Surrealists In The Bathroom

mylar

I was doing some experimental lino cuts earlier in the week, trying to push myself out of my comfort zone, printing hacked-up vinyl blocks randomly onto ripped paper. At the end of each session I had a bit of ink left over. Well, waste not, want not, I had a sheet of translucent Mylar film knocking around so I used up the remaining ink on it. I didn’t know what to expect when I started this, I had no plans at all. I was hoping that I would get something like the Surrealists used to get from their experimental creative exercises. But it’s starting to look like the 1950’s bathroom wallpaper that my Aunty used to have. Hmmmm ……

Man Engine

manengine

Back last week I was rummaging through the drawers in my plans chest and pulled out some used paper that I thought could be reused and today I got my chance. Swansea hosted Man Engine , the largest mechanical puppet ever constructed in Britain, which has been journeying up from Cornwall. It’s amazing. I was invited to take part in a live drawing event (with afternoon tea) at Galerie Simpson on Swansea’s High Street to coincide with the behemoth’s progress through the city. It’s very slow moving so I managed to sketch the giant head outside the gallery on the pavement as it rumbled by. I drew with black, white and sanguine conté crayon and some of my home-made sepia walnut ink onto a recycled cyanotype print on Bockingford paper. If you want to know how to make walnut ink, please check out my blog post here.

Art And Cake In Ystradgynlais

Welfare poster

Opening Sunday April 15th and running through to May 25th, the recent group show for International Women’s Day has transferred from Swansea to Ystradgynlais. The Welfare, famous for its links with the artist Josef Herman, is showing this eclectic mix of around 30 Swansea-based women artists and designers. I’m exhibiting ‘Herstory’, the large canvas piece I made in collaboration with the street artist Unity.

A Happy Accident

accidental

I’ve been doing some experimental printmaking onto some donated vintage paper the past few days and when I was cleaning up after the first day, where I used yellow ink, I rolled my roller onto a large piece of paper to get the excess ink off. The next day, when I used red ink, I used the same paper to dab off some bubble wrap that had red ink on it. I liked it. So when it was time to clean the roller, I ripped a few strips of newspaper and put them onto the paper before I rolled the roller onto it. I really like it. I get my roller clean enough to wash AND I have some nice paper to work on. A happy accident.

 

Nooks And Crannies

red c

This morning I carried on with my detour into randomness, overprinting yesterday’s yellow lino cuts with red (Caligo Easy Wipe in Process Magenta mixed 70:30 with Extender).

Because I had a moment of madness and ripped the paper with my bare hands instead of using a nice steel straight edge it was a bit awkward to take the prints with a Japanese baren, especially around the rough edges, so I used a smooth marble egg to get into the nooks and crannies.

red d

I saw marble eggs and spheres being used for hand printing when I did a residency in Pakistan a few years back, where there is a traditional marble carving industry. It works really well for small areas. The eggs are quite expensive so I’ve gotten into the habit of buying them from charity shops and car boot sales.

 

Random Ripping

yellow 3

So, carrying on with my experiment to loosen up and make my approach to art more random and less controlled. I have gone through a process of cutting vinyl blocks randomly, with a selection of tools, then I hacked away at the edges to get rid of the square boundaries. So the next stage is to print them up. I was lucky to have been given some vintage printmaking papers by a friend who was clearing out his late father’s studio. It isn’t watermarked so I don’t know what it is, but it’s a nice off-white, very warm colour and I estimate about 150 gsm or thereabouts.

To keep the randomness going, I gritted my teeth and ripped the paper without measuring it out and using a nice straight edge. It was a horrible experience! It felt like vandalism! I decided to go with a translucent oil-based litho / relief ink (Caligo Safewash), in Process Yellow, mixed 60:40 with Extender.

I inked up the blocks with my best roller and then took the print using a traditional Japanese bamboo baren. The ink was nice and loose because of the amount of Extender I added and the paper thin enough to pick up the ink without needing a heavy press.

yellow 5

And here’s the first print. I’ll be overlaying this with more colours in the next couple of days to push the randomness as far as I can.

The Tyranny Of The Border

borderless

Carrying on with pushing myself out of my comfort zone, I took hold of the squares of vinyl I have been carving at random and started hacking away at the edges. I suppose like so many people I’ve been conditioned to think of two-dimensional art as something sitting neatly within a clearly defined square or rectangular border. I think this is particularly pronounced in printmaking, where metal plates and wood, lino, vinyl blocks come ready cut with nice straight edges. The tyranny of the border. So I took a hefty pair of scissors to them. It was a very uncomfortable feeling, it seemed unnatural to destroy those neat borders and also to do it at random, letting the cuts be guided by the way the scissors pulled against the vinyl, rather than directing the cuts according to some predetermined design, in the spirit of the 20th century Surrealist artists who deliberately tried to generate imagery through accident.

More Cuts

lino 6

I carried on cutting small blocks of vinyl at random, playing around with different tools (Flexcut). I’ve been having a bit of a creative block so I’ve taken a leaf out of The Surrealists book and set an exercise for myself to get a bit more random. The Surrealists had a number of strategies to get their artistic juices flowing.

 

I really messed around with the way I used the cutting tools, getting away from trying to do neat, precise lines and seeing what happens when I twist and turn the tools while I’m moving them across the vinyl. I’m not going to print them just yet, because I’ve thought of another way I can make them even more random …….

How Far Should We Go?

A really interesting blog post questioning how far we should censor art on the ground of the artist’s (alleged or proven) behaviour. via The great and the bad 

Just Cut

lino 1

I’ve hit a creative block and it’s been hard to get the motivation or ideas for new artwork. So today I decided to just grab a handful of printmaker’s vinyl, my lino cutting tools and cut at random. No design or preconceptions, just stab away at the vinyl and see how it goes.

lino 2

The first two or three were quite controlled, I couldn’t free myself up as much as I wanted with the smaller tools so I switched to a big, flat cutter that I rarely use and hacked away. That did the trick, it was quite satisfying feeling the tool slicing through the surface of the vinyl, a physical rather than a cerebral sensation.