printed material

 I spent a great weekend making this panel. I am not keen on overly fussy stained glass and want to do more painting with other effects rather than cut lots of pieces and lead them up . I think Chris thinks I could have challenged myself a bit more but I am delighted with my end result. I cut lots of hexagon resists from contact paper and painted the positive and negative pieces before doing my little bee hive freehand and then firing them all in the kiln. As I finished a bit earlier than expected Chris made me a pine frame for the panel which I painted black yesterday. I nailed the backing beading to it this morning and with a couple of eye hooks it can be suspended in front of a window to enjoy.It's going in my shed to spur me on every time I look at it.

A trip to Bristol for family stuff later this week means I can go to the glass studio there and buy more glass. I have a few ideas I now want to work on and I like the square format but I intend to break up the panel I made a few weeks ago and re-lead it. My soldering skills have improved and I want to give it another go as I liked my samples and have not done them justice. I start a module of my Aberystwyth University course next week and the print exchange is on, with seven of us making a small edition print, so I have lots to do and enjoy.I also have a trip away planned for next week so it's busy, busy, busy. Bring it on!

 I mentioned in a previous post that I'd been making a glass panel which had gone a bit wrong. I think there was an element of me rushing it, especially the soldering, wanting to do the good bits and speeding over some of the necessary things, but the lead came I had came rolled up and I had the devil's own job trying to straighten it. I was a bit despondent but I'm doing an advanced course with Christian this weekend and I know it is all about the practice so I have been working on a few design ideas this week that will incorporate both painting and coloured glass. Under Chris's watchful eye I hope to post better results after the weekend.
 I used up as many of my original painted samples as I could on the panel and I was quite pleased with the design, so much so that I started to play around with it in Photoshop for something else. Why is it so easy to get distracted and not keep to the main focus? I might crop some of my digital images, layer them and then print them as I like the collage impression they give me.
I've been making the CMYK separations this week for some more four colour gum arabic trials but I've yet to get them photocopied. In the meantime I just have to mess about with some of the photocopies I already have of course. This cat's photo was in an old book I picked up in a charity shop and I loved his quirky expression so he's been adorning all sorts this week from fabric to old pages to feathers. I had seen the wonderful etching prints on feathers of Rebecca Jewell so I just had to see if gum arabic would work too. As you can see I need a larger feather for my cat so I'm now on the lookout for some goose feathers. Of course, I could make Mr Mestophiles smaller but that would be sensible and I don't always do the sensible thing.


Thanks to everyone who responded to the call of a print exchange. There are currently 8 of us having a go. I cannot get hold of everyone who expressed an interest via e mail - Carol and Patricia I mean you! - so do contact me if you're still interested. As for me, I've got as far as cutting 12cm square bits of lino, mat board and aluminium sheet before deciding what medium to use. I also have some perspex cut to size and a visit to my dentist yesterday resulted in the gift of about 15 different old dental tools to try to make marks with for a drypoint print. The only stipulation she gave me was not to try my hand at my own dentistry but whilst I'll have a go at most things I'm not inclined in that direction. There's too much fun to be had elsewhere!

Thanks to everyone who left a comment about doing a print exchange. I will be e mailing info out later today so if you don't hear from me please get in touch as I'm not sure I have everyone's e mail address! It occurs to me that any print I might do will either have a bird, a plant or a moth theme, given they are my preoccupations during the Spring months. We had another moth trap last night and at last, we had moths. There were only about a dozen but it is a positive sign. The majority were these common Hebrew Characters huddled together in the bottom of the box. They should be prolific about now and the trap only had half a dozen, at least 60% down on numbers for this time of year, but I am glad to see them. I never cease to be amazed at the variables in the same moth. Even these three,although similar, have significant differences. Time to get plate making then!

 My friend Sheila came over last week so that I could show her how to do gum arabic transfers, taught to me by my chum Sue. The whole idea is to use a crisp black and white image produced on a photocopier. This becomes the printing plate when gum arabic is used to bond the oil based ink to the black areas of the image. Sheila used one colour and placed her images on pages that may turn into a book. It was great to see her excitement of something new.

After she left I looked through my stack of photocopies and found a set from a photo I took at the Natural History Museum in Oxford. I'd already split the image into CMYK separations and photocopied each one in black and white. I've never tried printing more than one colour before but I had enjoyed seeing her excitement of the process so tried a four colour print the next day, starting with the yellow and then overprinting with magenta (above) trying to get the registration spot on. This was quite tricky as my photocopy was large and when you're wrestling with a wet piece of paper it goes where it wants to go and not always where you want it to.
 I then added the cyan layer but did not bother to add the black final layer as it was getting messy. There is a vague sense of a coloured image but too much ink was absorbed into the white areas and it was not clear enough for me. This also happened to the prints I did on a workshop I ran last year and it has dawned on me that perhaps the photocopying paper is too thin, hence the way it sucks up ink and is reluctant to release it. All my photocopying is done at the local library so it could be something about the paper quality they use. I'm trying out a couple of other sources this week to see if the print quality improves. I am definitely going to

                                      
be doing some more four colour trials. In the past couple of months I have not posted much about things I am making, mainly because I am just enjoying 'doing' things without a plan. I've been making a stained glass panel (a disaster)and doing lots of painting for collage work and getting on with print sampling, practising my drypoint etching skills and just having fun finding my own rhythm. I made this shoe plate weeks ago and did a quick print on an old book page. Now I've made a pair of them to work with and their small size reminded me that I was going to suggest some sort of print exchange this Spring. I was thinking if enough people were interested it would be good to make a small print, edition it and everyone gets a copy of everyone else's print. I like the idea of the challenge but with no pressure and done in any print medium. If anyone else is interested just leave a comment or e mail and let me know if the idea appeals. No worries if not, I am happy pottering in my shed just thinking 'what if I do that....'

We went for a late afternoon walk in the local woods yesterday. The shadows and the light were quite magical and we never saw another soul. It reminded me of work by Jenny Grevatte. I came across her paintings a few years ago and have collected a book and catalogues etc but would love to own an original. For the breadth of her work and to see other videos take a look here. I love her sense of colour and the way she works with mixed media. If she is new to you I promise it will be a treat.



Trees by Jenny Grevatte - video from goldmarkart.com on Vimeo.

It's not uncommon for the blue tits to dart in and out of the flowering quince just outside of the window where I sit. They often tap on the windows and I sit engrossed in their antics. The quince is only a short flit from the bird bath and because the camera was still on the side I was lucky enough to get this little chap this morning, enjoying an early morning bath and then drying off in the quince in the sunshine. I just look at these photos and want to say 'aaahhhh...'