A Work Of Sadness

 

I don’t normally draw landscapes but I always take a sketchbook with me when I’m travelling. Here’s a sketch I made from the window of my bedroom at the hostel in Bisham, Pakistan. It was my first sight of the Karakoram mountain range – spectacular. More people should think about holidaying in Pakistan – the Northern Territories are fairly safe and the scenery is out of this world. The people are also incredibly friendly and it’s so cheap. We were en route to the Hunza Valley, high up near the border with China.

When I came home, I produced this unique monotype using the 3-colour reduction technique I learned from Indian/American artist Vinita Voogd.

Bisham was unfortunately affected by the dreadful earthquake of 2005 that left almost 80,000 people dead in Pakistan. We arrived in Bisham when it was dark but when we woke up and strolled around the village we were horrified to see much of it still under many feet of rubble, two years on, knowing that people still lay beneath the earth. It reminded me of a local tragedy in my childhood, when a tip in the nearby village of Aberfan collapsed onto a local school, killing most of the children and teachers. Despite the bright colours, when I look at the monotype, I am overcome with sadness.

Block Block Block

 

Someone asked me about the difference in the final prints made by blocks in different materials so here are three I did earlier :). This top one is hacked from a piece of plywood. It’s very rough and choppy because the wood splinters when you attack it with the cutting tools and it also tends to split along the grain. Solid areas also show the grain when they’re inked up so it’s hard to get a solid black. Some expert printmakers, however, scratch the surface of the wood instead of cutting and gouging. This gives a very refined and delicate tonal quality – here’s a link to an accomplished Chinese printmaker, Xiang Sl, who does amazing huge portraits in this technique.

The next block print is one I did with PVC foamboard, used by signwriters. In Britain, it’s called Foamex. Signwriters usually give away their offcuts, so it’s free and recycled. Bargain. It doesn’t like being cut and blunts tools after a couple of gouges, but it loves being incised with the point of a nail or screw, the tip of a screwdriver or even a ballpoint pen, pressed hard. The solid white areas in this print are cut with conventional cutting tools, the fine lines incised with the point of a 4inch screw held against a steel rule and the dots were made with a crosshead screwdriver jabbed into the surface. It gets rid of a lot of stress. It gives very good blacks and you can do very fine linear detail, much more so than with softwood or lino.

Finally, here’s a reduction print in lino. I find it’s the easiest of the three to cut and the tools love it – they take ages to blunt. It’s great for getting lovely flowing lines, it’s like drawing with blades and you can be very free when you’re cutting into it, especially if you warm it gently before you start. Hhowever, you can’t get the very fine detail possible with PVC foamboard, because it squishes slightly in the printing press and finely cut lines can close up under the pressure.

Phew – that’s very geeky 😀

ps block printing is also known as relief printing.

Strop!!!

 

I’m carrying on with woodcuts for a while, hacking away at lumps of plywood all day at the studio. It’s important to keep my cutting tools sharp; if I keep hacking when they get blunt, it hurts my wrist. I use a leather slipstrop and a bar of waxy abrasive to keep them sharp. I rub the abrasive wax onto the surface of the strop and then stroke the tools across it a few times to keep them sharp. I generally do it after a dozen or so cuts on plywood, more often for PVC board and less for lino.

There’s a way of stroking the blade across the strop; the gouges have to be rotated across the surface of the strop to make sure that the sharpening is even. The V and flat blades are pulled straight across. It’s much easier to do this instead of having to re-sharpen blunt tools, which needs to be done with a sharpening wheel.

It’s quite a big piece so it’s taking me ages to hack it. I’ve got this far. I’m giving my wrist the weekend off.

Shady Lady

 

Just got back from life drawing at the most excellent Swansea Print Workshop and I’m cream-crackered. Here’s my shady lady, our retired biology teacher who also happens to be heavily tattooed with flies, spiders, lizards and carnivorous plants. I love drawing older models, so much character in their bodies. I drew with a dip pen and Indian ink, using a square cut sable brush to apply the wash, into an A3 spiral bound sketchbook.  Now I’m going to catch up with the first episode of the new series of The Big Bang Theory and then to bed. Goodnight gentle readers …….. 🙂

First Proof

 


Been hacking away at a lump of old plywood for a couple of days and took a first proof of it today. I used Daler Rowney block printing medium mixed with Daler Rowney lamp black Georgian oil paint and took the print using a Japanese baren onto Fabriano Accademica 120 gsm paper. I can’t get a dense black using a baren but it’s ok for a first proof. Now I can see where I need to do more hacking before I take it off to Swansea Print Workshop for a proper tryout on our old Columbian press.

Keep At It

 

The only way to get good at anything is to keep at it and practice. I know that’s stating the bleedin’ obvious but so many people don’t seem to get it.

Here are some of the life drawings I did last week. I did these four, which are a bit naff and one I was pleased with (posted last week). The point is that I had to keep at it to get a decent one. There’s no use sitting around moaning about not being able to draw if people are not willing to put in the time and effort to practice. Oooh I sound like a schoolmarm LOL 😀

More Streetlife

 

I try and spend a few minutes scribbling each day. If there isn’t a specific topic to interest me, I’ll wander along to the large windows at the east side of our studio block and do some speed sketching at around 4-5pm when people are making their way home. It’s good practice because I have to capture the figures in seconds, focussing on what’s absolutely vital about each individual. You have to think on your feet.

 

I Got More Wood…

 

I’ve been hacking away at my lump of old plywood today. I darkened the outline drawing I did yesterday with a greasy charcoaly thing from Daler Rowney – I should be more technical I know, but I lost the box it came in – and then I hacked the white bits out of it. I’m still hacking but I’m hoping to do a first proof next week.

The Swansea Print Workshop annual members’ exhibition previews next Tuesday (13th November) from 6.30 pm with a classic Welsh tea – Welsh Cakes, Bara Brith, lashings of tea and some wine too. Please join us if you’re anywhere near Swansea. The exhibition runs until December 20th and there will be loads of stuff to buy for Xmas pressies and cards too.

 

 

Taking Liberties

 

Went to life drawing tonight and had a hard time for the first couple of hours but turned up trumps on the last pose. I really like the drawing I did – I was so fed up I stopped caring and it seemed to work. Because of where I was sitting there was a fair bit of foreshortening but I took liberties and exaggerated it anyway. Egon Schiele did it all the time and if it’s good enough for Egon, it’s certainly good enough for me. Done in dip pen and Indian Ink with a sable brush and wash into an A3 spiral bound sketchbook – not a particularly good one TBH.

I’ve Got Wood…

…..and I know how to use it :).

I’ve got a stack of plywood offcuts hanging around the studio so I thought I’d do some woodcuts from my sketches. I’ve decided to work on male nudes for the foreseeable future and I’ve just completed a series of three very large manier noir drawings, including one from the sketch above. So now I’m going to develop the three images into woodcuts as well. Here it is at the start, reversed and transferred onto plywood, ready to start hacking away. I usually use PVC signwriter’s foamboard or traditional lino for block printing, so it’s going to be a bit of a challenge using wood but I’ve got some cracking cutting tools and a top class sharpening strop so I’ll give it a go. I’ve also been reading up a lot on the German Expressionists, who loved their woodcuts, so I’m in illustrious company.