Jazz Green : Artist Journal

Posts tagged ‘printmaking’

on artworks and new paintings

September 11th, 2010

the artworks 11th annual exhibition opened to the public at blackthorpe today… i am a new member of this professional group of thirty east anglian artists… and this year the environment and mankind’s impact on it is the linking theme of the exhibition…

here are some snapshot photographs of my new paintings in the artworks exhibition, sadly, only taken with a mobile phone… two large lichenscapes and nine small mouldscapes… note the ancient flinty wall on which they hang…


lichenscape I and II, mixed media on canvas

it doesn’t quite look it, but this section of the barn wall is four metres wide; i had to contend with a power socket smack in the middle… thinking more about this access to electricity perhaps the idea of backlighting might be worth pursuing more rigorously as a creative diversion – that is, my work is seemingly very solid, slab-like and heavy ( a concept i quite like exploring within the relative lightness of a stretched canvas – but i had back in 2006 pursued some ideas around using painted skins. light effects and transparency

the artworks private view was very well attended with much work sold in the first couple of hours…  it was very nice to see some ex-work colleagues but somewhat odd to see the ex-boss there too; i am sure they didn’t recognise me as a past employee… here are three of my small mouldscapes on wood panels, all are 15cm x 15cm x 3cm…


mouldscape II, acrylic & composition gold leaf on wood panel


mouldscape VI, acrylic & composition gold leaf on wood panel


mouldscape IX, acrylic & composition gold leaf on wood panel

a new exhibition with some fresh, new work! although my artistic concerns remain pretty much within the environmental decomposition and decay mould…

i will also be doing a little painting demonstration during the exhibition – painting without brushes – i’ll be working on some real paintings whilst there and will be available to answer any questions on my particular techniques and processes, which include not using regular brushes to create the myriad textures of rust, corrosion and mould…

if you are in the area, please do go see this exhibition as there is much more to see, all of the artists exhibiting are highly regarded and the work is very collectible… it would be impossible to mention everybody, (and sorry, no images)…

michael wiggins incredibly detailed pen & ink drawings are a visual delight, with their optical complexities, imaginary scenes reminiscent of mc escher & piranesi…

lynn hutton has created some intriguing free-standing sculptural pieces using light, fused glass and embedded fragments of textiles to allude to identity & memory loss – i was reminded of radiographs and x-rays…

eleonora knowland’s 3d curved canvases reference the lie of the land and the wider curvature of the earth’s surface in the subtle perceptual shifts of colour, light and atmosphere, whether experienced as sculptural paintings or painterly sculptures…

valerie armstrong’s prints are both playful and dream-like, with imaginary figures and scenes lush with vibrant colours and a cultural richness…

the 11th annual artworks exhibition at blackthorpe barns, is open daily. 10am – 5pm, 11 September to 3 October 2010

i also have some unique, one-off collagraph prints in the breaking ground exhibition at the harleston gallery, 28 august to 25 september 2010…

lastly, i have somewhat neglected the little art giveaway with all the preparation work and finishing off of things for the artworks exhibition – it is not forgotten, but the deadline to win three small postcard paintings will now be extended to 1st october 2010 – to be in with a chance of receiving some free art just visit this blog post

some printmaking, old and new

August 12th, 2010

a few weeks back i attended a one day lithography workshop at the curwen press with three other artists, valerie armstrong, jenny goater and lynn hutton, organised through the art group artworks. valerie has very kindly sent me a cd of the photographs that were taken of our day at the curwen studio. it was a day of leisurely learning and perhaps a little professional development…


some photographs of the day at curwen studio

the curwen press (now known as the curwen studio) was established in 1958 as a professional printmaking studio for artists and fine art publishers, originally set up in London but it relocated to more spacious premises at Chilford Hall in 1989. the curwen studio has worked with a number of national & international artists over the years including henry moore, eduardo paolozzi, howard hodgkin, paula rego, john piper and chris orr (who happened to be one of my tutors at the rca). the curwen studio has bequeathed a collection of its prints to the tate’s print archive and it has also established strong connections with the royal academy and its academicians. in 2008 the curwen studio celebrated its 50th anniversary with special display of original prints at tate britain.

