Waste Not, Want Not.

wpid-20150617_162951.jpg

 

So I was working with some fellow artists and one of them, a painter, chucked some black oil paint mixed with turps down the sink. Unfortunately, the sink was blocked so he filled it with water and squeezed some washing up liquid into it and suddenly it went all marbled. So, waste not, want not, I grabbed some of my Fabriano Accademica paper and threw it on top of the water and marbled my paper. It’s been sitting round for a few months and I’d just about forgotten about it until today, when I decided to do some drawing.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

I’ve been working on a series of silkscreen prints over the past few weeks, tight design and a very specific technical process and I wanted to get back to something intuitive, so I grabbed my marbled paper and various black drawing media: some willow charcoal, carbon, compressed charcoal and Bideford Black. And I got stuck in. I used an old life drawing very loosely as a basis and then got into the zone, moving the media across the paper, just letting it happen.

 

Tomorrow I Scribble!

Here’s a short video that Husb edited together from a digital drawing I did some time ago. I used a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 with a free Markers app and saved the drawing frequently, which showed the progress of the drawing. The model is a young artist who poses for our local life drawing group and I drew him about a year ago. It’s interesting seeing these digital drawings edited together, it gives me an idea of how I draw. I’m not aware of it at the time, it’s something I do instinctively.

1401395861996

I’ve done very little daily drawing for a few weeks now; I’ve been so busy making a series of 10 screenprints based on artists that inspire me and there’s been no time for sketching. So tomorrow I’m back to wandering around with my sketchbooks and pens and a few lumps of graphite and some white conte crayon in my bag. Tomorrow I scribble!

Egon And The Paper

wpid-wp-1434395619661.jpeg

Here’s the last of my series of screenprints of favourite artists for a while. I prepared a screen to take to last Sunday’s Art Car Boot Fair in London’s Brick Lane and started to print it during the afternoon. I used a different vintage paper to the one I used for all the women artists. I used a British made W.S.H & Co for Egon Shiele, no longer made unfortunately. It has a beautiful deckle edge and a slightly rough texture and is a silvery white. Gorgeous. Can’t get paper like this in Britain any more. Such a shame.

Prints And Paddington

20150614_121927

Today, Husb and I went to the Art Car Boot Fair in London, sharing a space with other artists from Swansea. I took a couple of silk screens with me to print. Here’s one of Jeanne Huberteurne, a French artist. It worked well. I am smiling 🙂

20150614_210421

We came back from Paddington Station and went to find the statue of Paddington Bear. He has been moved to under the clock on Platform 1. I stopped for a chat.

And Now The Chaps…

egon

I’ve finished a series of 8 silkscreen prints of women artists who inspire or move me and now I’m going to have a bash at the chaps. It’s been harder to source photographs of the male artists. A lot of them have been very formal, posed ones and so many men in the early twentieth century had large beards, which make them look a bit samey. There seem to be more photos of the women artists of the same era, a lot of them informal, family photos which has given me far more choice. Egon Schiele is an exception as he had a series of experimental photographic portraits  made and he also shaved! I’ve worked up a drawing onto the screen and worked onto it with Speedball Diazo drawing fluid using various sable brushes. It’s one of the screens I’ll be taking to the London Art Car Boot Fair (June the 14th) to demonstrate screenprinting, alternating with stencil artist Simon Dark. We’ll be doing our arty thing outside Dylan’s Mobile Book Bus.

Eight Women Finished!

SONY DSC
Favourite women artists

 

 

Here’s the complete set of silkscreens of 8 of my favourite artists that I have been working on for the past few weeks. I’ve done each of them as editions of 25, except for Frida Kahlo, I did 50 of her. I’m not sure why, I just really liked the brushwork on her screen. It was the last one I did and I was getting much bolder and less anal about applying the liquid stencil. I’ve got the bug now and I want to do more.

I was going to do some of my favourite male artists in this first tranche but when I researched images of them, most of them looked alike – they were mostly middle aged bearded Victorian men in black coats and white collars. Apart from Egon Schiele. So it’s back to the drawing board with the men. The artists above are Paula Modersohn-Becker, Kathe Kollwitz, Suzanne Valadon, Hannah Hoch, Camille Claudel, Gabriele Munter, Broncia Keller-Pinell and Frida Kahlo. I used a lovely vintage paper, handmade and deckle-edged by T. H. Saunders, sadly no longer made. They’ll be launched at the London Art Car Boot Fair in Brick Lane on Sunday. Please drop by if you’re up London way 🙂

Registration. Registration. Registration.

registration 1
Registration on the silkscreen frame

 

Registration is critical for a printmaker and when you start as a callow student it’s difficult to get your head around it, but eventually it becomes second nature. It also makes use of some of the boring maths I learnt in school. I did one tabletop registration for all eight of my recent silkscreens on women artists and fitted the registrations on the different screens to it. I used thin masking tape for the registration marks on the tabletop and the screen frames and wide masking tape to mask the edges of the mesh so that the ink didn’t squeeze through onto the paper except where it was supposed to.

It isn’t glamorous, but it’s important and it’s worth spending time to get it right. This screen has four of my women artist stencils on it: Hannah Hoch, Gabriele Munter, Camille Claudel and Broncia Koller-Pinell. The stencils were created with Speedball Diazo Drawing Fluid and Filler. The finished prints will be going to the London Art Car Boot Fair this coming Sunday. Please call in if you’re passing by Brick Lane 🙂

Warts ‘N’ All

frida

Here’s the last of my series of 8 silkscreen portraits of women artists that I’m launching this coming Sunday at London’s Art Car Boot Fair in Brick Lane. My final edition is of the iconic Frida Kahlo. I’ve really enjoyed doing these editions; I hadn’t done any silkscreens for about 8 or 9 years and it’s been great to get back into the technique. I’d forgotten how many things can go wrong, but doing all these over the past few weeks has brought it all back to me, warts and all. So tomorrow, signing, titling and numbering the editions, packing them in bags and getting everything sorted to take up to London.

Almost There – Camille And Broncia

camille broncia

Numbers 6 and 7 of my series of 8 women artists in silkscreen are the tragic French sculptor, Camille Claudel and the Austrian Expressionist painter, Broncia Koller-Pinell. I’ve produced each of these in editions of 25, all hand-printed in Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic pigment mixed with screenprinting medium onto a beautiful antique paper, creamy, lightly textured, medium weight, deckle-edged, produced by TH Saunders, an old British paper mill, sadly no longer in business. So once I’ve used up this supply of paper, that’s it.

These will be launched at the London Art Car Boot Fair in Brick Lane on Sunday the 14th June. I’ll be there with Dylan’s Book Bus and fellow artist Simon Dark.

Frida Blue

frida blue

And the last of the silkscreens of women artists that I am working on, the iconic Frida Kahlo. This is the first stage, after drawing the image gently onto the fabric with a soft pencil, I have painted the image with Speedball Diazo Drawing Fluid. Once it’s dry, the next stage will be to squeegee the Filler Liquid across it to form the stencil. This series of 8 women artists will be launched at the London Art car Boot Fair next Sunday, June the 14th. It’s over in the East End, in Brick Lane, if anyone’s in London on the day 😀