Bath Society of Artists Annual Summer Exhibition

I was really pleased to learn today that both my prints have been selected for the Bath Society of Artists Summer show - this is the first time I have submitted work to this exhibition. And I have never been to the Victoria Gallery so I'm looking forward to the PV on Friday, with the 'great and good' of Bath.
The 2 prints I submitted were both from my final MA year. These prints are so difficult to photograph well I have never entered them for an exhibition as so often the first selection is from digital images. These are the best photographs I have of them but they don't really do them justice as the blind embossing textual detail is lost.

'Walking Moments' 3 collagraph prints from 'A Long Walk' - series of 60

The photograph above seems pale pink but it is white! The one below seems grey but is white apart from the central motif

' Waymarker' from a series of 6 - Collagraph

The 6 'Waymarker' prints were originally presented unframed at my MA show but of course that is not acceptable for an exhibition. I've visited several exhibitions to research ideas on presentation and settled on a deep box frame to give the print the depth I wanted. I would have liked to have used non reflective glass but again that was not allowed in the exhibition conditions. The six prints vary with the circle in a different position along a horizontal plane. The image above may not be the actual print I had framed but it was the only decent photograph of the series. 

It is amazing the difference it makes to the spirit to have some work accepted - I was a bit down last year after finishing the MA and wondering, after several rejections, why I was doing this! Everyone needs a bit of encouragement now and again!

Mini prints

I am delighted that my work has been selected for the 11^th Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition 2017 at The Center for Contemporary Printmaking. The exhibition opens on 4 June through to 27 August.

3 Dartmoor Stones, Collagraph 2017

I have also received an award for the 3 prints I submitted - Dartmoor Stone 1, Dartmoor Stone 2  and Dartmoor Stone 3 received Honorable Mentions and Dartmoor Stone 2, received the Legion Pescia Purchase Award.
The Juror was Freyda Spira, Associate Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

I really enjoyed making these tiny prints - max 4 square inches! I am intending making a series of small artist books based on the same concept. 

Resistance!

I was well out of my comfort zone at last weeks drawing group session - we had to select from packaging to make a collaged drawing - mine, and many of the others too, turned out to be a comment about consumerism. It made me realise that this is not an area of drawing I want to pursue - I had a strong resistance to the task in hand and wanted to leave but I persisted - I sometimes think there is more learning in the things you don't want to do rather than what you love doing!  Resistance is coming up for me a lot at the moment - even in doing what I usually love doing. I wonder if this is the winter blues - thank goodness January is over - the weather has been extra miserable this year and I'm hoping we will have more light in February! I've hardly done any walking as it's just been too boggy everywhere.  

I don't like the work I did and have put it in the bin but here is a record just to remind me. I hope this weeks session produces some more positive results!

Add caption

Carborundum and collagraphs

 I have been at Mary Gillett's collagraph workshop over the weekend. I was so busy over the 2 days that I completely forgot to take any photographs of progress - very remiss of me! So I've had a day in my own studio making some more tester plates and pressing the prints that I did on the workshop and taking a few photos of the process.

Although I made lots of collagraphs during my MA I always used plant material and polyfilla so I've been keen to try other methods of making the plates. I used carborundum and tile cement on these small experimental plates - I found it quite difficult to get the effect I wanted. There are so many different ways to use carborundum so I made the plate below last night as a guide for future plates. The next stage will be to use the new methods along with the plant material. 

Carborundum tester plate 

Mountboard base with first stage of tile cement 

Plywood base with tile cement and second stage of carborundum 

Various small experimental plates 

Print using 6-8 layers of PVA over solid carborundum

I also made an aluminum plate covered with parcel tape, drafting tape and sellotape and then burnt with a blowtorch - this is great fun and totally beyond any control as the plastic under heat just does it's own thing. I printed it in black and then adding 2 colours and using the viscosity relief printing method 

Print from aluminum plate 

Adding relief colour 

Printed in black intaglio and 2 colour viscosity relief 

Now I need to do some more printing which I can't do at home as I don't have a press unfortunately. 

2016 art intentions

I have been sleeping in my studio over the Christmas holidays - I don't do this often and it is usually because I have extra visitors. But I love it! My studio is the third bedroom in my house but I have a bit of block about letting anyone sleep in there so I happily give up my bed when I have extra visitors and vacate to a very comfy fold up bed - it feels good to sleep with my work around me and it is also an opportunity to have a good tidy up so I can organise a small space to put up the bed and my few night time things.

I woke up this morning (the last in my studio as I return to my own bedroom tonight) thinking about my 2016 art intentions (not resolutions as they feel like a struggle whilst intentions feel exciting!). I have been struck down by ill health over the past few months so it feels very important to get back into a working routine. I have also struggled with establishing a routine since the completion of my MA in July this year. So it feels like the right time to establish some boundaries and adventures for the next year ahead!


Art intentions 2016
Give my blog and website a make over
Write a weekly blog post
Do a drawing everyday (even if it is only a quick 5 min sketch)
Research and produce a new body of work to include drawings and prints
Use my journal each week
Spend 3 days in the studio each week (min)
Submit work for 4 exhibitions
Visit at least one London exhibition (this didn't happen this year for financial and health reasons)

In terms of professional developement I have booked a weekend workshop to make some new collagraph plates with Mary Gillett mid January and I intend applying for the Dartmoor Arts Summer School in July (I had such a wonderfully creative time last summer and met some lovely people too). I will also continue with Richard Allman's very enjoyable and challenging drawing course as I missed several sessions last term.

