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.
geometry 2017-I Collage
geometry 2017-II Collage
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…
A bit late but I’m part of this show. If you can’t make that we’ll also be at the Black Swan Art Boot sale in Frome, Somerset on 8th July. That’s a great place to find a huge variety of work and Frome is worth a trip anyway.
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.
Fresco – collage, watercolour pencil and acrylic paint
Jungle – collage and watercolour pencil
Red Mountain – collage
geometry 2017-II Collage
geometry 2017-I Collage
Soft – collage and watercolour pencil
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.
No Frontiers
On ther Road Again
Humoresque
Dangerous
Dandy
Cajun Music
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.
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.
I have already posted the ‘basic’ version of this, (here) which is available in an edition of five. This is a one-off experiment in printing over prepared paper, in this case washes of acrylic paint plus some acrylic ink. I suppose this makes it a monoprint – or perhaps it is mixed media?
As an experiment, it’s worth recording, but I don’t think the prepared paper really works in this instance.
