POTATO

A new book I’ve made is currently being exhibited in the ‘Pattern:Books’ exhibition at the Upright Gallery in Edinburgh… Artist bookmakers were invited to submit artworks for the annual artist book exhibition held every December. The brief was to celebrate pattern in artist book form. Over 80 handmade books are on display from 35 artists in an exhibition co-curated with Edinburgh based artist book maker and tutor Susie Wilson.

The book POTATO is a digitally printed edition of potato prints and backdrawn monoprints. Started as an experiment in making printed repeat patterns with carved potatoes at my kitchen table, I then drew the carved potatoes as backdrawn monoprints. It’s fun to see the book travelling up to Edinburgh to be exhibited, and then making it onto the cover of Art Mag at the beginning of December. An exciting journey for a handful of humble potatoes.

Patternmakers

Last month I spent a really brilliant day on a one-to-one online workshop run by Sarah Burns (@patternmakers on Instagram). We started with potato printing - shouldn’t every day should start with this? - and moved onto lino . So many useful tips for exploring the potential of a simple printing block and printing onto fabric. My brain was bursting with pattern possibilities by the end of the day. Many thanks to Sarah for a very inspiring day…
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Alpha-set patterns

More pattern printing with the wonderful Alpha-set…

Workshop coming up!

Printing patterned papers and making folded books as examples to show at a one day workshop I’m running at ACEarts in Somerton in Somerset on Saturday 27 April (10 -4). We’ll be stamping our own patterned papers, then using them to make a collection of small folded books. Should be fun! Just a few places left, so get in touch with ACEarts if you’re interested in joining me... . . .

Polyprinting workshop

My initial prep for the workshop

A brilliant afternoon yesterday spent making polyprints of houses with year 4 pupils at Westbury CofE Academy. Using my new book 'home' as a starting point, we made prints of houses, dream homes (including castles!) and shops. So much fun, and really impressive results from classes 4BC and 4HN. Many thanks to the school for inviting me along. The prints will be on display at the school as part of the BS9 Arts Trail this coming weekend. . . .

A more neutral palette

A very enjoyable afternoon spent monoprinting with my gelli plate and collection of found objects (most picked up from pavements on my dog walks). Decided to keep my colour palette a little more neutral this time in an attempt to wean myself fluorescent paint colours. Printing onto old book pages (from a library discard) added to the pleasing build up of pattern and texture. Many of the prints need more layers, but some of the early trimmings escaped the bin and made it into my sketchbook as collages. 

Degree Show highlights

Jono Sandilands (screen print with raspberry pi LCD)

Jono Sandilands (mind blowing pinball machine - off the scale amazing!)

Clare Owen (beautiful ceramics and prints)

Philip Johnson (huge screen print with more than a nod to a woodcut approach)

A really inspiring show from this year’s MA Multi-disciplinary Printmaking final year students at UWE.

Hats and Shoes

A fiddly, but enjoyable, few hours proofing linocuts for two new books.

Last but not least

My final stencil print from the evening course. Very quick to cut and print… a nice bit of instant gratification to round things off. The most successful prints were the ones with lots of roller textures - not quite like a relief print and not quite like a screenprint. I can now see how I can use this process with other techniques. Many thanks to the excellent tutor, Sophie Rae, for a really inspiring course.

Stencil swan

Final week of my stencil evening course and I’m finally starting to understand how I can use the process in my work. Even though they are technically monoprints, I’ve found myself naturally gravitating back to printing an edition. This is useful to compare slight differences though, like density of ink, roller direction and colour combinations.

First stencil prints

Four colour stencil print onto plywood

The original stencils before printing

A really enjoyable couple of hours printing at the Folk House stencil evening class… I adapted my 'pot plant' linocut design to make a simple four colour stencil print. Interesting to see how the colour (Caligo safe wash ink) stays saturated on the plywood. I prefer the build up of texture on the paper prints though - it gives the image an extra dimension that's often missing from lino prints. By varying the direction and pressure of rolling, it's possible to differentiate between the foreground and background. The working life of one stencil is obviously limited - I did five prints from these stencils, but I think you could possibly push it to a run of ten prints.

Printing by numbers

Week three of the stencil monoprint evening class was a little more out of my comfort zone. One of Sophie's drawings was used as a basis for everyone in the class to create a multi-layered stencil print - really surprising how different they all ended up looking. I found it quite a challenge working on a predetermined image, making decisions on colour and composition as each stencil was cut. However, it was really interesting to see how quickly you can build quite a complex print from a sketch, and also that there's room for a bit improvisation if things don't go quite to plan (see layers of foliage, and unwanted ink splotch that became a bird). 

Second week of stencilling

Experimenting with oil-based ink - richer colours and better levels of transparency. It’s all getting a little bit ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar’… childhood influences obviously run deep!

Stencils + folding

Playing around with patterned papers made on the stencil monoprint course - the random nature of the stencilling is an interesting combination with the geometric folds.

Stencilicious

Just started a new evening class at the wonderful Folk House in Bristol - ‘Monoprinting with Stencils’ run by Sophie Rae. It was a really enjoyable first week, getting stuck in straight away. Just basic shapes with water-based ink, but I was amazed at the variety of tone and texture you can get with just using a roller. Lots of possibilities, but my first thought is that this would be an ideal method for printing patterned endpapers.

Some of my fellow exhibitors…

woodcuts and bronze/resin castings by Lin Biesheuvel

drypoints by Alison Sloggett

enamel bowls by Karen Murrell

etchings by Barbara Bluett

‘The Emerald City’ screenprint by Rebecca Weeks

The ‘Second Nature’ exhibition at The Island in Bristol by The Out of Print Collective. 

Ready to roll

Phew, exhibition all set up at The Island. I’ve used various acrylic plate stands and jewellery display plinths to display my books - it definitely seems to help to give them some height without cluttering things up too much.  

Hope to see you at the exhibition - opens tomorrow (4 September) and runs until 5pm on 9 September.

Second Nature

Just making final preparations for taking part in a group exhibition opening next friday. Four new books will be on show, as well as some more established favourites made earlier in the year. 

Let there be colour…

Inked up plates assembled in a jig

First print of the first layer

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The first layer of my jigsawed woodcut. Small rollers are essential to avoid muddying the colour separation. All the inked component parts are held together in cardboard jig before printing. Very excited to be able to print five colours in one press. Petals and patterned background will be added on the next layer…

Beginning a jigsaw puzzle

Finally got round to dusting off my scroll saw and cutting some woodcut plates into jigsawed component parts. This will enable me to print multiple colours at one time without needing to worry about registration.