Eye candy (and food for thought) from Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair

The fair is on till 10 November. An illustrated list of exhibitors is at http://www.woolwichprintfair.com/exhibitors-2019

Woolwich is a bit of a trek - well that depends on where you start - but when you're there, do have a look at the old buildings of the Arsenal, which was closed as a military depot in 1994 and is now a residential area; the 18th and 19th century buildings are interspersed with early 21st centurylow-rise apartments.

Cheers to Carol Justin, with her enormous woodblock print

Collage on pattern sheets from Burda Mode magazine
Hormazd Narielwalla

Reminds me of paper dolls... very cheery!
Adam Hemuss

Interesting way to display (or store) a print
Victoria Ahrens

A bag printed onto a bag - by inking up a bag??
Aliceson Carter

Yellow and grey, a favourite colour combination
Bee-Dwo Lin

Lovely use of woodgrain
Celia Scott

Lots and lots of lines
Johan Schoonvliet

Reduction print - so many colours!
He-Kun

Simple and subtle
Ann Kavanagh

A unity of contrast
Altea Grau Vidal

Printed on porcelain
Caroline Whitehead

Gorgeous ... that starry sky, the calm water...
Emma Stibbon

Huge pint of a piece of burnt toast!
Janet Milner

Based on a dream (?nightmare) - I can relate to this
Vaka Valo

So interesting, the imagined personalities, the group dynamics
Liora Tchiprout

Lovely, so caring
Ana Marie Pacheco

East London Printmakers

Thanks to Gillian Harding for bring me to the preview,
and for encouraging me to complete and submit work,
and at least frame it and display it at home!

A sculptural sort of landscape

Woodblock Wednesday - printing water with water

First task was to finish the edit of the cutting on the second and third layers - I like the look of the block now, but with inking, all the white will disappear -

Out came the coloured pencils, to try rubbing different combinations for the different layers -

 First round - yellow, green, light blue. Surprises lay ahead...

In class, 3 hours dedicated to printing, results were disappointing at first -

needing much re-inking of faint areas (with paper in situ)

I'd been using yellow on the first layer but it got mixed with the blue from the previous prints still being "active". I wanted a more yellowy shade and tried to remove the colour not by washing/scrubbling, but by printing without colour or nori - through previous printing, the block was already soaked with both. The water-only prints are on the left, after which I printed with yellow, but a little blue/green was still left in the brush -

Lesson: When changing colours, wash everything!

With the second layer, the green mixed from lemon yellow and cerulean was contaminated by the blue already on the block -

One of those prints was printed with the third layer, cerulean on the dark blue block, but it's too much of a contrast.

On getting home I was able to print for another hour and concentrated on the second block. These used water to get out the excess pigment -

Fresh pigment on the block, over the first layer printed in the morning -

My registration system is a bit of plywood larger than the block, and masking tape. The block lines up with the right side of the plywood and fits between the "kento corners". The paper is lined up with the bottom edge of the ply, and with the masking tape to the right of the block. It's a bit tricky, but mostly works. I have to remember to check that the block is still in exactly the same place on the ply before laying down the paper, and that the paper hasn't shifted in those few moments before applying the baren. Attention to detail!

The colour is more even, but the registration of the second block was half a millimetre too high.

The ply needs to be U-shaped and to fit the block exactly, and to be removed for inking. And chiselled kento, perhaps? Using several layers of masking tape has been working quite well so far.

Drawing Tuesday - Horniman Museum

The art-related-to-animals exhibition at the Horniman involves taxidermy and plastic, drawing on the theme of waste and the impact of humans on their surroundings -

 It's at the entrance to the natural history gallery. I went further in, and settled down beside the scarlet ibis, brown kiwi, and sunbird. (The plumage on the Great Northern Diver was good, but no time to draw it.)

We decamped to a cafe elsewhere -

Tea strainers at "The Teapot"

and shared our work.

Trumpets by Joyce

"Beasts" by Jo

Birds by Janet B

Tigers in action, and tiger skull, by Janet K

Carol found interesting objects

Sue got close up with insects

Judith's work with pastels and with ink&wash

 Extra-curricular activities -

With Halloween on the horizon, Carol made a reversible cape for her grandson, age 4,
with a mini-version for his "pet dragon"

Studio Saturday - Further developments in zipped pouches

The main studio activity in this week of family illness and playing nursemaid (mainly as cook and babysitter) has been a little light sewing. Back to the comfort-activity of the zipped pouches - not so comfortable though when you suddenly realise that something is back-to-front-to-inside-out and needs ripping out -

 Save that for later. The fun activity was showing a friend how to make The Pouch. She chose a bit of clamp resist (I think; it was dyed so long ago!) indigo, and I used some Travel Lines fabric for mine -

Choosing the linings and zipper tabs was great fun.

My lost zipper foot for the Janome machine hasn't turned up, so I evolved a workaround - first sew the zipper to just the lining - the stitching will be near the edge of the tape (which makes for a dash of colour) and then when you sew the outside onto "the zipper sandwich", follow that line of stitching.

Now I have a number of pouches -

The long one will carry my ruler and brushes to woodblock printing class, and the brush for applying nori can go in the "african" pouch.

A propos of nothing, here are some jolly socks - with swedish origin, and from Japan; the latter have split toes as well as the (hmm, what are they?) yellow bits above the ribbing -