July 2022
Blog post for July 2022 - visits to different exhibitions, trying out ideas for larger projects
This month we’ve had several family visitors, my youngest son graduated from Sheffield University (with a 2:1 whoop-whoop) and it’s been very hot in parts, too hot to work, however I’ve managed to do a lot of things such as taking part on an excellent online course run by Sally Hirst called ‘Confident Composition’:
https://sallyhirst.co.uk/confident-composition/
Sally is also an art historian and educator and encouraged us to watch ‘the paradox of choice’ by Barry Schwartz, a very amusing and pertinent TED short talk made some ten years ago : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM&ab_channel=TED
I read a couple of books about Joan Eardley: https://joaneardley.com/ and a lot of the back catalogues of exhibitions of the Scottish Gallery on Issuu:
https://issuu.com/scottishgallery
I especially enjoyed ‘Towards Abstraction’ by John Brown and the catalogues on the exhibitions of Duncan Shanks; I found reading about how other artist’s plan and prepare their work very interesting . Reading about Joan again (she’s long been one of my favourite artists) made me do some sketching outdoors in Central Park and currently I’m working out ways of making these into screen prints at the Printery (where I shall be ‘Printmaker of the Month’ for August!)
Went to see the PV of the summer show at the lovely Make SW gallery in Bovey Tracey: https://www.crafts.org.uk/current and especially enjoyed the large set of prints by Barton Hargreaves and the colourful jewellery for sale in the shop. Luckily I didn’t take much money with me so couldn’t buy anything.
Also saw the AUP (formerly Plymouth College of Art) BA Hons 3D craft summer show in Regent Street, very interesting work all made to a high standard, and particularly loved the fishing-industry based plates and the work of Suzi Humphries.
Print wise, I’ve been working on making tusche screen prints with Sue Lewry, one of my contemporaries on the MA (https://www.suelewry.com/projects), because tusches give you a more painterly way of making screen prints; if you’re interested see: https://lascaux.ch/en/products/brushes-printmaking-sets-various/lascaux-tusches - I’ve also been making hybrid screen prints by drawing with a tusche then with linocut overprinting based on the seed-heads of cow parsley to see how it works out; I really enjoy the ‘drawing’ part of the process so I’ll continue my experimentation. I want to make some larger scale hybrid prints too so I have lots to think about…
Working with Sue who is very focused and organised made me realise that I needed to move myself forward business-wise so I’ve been on several boot camps and workshops run by Outset (https://www.outset.org/plymouth/) on how to set up and run a small business and I’ve finally - after much prevarication - added my shop to my website, although now of course I’ll have to get up to speed on all the social media networks:)
June 2022
The advent of summer, visiting exhibitions and making new work
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!
Spring into May
This month we’ve been to Exeter, enjoyed walking around the parks and I’ve been making books and eco-printing
So, here’s a round up of what I’ve been doing during the last month. I read a really excellent book by Austin Kleon called ‘Show Your Work’ that I discovered whilst reading Clayhill Arts’ newsletter - it’s a great little book packed with helpful advice for creatives trying to get going and I highly recommend it. One of the best quotes in it was from John Coltrane talking about why he keeps playing (and it isn’t just for the money): ‘I have to feel that I’m after something…It’s the striving, man, it’s that I want’
A friend took us to Moretonhampstead to see the Open Exhibition (see ‘Events’ page) and to check out my print but stupidly we didn’t think it through and went on a day when it was closed - note to self, always check the opening times…however all was not lost as we enjoyed exploring the town and had a lovely Italian meal at Berto’s pizzeria. We’ve given our car to Son No.3 in an effort to be green and to live within our means so we went on the train to Exeter for the day, to the excellent RAMM museum and art gallery. When I was a child we visited our grandparents in Huddersfield during the holidays and spent a lot of time at the Greenhead Park Museum, looking at all the stuffed birds and animals in glass cases and I just thought how much museums have come on since those days (early ‘60’s). I loved the bird room with the shadow prints behind the blinds and the sound of birdsong. Looking around the rooms I noticed some beautiful lace made in Devon over a hundred years ago and just as fresh today. Ray Balkwill was showing some of his assemblages and paintings in the cafe which were lovely.
