Construction lines, second version

 At the start of last week's class I hadn't got very far with "construction lines", my second attempt at the concept. The lines are the grid of compass circles and certain points joined with straight lines, from which the shapes used in geometric patterns emerge. Previously I also printed the shapes and collaged them onto the printed lines. 

The blocks have been printed, and even juxtaposed, but I wasn't at all happy with the combination.

And they're a bit minimal, dull on their own -

Here's the sum total of work so far -

In class I printed both blocks with Payne's Grey and cobalt turquoise -

To be continued...

This rubbing, taken weeks ago, is to my mind the best outcome so far, and I'd almost be happt to leave it at that, or try a few versions of rubbings, rather than carry on with proper printing -

Studio Saturday - catching shadows

Three weeks have passed since the previous update and projects have progressed. Painting the shadows of the pencils on the window ledge got me into a routine of getting up early, taking a cup of coffee into the studio, and getting going with something or other. 

At an angle?

As the sun [earth, actually] moves and the shadows move, the colours change

With pen (worth a try!)

The first grouping

 

Closeup, showing changes in colour for each new layer

Found a good space on the wall

The blobs are an accident, and so is the running paint -
and they interact somehow

First layer; I hold a hairdryer in my left hand and mix
the next colour of paint with the right hand, by which
time the shadow has moved enough for the next layer of paint

Paint vs Pen

The more the merrier

At the top, painting on washed-off version

These two were washed off too - but in the photo I see
a strange beast, a plumed deer perhaps

Laid out in chronological order; the final one is still
to be painted, on the next sunny morning

What have I learned? 

1. Keep it simple, no need to tilt the paper, for instance. It's ok to do the same thing time after time, because each time will be different.

2. Accumulation is good. You could even say that it's enough. After a while the whole gets to be more than the sum of the parts.

3. An end-in-view isn't necessary, an important part of the process is seeing what develops.

Once that final paper is painted, is this finished? I have no more paper - these were about to be binned, they've been hanging around since the late 80s. I like the faded vintage-ness. It gives resonance, I think, that they are proofs or over-run from the printing of the Royal College of Art's cookbook (1988), bought for mere pence at an RCA degree show. I never did make any of the recipes that are printed and illustrated on the reverse of these, but another (now lost) lives on in that Gunpowder Cake is one of my signature dishes.

Studio Saturday - sketchbooks, sharpeners, shadows

An idea about colour seeping out round the edge of a hole in the darkness -

 and later I see this, at the edge of a large painting (detail shown) -

and hear a quote from Goethe, that colour is what happens at the intersection of light and dark.

Some digging deep under the workbench, to find an old sketchbook (the colourful one; 1993) -

 in which were collages that just sort of happened -

 and an outline of my favourite fairy tale, Mother Holle -

 The industrious girl gets her reward, and her lazy sister - well, she was not a pretty sight.

A flurry of pencila sharpening

 led to the imposition of order

 and the complete revamp of "the most used tools" that sit in mugs on the window ledge.

Another old sketchbook, 2017 - shadows drawn (no, traced) outside Tate Britain, with the only watersoluble pencils I possessed at the time -

 Early mornings find me sitting here, getting a dose of natural light and listening to podcasts (the newest discovery is Kitchen Sisters Presents) -

 Sunny mornings make it possible to draw the shadows of those jars of pencils -

 or to paint them -

 Two sunny mornings in a row and we have two renditions of the same scene -

Studio Saturday - a useful trick for awkward division

Another batch of facemasks is underway -

Another recent project is "tracing my daily walks" - over the week it has taken a more definite shape and has reached what will probably be the furthest point south, which coincidentally lies just north of the point where the map changes scale. (I walk the walk without the street atlas to hand.)

As I (temporarily) labelled the areas (Highgate, Hornsey, Stoke Newington) I discovered that an entire quadrant lay empty (Tufnell Park, Camden Town) -

That was soon remedied -

The walks are a way of defining "my local area" - places I could reach on foot. I worked out that the radius was just over two miles (45 minutes' steady walking) but that I was usually out on the streets for over two hours, tsk tsk too much "daily exercise"!

The random routes make interesting shapes ... perhaps the project will take its shape from these shapes? Sheer fabrics, overlaid perhaps? Printed areas defined through stencilling? Thinking of the latter, and longing to do quite a lot of woodblock cutting, I looked for some simple travel-lines that could be traced and cut -

It took several hours to trace, and this is the result of several hours' cutting (half a dozen podcasts). It's about a sixth of the tracing -

At one point in the week another project nearly got underway, one that needed a 30-page accordion book. The book took longer than expected and is still only half finished. Each strip of paper needed folding into sixths and was an inconvenient measurement for "doing the maths". If awkward division is something that ever happens to you, this geometrical method will be useful.

I had folded the strip in half so I needed thirds. 12 (inches) is easily divided by 3, so I put the end of the ruler in the corner of the paper and swung the ruler so the 12 hit the edge of the paper. (That made the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle.) Then I marked the 8 and the 4 along the ruler. At this point you can draw your fold line with a set square or similar 90-degree tool, or you can repeat the measurement from another corner and line up the two dots.

The method works for any awkward division, fifths, sevenths, etc - just find a measurement that can easily be divided by 5, 7, etc and swing your ruler accordingly.

Woodblock Wednesday - "Waders", first layer

The little block is intended as a practice, for getting the colour/tones right and for figuring out how to do the watery effect in the reflections.

Cutting heavyweight cartridge to use for postcards

The top two are done (just one layer), the others not

Last week, diluted black paint; this week, Davy's Grey

Trying to keep a record of colour possibilities and choices

 

The block before reduction

The output so far -

Finished (black)

Black (first layer)

Notes made during printing, more as an aid to noticing than for review

The postcards on heavyweight cartridge

Woodblock Wednesday

Back to the "water" project - today's task was to cut back the second layer so that more of the first showed through. After trying to set up "a system" and refer to the prints already done, I kept it simple - pare back on two sides of each hole - and have no idea how it will turn out. 

 The block itself looks good like that (light, medium, and dark values - sparkling water!) and took almost* the entire class to get to that stage. Didn't get finished removing "the lines" from the block for the top layer -

 Others were printing -

Each version is unique

 This is a reduction print, now at the 4th layer -

Trials of different papers

*For some of the class I looked at this book, which someone had brought in, of a recent travelling exhibition put on by the Hayward Gallery, in which Yinka Shonibare curates the Arts Council collection -

Michael Kidner, 1965

Susan Derges, sand print

Anya Gallacio, micrograph of spider's leg

Tom Gallant and Mari0s Schwab, Dress 09, 2008

Bashir Makhoul, 1992

Philip Eglin, 2001