Collagraph Plates and Prints

Fellow artist Joanne Taylor and I are collaborating on an artist book for our joint exhibition "Big Smoke Little Smoke", opening at Tambo's Grasslands Art Gallery in March.

For the book, we have each prepared 2 collagraph plates.  Collagraphs are bits of cardboard and other materials collaged with glue onto another piece of cardboard, then sealed to create a printing plate.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon printing the plates multiple times in blue, black and brown colours. When dry, the prints will be sliced up and attached to a Venetian-blind style artist book to be hung on the gallery wall.  The book will be approx 60cm wide by 150cm long.

The book's title is 'Viewpoint' - referring to the idea of looking out of a window and seeing the landscape.  From Jo's viewpoint, its the landscape of wide open spaces, gidgee trees and her local wildlife.  From my viewpoint, its fences, buildings and geometric patterns.

The book will come together in the next couple of weeks.... a very basic technique to create a unique artist book.

One of Jo's collagraph plates in progress

The collagraph plates

Inking up one of the plates

Printing Joanne's plate

Joanne's Emu Feather print

My Studio Etching Press - a Hill Dav, I
bought second hand a couple of years ago

The finished prints...now just have to wait until they dry before
I start assembling the book!

Women of Substance Monoprints

I've been working on a small series of prints that divert from my usual theme of the natural world and birds.  "Women of Substance" is a print exhibition celebrating all things female, and is part of the 50 Years of Print celebrations this year.

Yes I could have printed images of chickens ('old chooks', referencing a nickname for older females) but I was drawn to a paper-cut silhouette that my mother recently gave to me.  The silhouette of her profile, cut out in black paper, was made by an artist in the Showbag pavillion at the Brisbane Exhibition ('the Ekka') in the late 1950's.  

To me, the paper-cut represents a time capsule - it tells me a story about my mother, capturing her in her youth at a time which she was just beginning her adult life, full of promise and probably excited by the Ekka atmosphere that day.  The paper-cut is also a symbol of how over the years the Ekka has supported traditional arts and crafts, with displays and fierce competition in the categories of 'women's home interests' including cooking, sewing, stitching, and painting.

I've named this series of prints "Side Show Alley".  This is the name of an area within the Ekka that has all the stalls with games and rides.  I remember Mum spending a lot of time at the lucky ticket stalls at Side Show Alley.

Also by repeating her silhouette in my prints also gives the feeling of one of the game stalls there - the laughing clown heads in a row.  Remember them?  Sort of spooky but they lured you in to pop a ping-pong ball in their mouths!

Prior to printing,  I did a colour swatch
to plan my colours.  I did this because I wanted to
get away from my usual colour choices
but had to make sure it all still worked.

The original paper-cut silhouette
which I used to make my stencils.

Printing in progress.  The leaf featured is a Silkyoak -
this is a feature tree in our family home'backyard, so it
was the focus of my life as a child.  I also have
a SilkyOak in my own backyard today, a seedling
from the original family one.

After printing, I used a sepia marker pen to outline
some of the images to help them 'pop'
into the foreground.

One of the finished prints, in a series of 7.

This is probably one of the most successful ones.
I hope Mum likes them too!

Printing with Weeds

What is a weed?  That's a question I've been considering lately during my research.  A plant in the wrong place?

As part of my upcoming Tambo exhibition 'Big Smoke, Little Smoke', I'm currently working on an artwork using weeds, with a working title of 'The Journey'.   I've been busy collecting 'weeds' from around my garden and local spaces, carefully pressing them between papers before monoprinting them onto envelopes.

The idea behind using envelopes is to reference the movement and spread of unwanted plant species. Envelopes are associated with the postal system, carrying messages from place to place.  I've also recently developed a fascination with the inside of envelopes - there's a myriad of designs and colours.  For this project I've focused on blue patterns.

The finished work will be installed directly onto the wall using pins or tape, with the envelopes slightly overlapping and flowing down the wall.  I've completed about 30 prints, and I'm aiming for at least 50.

So instead of spraying my weeds with poison or throwing them in the bin, they're been immortalised in my artwork and helping me to tell my story.  And....there's less weeds in my garden.  Win Win!

a pressed weed on the plastic plate, ready to be printed

My growing pile of prints

I love this silhouette print with the
envelope pattern showing through

Ghost print on envelope

Monoprinting Workshop - 2 places left

My first workshops for 2016 are the ever-popular monoprinting workshops.  I've got 2 spaces free on Saturday 16 January.

Email me if you're interested in attending, details below.

Date:  Saturday 16 January 2016

Time: 10am - 3pm

Cost: $80 includes all materials

Location:  Tarragindi

Suitable for:  Adults and Young Adults

Enquiries & bookings:  email me at sandy_p09@hotmail.com.

This workshop is perfect for beginners or anyone who wants a refresher.  We'll be creating monotypes - one of a kind images using leaves and found objects.  We print the images onto various papers with artist quality oil based inks, using my studio etching press.

The emphasis is on having fun playing with colour, shape and line, as well as sharing your successes (and failures!) with other like-minded people.

