The Artist is in Residence - playing with drypoint

Week 4 of lockdown and I'm getting more comfortable with my new 'normal' routine.

I think I can admit at this stage that having more time at home doesn't equate to a productive art studio.  There's still plenty of distractions - beautiful weather, bike rides, kayaking adventures in local creeks, a large backyard habitat garden to maintain, art webinars, applying for funding, all those yummy recipes I've wanted to try, and neglected sewing projects that I was waiting for that spare time to tackle.

So for this week's artist in residence at home, I have only managed to play around with some drypoint printing of wrens and Willy Wag Tails.  I had taken some photos of these cute birds at home and on past camping trips, so it was time to use the photos to make some small drypoints.

I like these simple prints, just a bird, no background, to bring out the bird's character and appeal.

As usual, not all goes to plan.....

Drawing on the plate using source photograph

Applying textures using sandpaper, this
holds the tone on the plate

First print from that plate....URGH!
Not at all the result I wanted, after a couple more prints
I decided that it was the plate that was the problem.
Time to start again.

The new plate in progress, just a simple outline to start with.

A print from the new plate, with the simple outline.
Needs a lot of work, but I've been distracted
gardening, sewing, cycling, kayaking etc etc.
Work in Progress!

A cute wren photograph I took on a camping trip

Print from my drypoint plate.

Willy Wag Tail in my garden.

Willy Wag Tail print.

Testing out hand colouring using watercolours on a photocopy.
Red?  Green? Sepia? 

Handcoloured print.
The yellow ochre paint helps to give the
print a lift and highlight the bird.  So cute!

Adding to my art toolkit

In the past month, I've been adding to my art tool kit.  Not new brushes, inks or papers (I've got more than enough paper!), but adding to my printmaking skills.

Last weekend I hosted Jet James from Yeppoon for a workshop exploring creative approaches to collagraph plates.  He uses a PVC plate which gets around the problem of having to seal the plate with multiple coats of shellac as you would with book board etc.  It also allows the use of some ingenious materials and drypoint techniques.

I enjoyed the creative process of creating the plates using a combination of embossing, drypoint and collage, giving a variety of marks and textures.  The 'busy-ness' of imagery on my plate is what I really like when I'm doing my monoprinting.  I can see that I can combine my monoprinting techniques with these collagraph plates, and am looking forward to playing more with it in the coming months.

During the workshop, we also had a play with inking using more than one colour, which gave beautiful images but in a workshop situation of a group of 10 keen printmakers was very messy!

My bee print.  I've explored this bee image in drypoint and
lithograph, so its interesting to see it in a variety of
techniques.

Wren print, multicoloured inking.

The Wren plate and print in blue-black ink.

The chaos of multicolour printing.......

Show and tell at the end of the workshop.
Great prints, great group of people!

Magpies in my garden.....and in my monoprints

Its always a good thing to challenge oneself.

So, keeping that in mind, last week I decided to create a monochromatic print using multiple plates, keeping the composition simple and minimalistic.  My usual technique is lots of colour on one plate with tons of mark making.   So how did I go?

My theme was one of my favourite - magpies. This time I wanted to tell the story of a magpie hunting for grubs on my back lawn.

The print that I completed consisted of 4 plates - 3 monoprint and 1 drypoint.  I ended up with a series of 2 successful prints and 6 failed prints.  I had many failures due to issues with accurate registration, which detracted from the pleasure of the process but a great learning opportunity as well. The plates moved as I lowered the paper on top, particularly the feather as it wasn't flat.

My plates were:
- Drypoint of a grub
- Monoprinted Magpie stencil
- Ghost monoprint of string (to represent the Magpie's song OR it could be the path of the grub under the ground)
- Monoprint of a feather

Would I do it again?  Hmmmmmm.....   maybe I'll try it where the plates are odd sizes and don't have to line up.   :-)

Making the drypoint plate using acrylic sheet and etching tool

Printing the 4 plates.  The registration sheet is below
the plastic liner on the bed press.

Revealing the print.

Revealing another print.

One of the final prints "Magpie in My Garden".
Can you see the story?

Monoprint Commission

I've just finished a small commission to complete a framed work utilising imagery from Japan and Queensland, as a gift for a sister cities project.