Continuing our exploration of Plymouth on foot, we’ve discovered two tiny parks very near us - Thorn Park and Mutley Park, tiny green oases in the middle of the city. I’m really delighted with how many parks there are in Plymouth and now that some of them have wild and un-mown areas, even nicer to see so many wild flowers and weeds (I love weeds) growing up. We have a very tiny courtyard garden and are in the process of planting up tubs and pots and putting up trellis so that we can sit outside when it gets warmer. I enrolled on an evening course at the City of Plymouth college in ‘Creative Arts Textiles’ and walk there and back through the parks and cemeteries, especially enjoyable after a shower of rain when all the birds are singing. For the first two weeks we covered eco dyeing and indigo dyeing; botanical dyeing was a lot of fun and easy to do if you get some leaves and petals, paper and iron water. I made my prints into a simple book then sewed some sashiko patterns over the top.
I’m still following the excellent Liz Hough online course from St Ives School of Painting; this month I’ve been turning my black and white drawings into 3D constructions and then trying to make collages from these. I haven’t found the collages very easy to do - I think I tried too hard and should just have relaxed and gone with the process - but I loved making the 3D constructions and some small paintings from these, and made some stamps from my motifs to make collage paper. Finally, one of the many excellent pieces of advice in Austin Kleon’s book was ‘share your reading list and point to helpful reference materials’ so in the spirit of collaboration here’s what I have been reading this month and some useful links.
Reading:
Vitamin T: Threads and Textiles in Contemporary Art - Phaidon
Eco Colour: India Flint - Murdoch Books
Drawing the Line: the early work of Agnes Martin - Christina Rosenberger, University of California Press
Landscape and Power, ed WJT Mitchell - University of Chicago Press
The Book of Boro: Susan Briscoe, David and Charles
Slow Stitch: Claire Wellesley Smith, Batsford
Making Books: London Centre for Book Arts, Pavilion
Textile website: https://www.textileartist.org/
Supplier: https://www.georgeweil.com/
April 2022
April - Spring has sprung and we’ve been out and about enjoying Plymouth and the Rame Peninsula
Good news, bad news. (Aside from the ongoing global bad news.)
The good news is that the sun has mostly been shining and it has been lovely to see Central Park burst into life with the cherry trees and magnolias showing off their beautiful flowers, and the allotments are showing signs of life. This past month we’ve been to Bristol, to see the truly excellent Paula Rego exhibition at the Arnolfini gallery, what an amazing technical ability Rego has, well worth a visit, and then we popped in to one of our favourite old haunts, Zero Degrees for a mango beer in the sunshine. Now that we live in the centre of the city, we’ve got rid of the car in an effort to be green and to live within our budget, so that’s been passed onto son No.3. This means we now go everywhere by public transport and what an interesting experience that can be. On the way home from Bristol we - and the train - got caught in a wave at Teignmouth.
Still exploring our new surroundings, we walked to Firestone Bay and watched the boats in the Sound. Some old friends came to stay and took us to Cawsand and Kingsand via the Torpoint ferry; the Rame peninsula and Rame Head in particular is unspoilt and beautiful with staggering views down the coastline towards the Lizard. It was a top day out especially when we ended up in Roam, our very local independent craft brewery for a swift 2/3 before supper.
The bad news is that my Instagram has been hacked and taken over which was entirely my fault for clicking on a link from a friend (aka the hacker, as it turned out) and within 2 minutes my account had been completely taken over and despite my best efforts to get Instagram to help me to get it back under my control, it has gone. I can’t decide whether to get a new account or not; in the meantime I shall use this Blog.
In the studio, I’m working my way through an online course run by St Ives School of Painting with Liz Hough as the tutor; it’s a follow up online course to one she ran last year and we’re learning strategies to help us move our work towards the abstract. (This movement towards online courses must surely be one of the benefits of the pandemic, because it means anyone can attend without having the additional cost of travelling to and staying in St Ives, lovely though St.Ives is?) Anyway, this month we’ve been turning our black and white drawings into monoprints then into 3D models, which we then draw and make collages from. I have done a ton of drawings, monoprints and sketches, whilst my studio looks like a Blue Peter set after the kids have gone home. All of the processes Liz has shown us have been a lot of fun and I will definitely be using them in my practice going forward.
