s a word that I don’t hear so much anymore, so I’m going to use it more often. I was off gallivanting at a gig (no surprises there) the other week and had a quick scribble as I listened to a lovely singer-songwriter called Daniela, in front of a beautiful horse-themed backdrop. I can’t remember the artist who did it, I’ll have to find out.
A few months ago, artist members of Swansea Print Workshop got together to make a book featuring 25 original prints to celebrate our 25th anniversary this year. Twenty three artists took part and we’ve been working in groups to assemble the concertina books. I did mine today. I’m thrilled to bits! I love it. My contribution is a linocut of the Mari Lwyd which I’ve called Mari Madarch Abertawe, or the Swansea Mushroom Mari, because her headdress is covered in fly agaric mushrooms.
And when I came home, I made gooseberry and elderflower jam, with gooseberries from my friend’s garden and some of Husb’s home-made elderflower cordial. There’s been a glut of soft fruit this year.
Here’s a very old sketch of the late, great Bobbit. We had her as a kitten of 8 weeks way back in the summer of 1994, and this sketch is from 2011, when she was enjoying the sun by dozing in a drain! She died a few weeks later aged 17, enjoying the sunshine and her beloved garden to the last. She was a calico cat and a formidable character.
I coated some Bockingford papers with cyanotype chemicals last week and today, after a week of up-and-down weather, I took advantage of the brilliant sunshine to make some sunprints, using transparencies that I’ve had for ages. I originally used them for screenprints so it’s nice to reuse them with a different technique. Here’s the coated paper and some transparencies (acetate and tracing paper) weighted down by a clear acetate sheet. I’m giving this 5 minutes exposure in the bright sunlight. We’ll see how it turns out.
One of my Mari Lwyd linocuts (detail below) features in the current exhibition at the Queen Street Gallery in Neath. The gallery is lovely and Neath is a great little town with a good market, an ancient standing stone, a Roman fort, a Medieval castle, and some tasty eateries. The Gallery is just a few minutes walk from the railway station of you want to let the train take the strain and have a nice day out.
Some more scribbles from my sketchbooks, this time from December 2013 when I seemed to be sitting in a lot of places with other people just sitting.
I carried on today with the miniprint design I started a few days ago, using my smallest Flexcut tools. I put a piece of tracing paper over the lino and rubbed it hard with graphite block to see if I’d cut away everything I wanted to. I also gave the lino block a rub with the graphite, to see what’s there. I think I’m ready to do a proof print now. The design has been developed from a photo taken by Husb when our little rescue cat Bill (aka William ChatNoir) was peeping over the edge of the table while we were eating bacon. She loves the smell of bacon.
Here are the other happy accidents I made at Swansea Print Workshop in the week. These are pages of newspapers that I put underneath some cloths soaked in cyanotype chemicals to dry. Once I took them out of the dark room, the colours began to change and I took a digital photo at a particularly pleasing phase. Images created out of randomness are in keeping with the tradition of Surrealism, whose artists often gained inspiration from random images.
Who knows where these may lead me?
scribblah 