Emerging Heads

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I’ve spent two days working with the 15 Hundred Lives art collective in the Creative Bubble artspace, giving the public open access to our working processes and at the same time putting the finishing touches to the last pieces of work for our upcoming exhibition at Oriel Ceri Richards. Here I’m drawing onto vintage paper that I’d prepared by squeegeeing black and gold acrylic screen print inks straight onto the paper, to break up the tyranny of the white. I’m working onto it with chalk, compressed charcoal and white conte crayon. I’ve broken away from my usual practise of working directly from life, drawing instead from my imagination. The imagery that’s emerging has been influenced by some visits I made about three years ago to Berlin and Iceland, but more of that later. Now to bed. I’m shattered!

This is how galleries should be…

I’ve been here all day with artists and other people, having an arty time. Here’s Melanie Ezra’s take on it 🙂

melaniehonebone's avatarMelanie Honebone

I’ve been at the Creative Bubble in Swansea today as part of an event run by artists group Fifteen Hundred Lives.

It’s been busy, really busy. I’ve barely had time to make any artwork. Usually there’s a steady flow of interesting people who are curious about art and inbetween comes a heap of artmaking. But today has been unprecedented.

This is the kind of atmosphere and engagement that art should have. All galleries should have this vibe. At the Creative Bubble there are no barriers between artists and audience. Here everyone is equal. Here no question is awkward and everyone is so passionate about what they’re doing that criticism is a welcome addition to the creative process.

We’ll be here again tomorrow 12:30pm til 5pm tomorrow. Come and join us. Creative Bubble, Cradock St, Swansea.

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Jabbing My Finger

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Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop with a couple of studies of heads. Our model is a retiree and she’s been modelling for us for some years. I love drawing the faces of elders, so interesting and so much life written across them. I used my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 with the free Markers app. There is a slideshow below with the different stages of the drawing.

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I mostly use the stylus to draw but tonight I used my finger as well, jabbing it onto the screen, a strangely satisfying feeling.

FRAMED!

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The boring, mundane side of being an artist. It isn’t all about creativity. I have an exhibition coming up next week and the work has to be framed and, being a skint artist, I can’t afford to take over 2 dozen works to the framers so I’m knuckling down and doing it myself. It’s a mixture of linocuts and drawings, a new body of work.

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I’m working at the Creative Bubble Artspace for a few days, with the other members of the 15 Hundred Lives art collective. It’s really useful to have the space to spread out and work together, discussing the mix of our work and how we’re going to frame and hang it.

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On Friday and Saturday, it’s the second anniversary of our monthly public art events. We open the doors of the artspace and invite the public to come in and see how artists work, what we do all day. We’ll be celebrating with cake, Victoria Sandwich and Lemon Drizzle. And art of course. Click here to find out more.

The Block Block

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Here are the vinyl blocks I printed yesterday, inked up and ready to go. They’re about 7 x 9 inches each. They’ve been printed singly but I like the look of them grouped together in a block and might print a couple of sheets like this. But that’ll have to wait until after I’ve finished mounting and framing all the work for my upcoming exhibition at Oriel Ceri Richards from August the 21st.

I drew, cut and printed these at Swansea Print Workshop on an antique Victorian Columbian printing press.

 

Seaweed, beer and maps

Lots of Swansea things here including our love of eating seaweed and an arty map by yours truly and Melanie Ezra

FINISHED!

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My vinyl block inked with black

Up and out early today to finish the second colour on the last four vinyl blocks. Done and dusted. I’ve made a series of 8 small and 4 not so small block prints for the exhibition I’m a part of in a couple of weeks. The imagery has been inspired by a visit I made to Berlin a couple of winters ago and in particular seeing the Berlin Holocaust Memorial under a deep white muffled blanket of snow. I’ve used softcut vinyl and Intaglio Printmaker’s relief / litho ink mixed 50:50 with extender onto Japanese Hosho paper. I printed them on the antique Columbian press at Swansea Print Workshop, a beautiful example of Victorian machinery, still in use.

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The vinyl is very good, especially with the smaller pieces, but rather floppy which made placing the larger pieces a bit difficult. In future, I’ll glue larger blocks onto some thin plywood. I used the shiny side of the Hosho paper and found that mixing the rather stiff ink with extender gave the best results I’ve had so far with blockprints.

Next? Mounting and framing.

 

Cat And Cut

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Greetings hairless apes. Sparta Puss here. I have taken control of the bald monkeys’ pooter box while they are distracted. The she-ape was cutting some soft floppy stuff called vinyl just now because she has to print it in the morning and I thought I’d be helpful and lend her a paw. She was not happy about it, the ungrateful chimp.  “Not a good idea with such sharp tools around”, she squealed. They all squeal you know, the monkeys. She locked me out of the room! So I got my paws on the ‘pooter box and now I can tell the world what an idiot she is.

And yes, that is a zombie garden gnome in the background. Stupid monkeys.

Nearly Done

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Today I finished printing my 8 small, 2-colour lino (well, vinyl) blocks ready for my group exhibition at Oriel Ceri Richards at Taliesin Arts Centre in a couple of weeks. I still have to do the second colour on my remaining 4 larger blocks but that’s for tomorrow.

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I used Intaglio Printmaker’s oil-based litho/relief black ink mixed 50:50 with their extender and printed onto Hosho paper using an antique Victorian Columbian printing press at Swansea Print Workshop. I started with drawings and photos of a visit I made to the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin a couple of winters ago. The thick snow made the place even more surreal and inspired me to develop the imagery in drawing and printmaking. I like the way they’ve turned out, quite a departure for me but part of being an artist is to evolve and experiment.

If you want to find out more about the 15 Hundred Lives group show “People And Place”, please click here.

The Antique Columbian

I’ve been working on a new series of linocut (well, vinyl) prints for an exhibition coming up at Oriel Ceri Richards later this month, a group exhibition with the 15 Hundred Lives art collective. Each print will be in 2 colours on white, using Japanese Hosho paper and Intaglio Printmakers relief inks.

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I printed the last of the 12 blocks today with the first colour, a mid grey, down at Swansea Print Workshop.

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Next, I’ll cut away the grey areas and print the second colour, black. That’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

 

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I am using the antique Victorian Colombian Press and I’ll be printing each in editions of 15. I love working with such old machinery. The Victorians didn’t stint on the decoration, it’s beautiful as well as functional. It’s also idiosyncratic and a bit fickle to use, but so would I be if I were that old 🙂