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 🙂
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.
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.
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 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 🙂
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.
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.
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 😀
I’m cracking on with my silkscreens of women artists, completing another 2 editions today, Hannah Höch, a Berlin Dadaist and pioneer of collage and photomontage and Gabriele Münter, a German Expressionist painter. I’m printing in editions of 25 and hope to complete eight editions to take to the London Art Car Boot Fair on June the 14th. These are numbers 4 and 5 of the final 8.
I’m using Speedball Diazo Drawing Fluid to paint the image onto the screens and completing the stencil with their liquid filler. I have been using Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic process black pigment mixed with Screen Printing Medium in a ration of one third to two thirds, pigment to medium. I am printing on some beautiful handmade vintage paper by W.H. Saunders, a British mill that unfortunately no longer exists. It’s a medium weight, slightly textured creamy deckle-edged paper. Ooooh I love paper. I love it!
Head down working on silkscreen editions again today. I started preparing number 7 out of 8, Jeanne Hébuterne, early 20th century French artist who died tragically at the age of 22. I drew the image onto the fabric with an HB pencil and then filled in the areas that will print black with Speedball Diazo Drawing Fluid. Tomorrow I’ll apply the filler. I’m making these editions of screenprints to take to the London Art Car Boot Fair, on June the 14th. It’s an example of how drawing underpins my artistic practice. I try to draw every day in my sketchbook; it’s basic practice, like a musician doing their scales or chords. But drawing is more than practice, it’s vital to the process of developing my prints as well.
A lovely exhibition of printmaking opens tonight at Swansea Print Workshop
Kindly Avert Your Gaze
A pop-up exhibition by Swansea-based artist Jane Jones
The exhibition opens with a Private View on Friday 5 June from 6.30 to 8 pm and continues on Saturday and Sunday 6 and 7 June from 11 am to 4 pm
ALL WELCOME | FREE
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