Keeping busy
This month we’ve been to two exhibitions and I’ve been on a couple of brilliant courses
Whilst I was working towards my MA in printmaking at Plymouth College of Art, I met some lovely people who are now my friends. Some of us joined CAMP, an arts based network for Devon and Cornwall and the CAMP printmakers meet regularly at a community studio in Liskeard. At a recent meet-up, we decided to have a go with gel plate printing because none of us had ever used that process, it being fairly low-tech, and we thought it might be interesting to see how we all used it in different ways.
This month I started photographing the local allotments here in Peverell (Plymouth) but as we don’t have an allotment, I had to take them through the fence. This actually added an air of mystery and framed them quite well. From these, I made a series of mono prints; I built up layers of acrylic colour using the gel plate then used an intaglio oil based ink to make a mono print over the top, based on my glimpses through the wire fence. I also made some colour sketches which I might develop into paintings or prints.
In mid-February I signed up for a course in experimental paper making and bookbinding at Clayhill Arts centre (near Bridgewater in Somerset) which was run by Jennifer Collier over 2 days. It was a really excellent course and as I stayed there overnight - highly recommended as co-owner Deborah is a trained chef - I was able to concentrate fully on making scraps of paper and prints into something lovely. Jen showed us how to stitch into these papers and to my amazement I enjoyed the sewing part very much. I will definitely use these techniques as I often have prints which aren’t successful, being an experimental printmaker, so I can now use these to make books. Clayhill Arts is a beautiful peaceful centre and I’ll be back for more!
Deborah (co-owner of Clayhill) told me about the printmaking studio at East Quay, Watchet and the Two Rivers paper mill there so we went to stay one weekend. Watchet is a tiny coastal port on the North coast of Somerset and EastQuay is well worth a visit. We saw an exhibition and film there by Bedwyr Williams called ‘The See Wall’ which made me laugh out loud:)
We drove home via Dartmoor and called in at Moretonhampstead to visit the Green Hill Arts centre where we saw a lovely two man exhibition called ‘Form - Landscape - Shape’ by Neil Beech and Jeremy Speck; I especially enjoyed the colourful screen prints.
I was pleased to hear this week that one of my digital prints ‘Dahlia 3’ has been chosen for the Green Hill Arts Open and I’m looking forward to seeing it in this tranquil calm space. I’d never crossed Dartmoor from north-south before so the sheer breadth of it was breathtaking to see.
Having moved to Devon, I felt it would make sense if I joined the MAKE Southwest organisation as a graduate member so here I am: https://www.crafts.org.uk/graduate-makers
Finally this month, I’ve been working towards making my work more abstract by joining Liz Hough’s courses online at St Ives School of Painting over the last year. I think these work very well as we also have an online community where we share our work and we can discuss things that have worked and those which haven’t. It saves travelling to St Ives and is a lot cheaper as a result.
Liz set us 5 tasks this month and I’ve really enjoyed working through these in black and white, using white acrylic, PVA, graphite powder, Indian ink and different weights of charcoal. Highly recommended!
Settling in…
Making prints with CAMP Kin printmaking group, at The Printery and in my studio
I’ve done my H&S inductions at the Printery in Mutley and following on from watercolour monoprints, this month I’ve been learning how to make screen printed monotypes and experimenting with adding a chine collé monoprint to an etching. I’ve also been to Liskeard to work with a small group of printmakers who belong to CAMP - this month we worked with the humble Gelli plate with some surprising results - viscosity inking up worked very well. Taking the time to work, sit and chat to each other is a lot of fun and we’ve had several good ideas about possibly showing our work at a later date.
I’ve also joined MAKE Southwest’s Graduate Membership Scheme so this year I’ll concentrate on getting a body of work together. I’m going on a two day experimental bookbinding course at Clayhill Arts centre near Bridgewater shortly where I’m hoping I’ll learn new ways of combining my prints and papers into a book form because I need to find ways of using up prints that didn’t quite work out so that nothing is wasted. My husband has also made me two screen printing frames so that I can do some in my studio and last but not least, we went to the ‘Songlines’ exhibition at The Box which is well worth a visit.
We’ve moved to Plymouth!
We’ve moved to Plymouth as we missed living in a city
We made the decision to move to Plymouth because we missed living in a city... here we have the best of both worlds, and we’re a lot nearer the rest of the family in the Cotswolds now. We chose a house that had room for me to have my studio in the roof so I don’t have a train journey to make each time I want to do something, which is great. I’ve joined Devon Artist network and will be participating in the annual Devon Open Studios (September 10 -25th 2022).
