June 2022
The advent of summer, and we’ve certainly enjoyed sitting under the trees in Central Park watching the wind blow the grasses and cow parsley. I don’t know why I’m so attracted to the shapes of cow parsley but maybe it’s because to me they represent ‘summer’. I’m currently trying to find ways of turning my sketches and drawings into prints; I’m happy with the drawings but I want to simplify them right down before printing them. I have pressed and dried some grasses and cow parsley in case I decide to make a collagraph series.
I’m on the last leg of the course taught by Liz Hough on ways to make your work more abstract and the latest part has been turning our work into collages; I wasn’t particularly pleased with mine - too fussy - but turned the motifs I’d made into lino shapes and made several prints from these and added the shapes to tiny square prints to make them 3D. I simplified the drawings I’d made into thumbnails and will screen print some of these at some point. I’ve also been collaborating with one of my friends from the MA, Sue Lewry, on screen printing with tusches which is a fairly complex process but we’re testing it out with a view to making some larger ones that Sue will edition for me once we’ve cracked it. The book ‘Screenprinting - the complete water based solution’ by Robert Adam and Carol Robertson (published by Thames & Hudson 2003) was very helpful with its explanations of the steps and processes involved . I used one of the collages I’d made on Liz’s course for this and it seems to work well, I really like the painterly marks the tusche makes. Sue also recommended the Mellon lectures ‘Contact: Art and the Pull of Print’, a series of 6 lectures about printmaking given by Prof. Jennifer L. Roberts which I’ve found very interesting.
Since finishing the MA last year I’ve been trying out painting in acrylic and this has not been particularly successful. I don’t like the ‘bounce’ of canvas and the paintings I’ve made haven’t been the paintings that I’ve had in my head, so I thought what was needed was a course in composition and enrolled on an online course called ‘Confident Composition’ taught by Sally Hirst. I’m so pleased that I did and can see a way now to make my paintings look like I want them to. Sally is a mine of information and very generous with her knowledge and advice on painting, mixed media and printmaking which she shares on YouTube and her website. I’d been simplifying some black and white collages from one of my sketchbooks in order to screen print them and the work we’re doing with Sally on simplifying and arranging elements to make better work using black, white and grey has helped me already. I knew about the work of Eduardo Chillida from my MA days but Sally also discussed his work and I feel that everything is (slowly) coming together…
Over the last month I’ve visited four exhibitions in Plymouth:
Breaking the Mould - sculpture by women since 1945 - Plymouth University
that has sadly closed but you can still read all about it on the website. The sculptures were very diverse and often made from the most unexpected materials.
Exhibition by Richard Sunderland and work by ceramist Leigh Mason at Artmill Gallery, Peverell. Show ends Saturday 2nd July. I especially liked Richard’s friezes and his tiny abstract collages; well worth a visit if you’re in Plymouth.
BA PDP Degree show at Arts University, Plymouth
we went to the Private View at The Mirror gallery last Friday and enjoyed the variety and standard of work on show
18 Jun 2022 - 04 Sep 2022 The exhibition of paintings and drawings about aspects of George’s life is very moving and uplifting - I’m ashamed to say that I hadn’t heard of him before visiting The Box but I’m a convert now and I’ve signed up for his artist’s talk this Friday - very exciting!