I could have just done one of my usual monoprints, but I decided to combine monoprint, chine-colle and drypoint just to provide a bit of a challenge to myself....!

I wanted to use elements of the natural world that had connections to our local area and juxtapose them against elements from Japan.   I selected leaves from a small eucalypt, the Plunkett Mallee, which is the city tree for Ipswich, near Brisbane, Qld.  Luckily for me, my friend Wendy had one in her front garden.  I used these leaves to create monoprints on banana paper, a very beautiful translucent paper I bought in Melbourne.  I've printed on it before and loved the results.

I then created a drypoint image of a magnolia flower, the city tree for Nerima in Japan.

I used the process of chine-colle to collage pieces of the monoprint onto the drypoint image.  The word chine-colle roughly translates from French 'chine' = tissue, and 'colle' = glued.  The glueing process occurs during the printing, in this case the printing of the drypoint.

I'm happy with resulting print.  The process was long and sometimes challenging but, to me, the image of the magnolia flower made up of the eucalypt leaves perfectly describes the connection between the two cities.

Drypoint plate inked up

Cut up pieces of monoprint glued onto backing washi,
ready for chine colle onto the drypoint

The finished work with the drypoint printed over
the monoprint pieces

I had some ink left over so printed the last run of the monoprints
onto some scrap grey-toned paper,
it really brought out the beauty of the mallee leaves.

Co-operative Artist Book

My final project in conjunction with Sandi Conte (the 2016 Creative-In-Residence at Logan Art Gallery) was a Teachers Professional Development workshop.  I worked with local art teachers to create a collaborative Artist Book that focussed on the co-operative and social nature of some species of native stingless bees.

My goal for the workshop was to create a sculptural book that didn't read like a normal codex format, using drypoint and monotype printmaking techniques and incorporating text on the theme of 'co-operation'.

The final book format is a concertina spiral of hexagons echoing the structure of the brood of a local species of stingless native bee.  The book is sewn together with waxed linen thread.

To house the book, I created a simple card box featuring one of the hexagon artworks and some gorgeous Japanese paper with a textured hexagon pattern.

The book will be exhibited at the Logan Gallery with other works created during Sandi's Creative-In-Residence.

I enjoyed working collaboratively with the art teachers who were able to create additional hexagon artworks during the workshop to incorporate into their own book structures.

The box which contains the book when folded up, concertina style.

The artist book on display, 'opened up' to display the spiral pattern.
Each hexagon was created by one of the teachers.
I also contributed a couple of hexagon works
as well.

The book 'closed up' with a hexagon of wax sheet for
the centre piece.

Drypoint and Carborundum

I'm currently working towards an exhibition in March at Grassland Art Gallery in Tambo with fellow artist Jo Taylor from Barcaldine.  The exhibition is titled "Big Smoke Little Smoke' and explores our personal relationships of where we live in relation to the natural world around us.

I'll be posting snippets of my progress to my blog as I create new works for the exhibition.

In the past week I've been working on a large drypoint for a piece titled 'Call of the Currawong, Brisbane CBD'.  This work is based on a personal experience - I observed a pair of Currawongs living in the Brisbane city area amongst the tall office buildings.  It struck me how very different that landscape is to their natural area in the Great Dividing Range, and I wondered how they had adapted to it.  And why did they choose the CBD as their habitat?

The essence of the work is the feeling of the movement of the birds as they fly between the buildings and their calls echoing off the solid structures, as opposed to the thick lush canopy of the forest.

So in my drypoint I used flowing lines and imagery of currawongs in flight, with carborundum grit to add dimension and tone.

The plate is a cardboard product I hadn't tried before, though I have used homemade plates of sealed mat board.  Its slightly bigger than A3, so quite a job to ink up.

My first few attempts to print onto tissue weren't overly successful but it did print nicely on soaked fabriano.  I plan to cut and collage the finished prints onto boards - this would have been easier with the tissue but I'll sit and think some more about the next step before I proceed.  Such is the nature of art and experimenting - things don't always go to plan and I always need to keep an open mind when on the 'journey' of creating!

Wiping off the ink to reveal the imagery

The inked plate

Finished print (detail)

Finished print (detail)

I took this photo as I cleaned up the plate,
I loved the tones left behind