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Still here…

At the edge of the known universe – gel print

Health issues again have prevented me from doing much work. Nothing life threatening, but chronic nagging issues really drain your enthusiasm! In particular I haven’t been able to stand at the press very much. As an experiment I’ve been trying gel printing.

If you are not sure what that is have a look on YouTube where there are lots of ‘how to’ videos. If you want to avoid 45 minutes of umms and ahhs, look for videos by Ruth Alice Kosnik, Jane Davies and Gerda Lipski. There are also many examples from the main manufacturers of these plates, Gel Press and Gelli Arts. He doesn’t have many up yet, but this video from Canadian artist Bob Pennycook is also worth a look for his ingenious jig to enable precise registration.

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Some recent work

I’ve added another page to my Portfolio Pages here with examples of some Gel Prints. I’ve also been using the prints made this way as elements for collage. I’ve always liked collage, ever since I came across the work of Max Ernst and Kurt Schwitters in my teens, too many years ago.

Here’s a couple of slightly larger collage pieces (about 12″ x 9″ or 300 x 225 mm)

Finally here’s another one from some time ago, using prepared papers again, but this time by monoprinting on paper smaller than the plate, so taking the colour to the edges. I originally intended this to be overprinted with a drypoint, but I haven’t taken the plunge yet…

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Wiltshire Print Creatives

Last year I joined with a group of other artist printmakers who share the same workshop space to form Wiltshire Print Creatives, an informal collective. We had our first group show in November at 44AD Artspace in Bath. We were very pleased with the reception we got and sold quite well, so we are now firming things up to create a more coherent presence with a website and social media. You can already find us on Twitter and get an informal peak behind the scenes but we intend to ramp this up over the next few months and probably add other social media platforms like Instagram.

We also have a couple of further shows lined up – more later – but are still looking for new opportunities and venues, especially where we might be able to establish a more permanent presence.

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Some Mixed Media and Collage pieces

Avebury Neolithic circle

Because I couldn’t stand at the press for quite a while (see the previous post for why), I also made some small collage pieces. These have no particular theme, they are just playing with the medium.

All are available in my Etsy shop here (£25.00 each, matted to fit a 10″ x 8″ frame – see the listing for full details):
https://preview.tinyurl.com/y7dt9j9y

This link to an Etsy search on ‘mixed media collage’ also brings up some other items including a number from my ‘Made to Music’ series (£15 for unmatted, £30 matted – see the listing for full details – and making me realise that I’ve worked this way on several occasions.

I have another series called ‘Around Avebury’, which has yet to be added to the Etsy shop. These are all in handmade oak frames. You can find these on my Portfolio Pages.

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A new print series

I’ve been unable to do any printing for quite a while. I have been plagued with problems with my foot, putting me on crutches since mid-November. I used my down time looking at a lot of pictures, but also thinking about subjects and themes. I’ve been interested in neolithic rock art for some time now and living near Avebury and Stonehenge it’s impossible to avoid standing stones. Scattered also across the landscape of Wessex are hundreds, if not thousands of barrows and burial mounds and of course the White Horses like Pewsey, Cherhill, Westbury etc in Wiltshire or Uffington in Oxfordshire. In addition we have the famous Cerne Abbas Giant, the Long Man of Wilmington and assorted other hill figures, many now lost completely.

It isn’t just Britain with these features. The stone alignments of Carnac in Brittany are well known, but there are a multitude of standing stone circles, alignments and dolmens across France and Ireland and much further afield.

Putting all this together made me wonder about the sort of landscape we might see if more had survived. Out of that has evolved the print series I’m putting together. This will take landscapes, more or less stylised and incorporate into them other figures. I will draw on a range of sources. I’m researching Celtic and Saxon myths, cave paintings as well as the sort of abstract shapes found in rock art.

Technically, these prints will incorporate collagraph and dry point plus perhaps solar etching and ultimately hand embellishments. I also expect to use monoprinting or hand painting as the ground on which the prints will be made. I’m also going to try and incorporate some of the techniques used by Australian artist, Kim Westcott. (http://www.kimwestcott.com, although the site did not load properly for me.) She reuses old plates in combination with new, mixing in shadow prints and rotation of the plates to create her drypoints.

I have no prints as yet, but here are some rough sketches and photos of some plates in preparation.

With luck, I’ll have more over the next few weeks.

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I’m not the only one finding inspiration in these themes. See the web pages for Irish artist Tommy Barr.

http://tbarrart.homestead.com/index.html