humby's adventures in printmaking

I was putting the bins out and there was a slug on the bin. Blurghh.

But all I could see was how it was made up of three colours and could be easily rendered in linocut with stipples and grooves. 

I mean, seriously! 

I have been thinking about print-making all week. 

The book press is pride of place in my studio space at the top of the stairs and waiting for something to press.  I love the way it is all heavy metal and brass and just a big old screw waiting for something to squeeze. On a roll (and a bit of a high) from my first tentative steps I have been eager to move on and DO MORE PRINTING!

So I went back to my original print from Helens life drawing to redo it in lino. 

I also cut another spiral design from lino. 

After printing about a dozen of each of the new plates I realised that I wasnt happy with either of them. The nude was spoiled by my attempt to add the rest of her arm and the crazy starburst stuff ruined it. Sigh. 

The spiral design lacked the sketchy spontaneity of the first and I wont be using it again. 

I felt rather dissapointed with my efforts and decided to do something different.

There is so much I have to learn but I am very impatient and want to be able to fast forward through the learning process and all the mistakes and muck ups and get to the bit where I am brilliant.  There doesnt seem to be any way around this so I figured I would have a go at trying to create textures in print and started with a bit of cutting and sticking.  I started with a cut out of a crow from a photo I took on the clifftops and just played around with cut paper and little monoprints. 

Still a long way to go but its all good fun. 

I should remove the orange wave thing that looks like a slug. 

I like the blue one up top. 

I have become obsessed with things around the house that can create texture. I cant throw anything away that might be used for a print. Cardboard, material, netting etc etc. 

My next experiment is to have a try at a reduction lino print. Trees I suspect. 

I shall also go to Francesca Whetnall’s   http://francescawhetnall.co.uk/ workshop at the Arlington Hotel http://www.arlingtonbournemouth.co.uk/arlington-arts-cafe/  next week for printmaking for beginners where I am sure I shall come down to earth with a printy bump! 

Watch this space

I bought a book press.

I wanted a big fat mother of a roller etching press, but that would be crazy in my tiny top of the house landing-infront-of-the-windows studio. And the expense….phew that made my eyes sweat.

So i bought a book press. 

And very happy it looks on the chest of drawers that contains frames and mount card at the top of the stairs. 

                                              …………..

I made up a little mountcard based relief plate from life drawing a friend of mine made …

I forgot to take any photos of the resulting prints, of which there were only four. it was made by stripping back areas of mountcard and then painting over with several layers of PVA.  The prints were quite sweet but very … rough. But my friends bought them all from our life drawing exhibition! My first sales! 

There were only four usable prints because the press flattened the mountcard very quickly. A very limited addition run! 

(edit)…seems there is photographic evidence of these first very ropey prints…

it looks like I printed it with mud on brown wrapping paper. 

                                               ……………….

My next experiment was a larger mountcard design. I doodled straight onto the card whilst watching TV one night. It has a feel of the arts and crafts movement and although I was happy with the design, again the mountcard method proved shortlived and the end results were not great. 

I shall re-do this design later on lino or something more substantial.

                                            ………..

B R I N G    O N    T H E    L I N O L E U M (or whatever it is; its not linoleum)

I bought some cheap soft lino stuff and a set of those nasty plastic handled cutters to practice with and set about cutting a practice plate trying to make some interesting marks. I started with a spiral and just played with it until I was happy…

I did the first print run with it today and had such a good time watching each one come ‘off the press’.

I feel like I have actually just invented printing. what a noob! 

I couldnt work out how to make little spots with the tools I have so I shall experiment with nails and sharp pointy things.