The Woods Project

12th September

Creative energies this summer have had to be shared between all things green and growing in the garden, and art work in the wagon, and now it's September, and thoughts turn to the Somerset Arts Week Festival in early October, and the hall in North Wootton (venue 68) where I'm exhibiting my work alongside painters and printmakers, photographers and ceramicists.
One of the exhibits will be a print of 'The Woods', a great project which I worked on with six fellow printmakers. We took the theme and each produced a lino design on a 30mm square piece of lino (either whole or halved), first selecting the best place compositionally for the block, and how it would work as a whole. Here is the final print-

                                                                    

It was printed on a long strip of Japanese paper - Shiramine natural, and because it was too long to put in the press we printed the blocks using a burin or wooden spoon, rubbing with even pressure on the back. I love the result, the design working well with the smaller pieces (lettering and ferns) creating the variety and compositional 'stops'.
My contribution is the oyster mushroom and trees (second left). I have always liked strong bold form and the oyster mushroom displays this in its extraordinary umbrella shape, but  with the delicacy of the gills radiating like spokes from the stem, I put the tree silhouettes on the left to counterbalance the cumulus shape of the mushroom. 

                                                                    

I will be displaying the print individually as well, but printed in grey which gives it an air of mystery!

 Meanwhile look out for the Art Weeks brochures, the festival 2015 is coming soon- 3rd-18th October- there's lots of great and exciting work out there!

                                                                        

 













 

Spring! The Bullfinch, and the Sparrowhawk Tree

 Thursday 7th May - Election day! 

Spring came early this year and took us all by surprise. During the lovely weather in April I watched from my wagon studio as hawthorn leaves unfolded, celandines and primroses bloomed and the hedgerow birds bustled about looking for suitable nest sites. From the feeder outside my window I spotted nuthatches, greater spotted woodpeckers,wrens, robins, hedge sparrows, and various members of the tit family, including the long tailed tits who love to fly around in jolly gangs. Sadly one day I found a dead female bullfinch dead on the grass outside my wagon - she had flown into the large windows of the door - I took a picture of her and used it as the subject for an etching (seen here on the left) and a monoprint (seen here on the right)......

Then I had the idea of combining a collograph on top of a monoprint. Collographs are basically textures stuck on card, and can be any shape or form , they are varnished to enable ink to be pushed into the texture and printed off through the press. Here are two bullfinch collographs made from various feathers I ve found around....

Results coming up in the next blog!

Meanwhile he sparrowhawks are nesting in the old oak tree - here's their tree ......
   

inspired by this I've started a series of some small paintings about our land........ the full collection will be shown in next years open studios.

And so to this year's SAW arts festival in October - I'll be exhibiting my work with Angie Rook and a great group of painters, printmakers and photographers at the Village hall at North Wootton- more later!

January 2015 - Into a New year!

  

Tuesday, 20th January

Into the New Year from what has been for me a sad end of 2014. Before Christmas I lost my sister from cancer and although not unexpected was made all the more poignant by being at a time when all families get together. Her funeral was held in the little saxon church of Postling at the bottom of the North downs in east Kent on a most beautiful sunny winters day. She was an extremely accomplished botanical artist, and at her wake we hung her amazing paintings around the room - she was always modest about her achievements!  Some of them hopefully will be hung in the botanical exhibition at the Westminster hall this Spring- look for her name- Elizabeth Andrews.

Cushion prints - and Vicky (second daughter) and I have been printing the flower lino designs on to coloured linen squares which she will then make into beautiful cushions- they re hung about the kitchen like prayer flags........
                   
                                                                             

and draped over my fathers old desk.........

                                         

We'll keep you informed on the progress of the cushions- They should be on show during arts week this year.


I have started two etchings, both images are based on a silver birch tree on our land. I've been experimenting with aquatint -a resin process which helps you achieve different areas of tone- I stop out the bits that I want to keep light.  Here they are having had three sucessive dips in the acid.....

These are just test prints, they need to be worked into, I would like to print them in colour- and perhaps on silk, apparently Rembrandt did!