With a small hot water bottle

Now that the broken arm is improving and I can operate the press, I am concentrating on preparing prints for my October exhibition.

I am working on collagraphs and lino cuts simultaneously. I had prepared the collagraph plates before I broke my arm. The lino cuts are 4 colour reduction prints so I have to cut more away after printing each colour and the cutting process is a bit of a struggle with the impaired arm even now. To keep the lino pliant I place it on a hot water bottle and Michael (husband) delights in making teasing remarks about my “wimpish” lino needing to be coddled and kept warm every time he sees me disappearing into the studio with yet another replenished hot water bottle.

I know that artists are supposed to freeze in their garrets and I am willing to suffer for my art but I have to keep on-side with the lino. It is hard enough bending it to my will even when it is warm.

I have been experimenting with combining one stage/colour lino cuts with a coloured collagraph background (see images). 

I use these backgrounds with the collagraph images I print too. I call them “generic” plates as they are all over stipple or diagonal lines which I do in 2 – 3 colours and then print a defined image in stronger colours over the top.

Monoprints

 While I have been waiting for the movement in my arm to improve enough to go and use a press at the print studio I use I have been working on a series of small monotypes which I can print with an also small, home made sort of press that I have. The press consists of two pieces of timber about 22 x 28 x 2cm between which the print is sandwiched. Then a clamp which slides up and down at the back and screws into a hole in the middle of the top bit of timber to press the paper and printing plate together. I have not actually tried to print with just this central clamp but attach about 4 other clamps around the edges of the timber just to be on the safe side.

Before I acquired this contraption as a school reject I used to brave my husband’s shed and use his bench vice. With two pieces of timber to sandwich my printing plate and paper inserted into the vice, I used to tighten up the vice and then add a few clamps around the edges for good measure.

While I am not sure that the techniques would work on a larger scale, both methods provide adequate pressure to print a 20 x 20 cm plate.

The monotypes are oil paint mixed with plate oil and painted on to a cardboard, shellac covered plate. 

Getting back to art and blogging

My break from both art and blogging was rather longer than anticipated after my husband tipped us both off the tandem bike we were riding in Holland and I broke my arm badly. Recovery is slow, there has been a lot of nasty pain and I still do not have full movement in the arm. However I have been back to making art for a while as fortunately I broke my right arm and am left handed. The break from blogging has been longer both due to feeling poorly and because I could not co-ordinate my two arms to work together on a keyboard.

Anyway…. I have been working on some paintings for my solo exhibition in October. I usually have drawings, paintings and prints in my exhibitions and as the drawings were more or less done and I could not operate a printing press with the bad arm, getting the painting finished seemed the best option. I have done four paintings, each 70 x 70 cms, two in blues and two in more earthy colours all on my current theme (where sea and land meet).

 The paintings seemed to work out to my satisfaction surprisingly quickly. Maybe it has something to do with the acupuncture. Acupuncture you say, what can that have to do with the quality of a painting. Well, in desperation I went to see a friend of a friend who is an acupuncturist as I had been in constant pain for months. We were chatting as he stuck needles into me (as you do) and he said he once had a patient who wanted to continue coming even though she was no longer in pain and when he enquired as to why, she said that she had noticed that since she had been having acupuncture her painting skills had improved remarkably…. Who knows, anyway, I was pleased that I did not have to struggle over these paintings, the arm has been more than enough to deal with.

Finding inspiration on a holiday?

I am still working on drawings and have started two new ones to complete the series. I had planned to finish them before we go away on holiday for nearly 8 weeks but that seems unlikely since as the images show I haven't worked up the heights and depths much at all yet. 

However I’m sure that they will be waiting for me when I return.

I am not sure how much art will occur while we are away since there is relative visiting and bike riding and lots of exploring and walking to do with a husband who is not exceptionally interested in the arts. It is such a long time since we have had the opportunity to travel that it will all be a great adventure, whatever happens.

I am sure that I will take lots of photos of fascinating things. Then, when I return I will have the ethical dilemma of whether or not I should use any “detail in nature” that I have photographed on this holiday, in future works of art.

I guess I am a bit of a purist when it comes to subjects for inspiration. My loyalty is to the Australian landscape and so far I have used only it in my art. I’m sure that rock forms, sand patterns, lichen shapes and so on are much the same everywhere and I am sure that no-one would notice if I use photos from a holiday on the other side of the world, but I would know wouldn’t I?

We shall see. Cheers....

Working on more drawings

I did go back to the drawings again just recently, darkening and lightening and fiddling and fiddling so that now there are 6 just about finished plus two more on the go.

This method of drawing is clearly not economically viable but it is somehow compelling and so I add and subtract, layer upon layer until I am happy. If I calculated price according to hours spent the total would be crazy. Given that I can’t break the obsession to draw in this style then I just have to accept that the returns on the sold work can only be trifling and be grateful that our household does not rely on me to pay the bills.

(eg  above of the slow process, building up depth ..... as you can see, the area in the bottom left is at a more advanced stage in the layering, see image below).

A friend recently said that she liked the idea of the drawings taking up whole walls. I did consider the idea. I had visions of myself beavering away like the monks with their illuminated manuscripts, my back becoming increasingly bent, the whiskers growing on my chin while the hair on my head hair thinned as the years unfolded and I stuck doggedly to my HB pencil, my pencil eraser and my tissue, fiddling and layering endlessly as I inched my agonised way across a wall sized piece of paper.

     (the second new drawing using the same sort of patterns, still with any more "layers" to work up)

Hmm, perhaps this is not a project I should embark on …. It might be more sensible just sticking to the much more manageable size of 40 x 40 cms per drawing.