By the end of the day you'll have completed a least 10 prints and be full of creative inspiration.

At the end of the day I can also demonstrate monoprinting using a gelatine plate.  I sell Gelli-Arts plates and rollers should you wish to continue with monoprinting at home without a press.

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

Collaboration and Exchange

In late October, I attended a workshop at Noosa Regional Gallery, facilitated by artists Susan Bowers and Fiona Dempster in conjuction with their exhibition 'pas de deux'.  Their exhibition featured a series of artists books that they had created in a collaborative partnership.  I traveled up to the gallery to attend their very inspiring artist talk and workshop, making a full day of 'me time'.....a bit of luxury.

The project for the workshop was to 'collaborate' with either Susan or Fiona to make an artist book - they provided some of their own precious artwork plus some blank papers, and we were given permission to use their work in our books.  They also supplied inks, graphite, glue, thread etc for us to play with. Heaven!  I also took along some of my own prints so I could include them if needed.

There wasn't enough time to fully complete my book on the day, so I took my 'work-in-progress'  with me on holidays to Kangaroo Island a couple of weeks ago to continue working on it.

I did some drawing, stitching, and of course, gelli plate printing.  I discovered some wonderful bird netting at a local handware store on Kangaroo Island, bought 90c worth, and had a ball printing with it.  Definitely my new favourite toy!

The book is now finished, many thanks to Susan for allowing me to work with her etchings.  Her blog is here http://trace-marks.blogspot.com.au/, she creates beautiful, sensitive work.

I very much enjoyed being on the receiving end of a workshop where I could play freely with someone else's materials and work.  It has opened my mind to other possibilities.

The restricted colour pallet was definitely a deviation from my normal choices so it was a challenge for me to keep it muted and earthy.  Hmmmm, I suddenly feel the need for some bright aqua blue and olive green!  I'd better get back to the studio  :-)

Printing using the gelli plate and bird netting

Printing in my 'studio' in our motorhome

Loose drawing to echo Susan's markmaking on her etchings

Some of the book pages - stitching, layering, printing, painting

Susan's work on the left, mine on the right

A piece of Susan's work stitched to mine

I stitched a couple of pieces of Susan's work
with crosses to echo the crosshatching of her etched lines

One of my favourite pages - gelli print with watercolour and pen

This page opens up to Susan's work

I used the gelli plate to echo Susan's lines

The finished book

I added some 'bling' on the coptic binding

Monoprints from my Studio

I've been busy monoprinting this month, here is a selection of completed prints.  The scrub turkey has made another appearance, this time I experimented with subdued colours of blues and greys.  I also started on a bee series, inspired by a native bee workshop I recently attended.

'Society' - bee monoprint

'Kin' - bee monoprint with collage.

"Natural Selection' - I reused egg stencils from
 one of my original scrub turkey series.

'Natural Selection' - I love the contrast between
the turkey imagery and the serrated banksia leaves.

'Wonder' - banksia love!

My unique fashion label

Last week I had the dye pot out doing some eco-dyeing on cotton t-shirts.  Great fun! Then the second stage was monoprinting leaves onto the shirts.  Below are photos of the printing in progress and the finished shirts.

Revealing the monoprint, using dwarf banksia leaves

Printing using 'interesting' gum leaves - lots of holes makes for
a print with character!

The finished shirt and gum leaves after printing

The banksia t-shirt finished

And then I used the same gum leaves to do some monoprints on paper, here are a couple of the resulting prints.  I've titled them 'Where I meet the Earth'.  The prints reminded me of looking down at decaying leaf litter on a rainforest floor - perhaps one of those memorable occasions when I'm checking my hiking boots for leeches!   ;-)

Postcard Swap by Vast Arts Queensland

Help support Vast Arts, a  not-for-profit community organisation which supports regional Queensland artists.  Make 3 postcards, you receive two back from other artists.  One of your postcards will be acquired by Vast Arts for sale to raise funds.

More information here.

Understorey

My latest artist book project features NaturePrint Paper I bought in the USA on my recent rip. This specially prepared paper is coated with light-sensitive chemicals, creating a white on blue print of whatever object is placed on it, aka cyanotypes.

For my project, I selected a range of different fern fronds.  I'm obsessed about ferns, and use them a lot in my monoprints, so it seemed fitting to try them out with this sunprinting process.  Previously I have used ferns and the sun to do prints on t-shirts, see my blog post here.

I exposed the ferns onto the paper with my solar etching frame for about 2 minutes in the sun, then rinsed in water for a minute.

Exposing in the sun

After sun exposure, you can see where the fern was on
the paper.  Rinsing in water causes the colour to develop.

I then used a re-purposed box to house the book, which is in a simple concertina format on blue card. I also included a poem that I wrote in haiku style:

understorey light

pattern stippled into shade

twilight silhouettes

I've photographed the book insitu - a rainforest floor, complete with maidenhair fern, mossy logs and leaf litter.  Appropriate I thought, given the title of the book 'Understorey'.  

Creating the book allowed me to explore a variety of fern imagery, concentrating on shape and pattern, with a simple non-messy process.