for the curwen lithography day, i decided to take along some small, textured pebbles from my collection so that i could explore drawing & mark-making from real objects, on a small scale – the six drawings are about A4…


crayon & tusche drawings on drafting film and the final lithograph print

here’s a close up (about life size) of one of the litho drawings on drafting film, of a very pitted and nobbly stone found many years ago on a beach in south wales, drawn in tusche ink wash, graphite and lithographic crayon – they were created on drafting film as the drawings were going to be used as the photo positives to process onto one large photo litho plate…


lithographic drawing on drafting film

however, when my images were processed all the delicate lines and textures of my drawing were pretty much lost – perhaps they needed a slower exposure, as it seemed even the tiniest trace of oily tusche on the film created a very dark, flat tone..


lithographic print on somerset paper

so, my final lithograph prints were a slight disappointment but nevertheless i still enjoyed my printmaking day out…

special thanks go to jenny roland and michael the studio manager for making our day both rewarding and special -  a fabulous buffet lunch was also laid on for us which was much appreciated!

i did quite a bit of lithography as an art student, on zinc plate and stone, and if i had the opportunity to pursue it again i would like to do more stone lithography…

along with the final editon of lithographic prints, which i’ve decided i will develop further with some drypoint intaglio or collagraph embossing, i still have my original crayon & tusche drawings on the drafting film… the second set of tusche washes (used for the blue grey colour in the lithograph print) seemed worthy of closer inspection since the subtle textures changed according to the direction of the light, shown here actual size…


tusche backlit from light from a window


with white paper placed behind the drafting film


photographed in a raking light

there was such a tremendous amount of subtle detail that i zoomed in further – these are the same three images, cropped to show those subtle textures…


this crop is about the size of a large postage stamp…


they look like something viewed through a microscope… (i would love a microscope that links up to a camera)…


and here, once again shown in a soft, raking light….

these photographs are very inspiring, as i see so many connections to my other work, from the drawings of bark & lichens to the textured panel paintings… and how digital images derived or developed from one’s own artwork are a useful aid to the creative thinking process.

so, a little time was spent browsing my digital archives, some digital printmaking from a few years ago…


char, digital print, august 2002

these are from a series of experimental digital prints in 2002, created in a very low-tech way. i scanned an old photograph (one of a piece of charred wood, the other of some rocks) as tiff files. the programme i used was an early version of graphic converter – it was freeware at the time. i then proceeded to print the images numerous times on a single sheet of paper, each time rotating the image in the software and then feeding the sheet of paper through the printer again. here’s another example…


rock, digital print, august 2002

i printed them for my portfolio but i did not exhibit or frame them.

witnessed in the course of a walk through town yesterday, some freshly discovered or found drawings… please allow me to explain…

the object in question (the receptacle for the accidental, found drawing, the surface, the substrate) is a metal seat or bench, probably made of alluminium, covered in a powdery, black mildew, which made it rather undesirable or unsuitable to sit on, especially if wearing light-coloured, summer attire…

here, in the first snapshot, one can see the pre-formed grooves in the metal seat, which serve to make the metal bench less slippery to sit on but they also echo the slats of a traditional wooden bench, which are further emphasised by the dark, weathered patina of black mildew, here containing the accidental drawing as a series of negative mark-makings between the two sets of parallel lines…

in this second example, the accidental dints and scratches in the metal have been subsequently colonised by the black mildew, forming a positive mark or trace…

and here, in the final image taken, is a more formal composition, zoomed in to accentuate the visual contrast between the parallel grooves and the more free-form, expressive scratches or incisions below… i almost see a signature in the lower right…

now, my only quandary here is, are these just more found drawings or an example of some creative, found printmaking(s), given that the grooves, the engraved marks, the incised traces, those made unintentionally, are later inked in by nature, and the myriad tones of accumulated mould or mildew (seen most clearly in the first image) are reminiscent of a coarse, hand-applied aquatint…

in fact, had i not explained that these are just photographs, one might reasonably conjecture them to be the result of a process of intaglio printmaking, an etching or drypoint engraving…

lastly, the bench also exhibited the usual marks of graffiti, some lewd symbols, words, names and numbers… but these were not so interesting in this context…