I’m teaching a short workshop on linocut printing later this week and I’ve been working on a new design. It’s in Miniprint format, 10 x 10 cms and at that size, it needs to be kept fairly simple, especially for beginners. I’ve started with a photo of our Little Bill, the rescue cat, and shoved it through the Adobe Photoshop “Photocopy” filter. This will be my guide, so I’ll build on this with some drawing before transferring it to lino and carving it.
Husb and I were gallivanting again last evening. That’s a great word, my Nana and her generation would use it all the time, but it seems to have fallen out of use. I think it’s time it came back. Anyway, we were out gallivanting at a gig, so I had to have a scribble, didn’t I? It took me a couple of minutes. This was a very drunk man in a hat.
Here’s an oldie, a woodcut print of Sparta Puss when she was a kitten climbing my net curtain! The little minx 😀 I think this was from about 2011.
I’ve been sorting out my files and I came across some birds I painted in acrylic paint onto clear acetate for a screenprint project a while back, and also a scan of some old fruit netting that I was going to throw away in the rubbish. I’m thinking about how to use them in some new artworks….and I’m thinking cyanotype. Maybe. Something that looks at nature and pollution. Maybe. Let’s have a think.
Here are some Golden Oldies from my sketchbooks in December 2013, I seem to have drawn a lot of rug rats and ankle-biters! I must have been to some family birthday parties, there were a lot of small sprogs in the family 12 years ago!
I’ve done a small series of art on postcards for an exhibition coming up soon. I cut this little lino block a while back, inspired by lyrics from the song “Rise” by the band Public Image Ltd. “Anger Is An Energy” is also the title of John Lydon‘s autobiography. I was in a dark place at the time, it was the pandemic and, hey, I don’t need an excuse to be angry. Anger is a good energy for getting things done.
I cut the block from traditional brown lino, and printed it onto recycled confectionary foils using the chine collé method, with Cranfield Caligo Safewash relief ink in black.
I am lucky to do quite a bit of teaching in Community Arts and I worked with a lovely group at Swansea’s GS Artists last week, teaching how to paint an imaginary landscape inspired by Vincent van Gogh. In two hours! 😀
We used canvas boards, acrylic paints and palette knives. This is a small section of my demo piece, full of writhing strokes. I need to get back into it with smaller dots and dashes.
Drawing at a performance usually means drawing in very restricted light. Sometimes it’s too dark to see my sketchbook, but often it means that the performers, especially at the smaller gig venues, are partially or wholly in poor light.
It’s #Caturday Saturday again and here’s my silhouette of Little Bill looking at a copy I did of van Gogh’s painting of his bedroom at Arles. Throughout the Covid lockdown, I spent my Friday lunchtimes on Facebook, joining in with the artist Ed Sumner, who ran the Cheese and Wine Paint Club. He did 72 weekly lessons, all free. It brought together a real world-wide community.
More fun with postcards, this time using a small cat-themed lino block I use for teaching and some nice foil sweet wrappers.
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