It feels like a positive start - I haven't made the list too long as I want it to be achievable - I intend to add to list as the year progresses

So I wish myself and anyone reading this - A very happy, abundant and ARTY 2016 

Week 4 Drawing

 

Last week Richard asked us to bring ink, sticks, etc and we explored what ink can do..... On wet, dry and different kinds of paper blowing ink through a straw, drawing with different wooden sticks, blotting ink and other numerous ways of drawing with ink.

 

We then collated all our small samples on to a large sheet of paper

 

 

 

I also made myself a bench hook last week with the intention of starting a linocut.

However, I picked up a virus a couple of weeks ago and have been lacking in energy. The result is a dissatisfaction with what I've achieved and I'm hoping this week will be more productive!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Week 4 Drawing

Last week Richard asked us to bring ink, sticks, etc and we explored what ink can do..... On wet, dry and different kinds of paper blowing ink through a straw, drawing with different wooden sticks, blotting ink and other numerous ways of drawing with ink. 

We then collated all our small samples on to a large sheet of paper

I also made myself a bench hook last week with the intention of starting a linocut.

However, I picked up a virus a couple of weeks ago and have been lacking in energy. The result is a dissatisfaction with what I've achieved and I'm hoping this week will be more productive!

Posted with Blogsy

Drawing group

This weeks exercises were a lot of fun working to some extent quite differently for me ( although I am known for my love of ripping work). Richard gave us 6 small squares of paper and asked us to make 3 quick gestural marks with a large 1inch brush in black ink/ paint - we kept one and put the others in a group pile from which we selected 5 - we then fitted them together ramdomly and glued them down on a sheet of white paper

We were asked to use charcoal to draw the design - I bent the rules by using the window as a light box and tracing the image (using compressed charcoal)

For the next exercise we selected a cardboard shape and made similar gestural marks first in black then white

These were then all piled together in a large sculptural form and we selected a section to draw

Since then I've continued with the exercise and torn the cardboard into smaller sections - there are so many exciting configurations - these are a few

Now to do some drawings!

 

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International Print Exchange

This is the first year I've taken part in this exchange and it has been a very worthwhile and positive experience - last week I received 8 prints from artists across the world - thank you to all the artists who took part and made this happen and particularly to those whose prints I received John Pindar, David Symonds, Barbara Follette Adams, Kelley Folger, Caroline Masterson, Faith Chevannes, Maureen McAdams and Cynthia Lessard

 

 

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Drawing

I haven't been doing enough drawing so I've joined Richard Allman's drawing group - we meet for 2 and a half hours every Thursday. I really look forward to the challenges he gives us - last week we drew the negative spaces in giant flower arrangements (long stems of flowers like agapanthus and verbena) I wish I'd taken some photos of the flowers as the arrangements were thrown together in a rather wonderful wild way! I tore my drawing into 2 separate drawings which worked much better

This afternoon's session was equally challenging and enjoyable - more of that in my next post

 

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Back on Blogger again with my MA show

I have given up with wordpress as I can no longer access it on my rather ancient Mac! It is so frustrating when you have a computer that works perfectly well and then you can no longer use it for certain actions - in the last few months I have been unable to use Skype, Dropbox and update Adobe Flash - now Wordpress is added to the list. I suppose at some point I need to get a new computer but quite honestly while this one is working I don't feel much inclined to spend money (at the moment just for these few things!). It was going to be my final post on Wordpress anyway as I have now finished my MA in Contemporary Art Practice and I was only using it to post about my MA practice.

So I am back to using good old reliable blogger and this post is just to show some photos from my MA show in July at Royal William Yard, Plymouth  

A busy PV  

A Circular Walk 2014 Artist Book, Collagraph

A Simple Method is adapted from the original by Karen Howse

A Long Walk 2014/5 60 collagraph prints  

A Long Walk detail 

A Long Walk detail

A Long Walk detail 

Way Markers 2015 series of 6 collagraph prints

Way Marker 2015, Collagraph with blind embossing 

Prints-on-the-go 2014/5 Monoprints

Prints-on-the-go detail 

It was a brilliant opening and I really enjoyed myself - after all the hard work it was finally time to relax
I'd like to finish this post with some words sent to me after the show - it was so kind of Richard to take the time to give this review.

‘The challenge of using the space and creating, installing was brilliantly done. Your walk installations transformed the space, watching people interact with your work, walking the line or circling the light added to their energy’  

‘A Long Walk’ installation.

 People were studying individual prints but in doing so bowed in reference to the qualities of each individual (print). There was a spiritual space, about a metre from the work where they stooped to look, a prayer wall, thought wall, feeling wall, or simply a diary or record of moments in time with nature. Lots of individual elements, but looking down the line, seeing the beginning of the journey and the distant end, the perspective playing with the angled prints and the linear repeating patterns of decaled edges of pristine paper, the whole and the sum of the individual parts only added to the spatial dimension of the work and the space it was within. The identity of one print was added to by the relationship with its neighbour sometimes close sometimes farther apart, the vertical prints vibrated, had a pattern, a signature, a beat. It is an infinite horizon line which if walked will continue to adapt and change to the responses to time and place’.

Richard Sunderland

Artist

http://www.richardsunderlandart.com