I’ve also joined The Printery open studios in Mutley and have put my name down for several courses which I’m very excited about. I’ve also bought an Akua pin press so I can do watercolour monotypes at home in the studio. They are very delicate and pastel in colour and look like faded Persian rugs. We live right next to Central Park which is a great place for inspiration and ideas, being full of mature trees and home to many allotments.
Using an Xcut Xpress
I find I’m missing being able to print so I bought a tiny portable press.
I did some research about small portable printers and discovered the Xcut Xpress. I Googled it and came across Sally Hirst’s video on YouTube where she described using this machine. It is actually a die cutter but you can quickly repurpose it with a longer bed and felt from HandPrinted, which I also bought. I got the Xcut from eBay as it isn’t actually in production anymore and read the articles on how to use it from Sally, HandPrinted and Colin Blanchard. I’ve quickly tried it out just using paper stencils and I’m very happy with it and looking forward to getting to grips with it properly.
Here are the links in case you’re interested:
Colin Blanchard - https://www.colinblanchard.com/blog
https://www.colinblanchard.com/blog/the-handbag-press
Handprinted - https://handprinted.co.uk/blogs/blog/printing-with-the-xcut-xpress Accessory pack: https://handprinted.co.uk/products/printmakers-accessory-pack-for-xcut-xpress
Sally Hirst - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6er85l12Bdc
Jenny McCabe - https://www.jennymccabe.co.uk/blog/2020/6/21/printing-in-lockdown-using-the-xcut-xpress
The Curious Printmaker - https://thecuriousprintmaker.co.uk/x-cut-xpress-little-printing-press/
As well as trying out the new press, I’ve been experimenting with stencils. I tried making my own which was a dismal failure, then bought some by ‘StencilGirl’ after watching another Sally Hirst video on YouTube. I’m looking for ways to combine media and I really like the delicate charcoal and pencil effects; I’m going to start doing a lot more drawing now that the bad weather looks to be here.
St. Ives
In the last week of September, Emma Bennett, Frances Staniforth and I held an exhibition at the Salthouse Gallery in St. Ives. It was something I’d booked a long time ago (a pop-up exhibition space) but due to Covid-19 nothing happened last year, and as we’d actually graduated in the meantime we thought we’d put up our work as a kind of celebration and to get ourselves ‘out there’.
Because we don’t live close to each other we had to do a lot of the admin and decision making by WhatsApp and amazingly it did all come together well. The Cornish Framing Company at Crowlas did the framing for me and are a lovely company to deal with. Coming in and on on the train daily was a nice way to start and end the day although the weather was changeable to say the least. We survived on a diet of chips, paninis, pasties and ice-cream and learned not to walk back with any food through The Sloop car park as the seagulls who patrol it are very fierce and not at all scared of attacking you to get the ice-cream.
St. Ives was really busy, post-Festival, but the Salthouse is tucked away down some alleyways and we weren’t sure that many people would come. In the event, it was reasonably well attended and as well as our friends, we met some lovely people, many of whom were interested enough in what we were showing to spend time discussing ideas, further plans and so on with us. Fellow artists such as Paul Wadsworth and Spencer Shakespeare popped in for a chat and it was great hearing their advice and tips. Some of our old lecturers and fellow students from PCA came to support us as they were in St Ives and we also sold some work each, which was the icing on the cake, really. We also had time in between stewarding to visit the many exhibitions and galleries ourselves, and the work by Sax Impey at Anima Mundi - seascapes - is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful and I highly recommend a visit.
Blog Post: August
Table-top litho printing and experimenting with small paintings
Since I went on the Liz Hough course at St Ives School of Painting in July, I’ve been trying out ideas using acrylic on board.
Last week I went with some fellow artists from Krowji to a CAMP printmaking kin day, organized by Nicky Harwood of the Creative Gym and Caroline Wilkins which was a lot of fun, topped off by an excellent veggie lunch at the local cafe. Nicky showed us how to do a tabletop litho print using very simple materials and this is something that I’ll definitely incorporate into my workflow and I’ll also try to overprint onto a drawing or painting next time I’m in the studio as I’d like to find a way of combining these that works.
The selection of images above shows some of the little paintings I’ve done, the litho print I made, and Nicky demonstrating the litho technique. I’ve also taken some work in to be framed ready for an exhibition we’re having at the Salthouse Gallery in St. Ives from September 25th for a week.