Woodblock Wednesday - advanced class, week 1 of 3

Carol showed us an example of how overprinting deepens the colour -

Other techniques used here are bokashi (shading) and stencils -

She suggested we use the simple shape of a mountain and moon for trying out the various techniques. First step is to mark the margins for the blocks -

The light wash on the printing area helps you see what's been cut. The shapes are transferred -

The advanced cutting method involves holding the bevelled knife at an angle, rather than straight up -

 My Inner Rebel didn't like the mountain-and-moon idea, though I did understand about using a simple shape; these two pots came out of my little sketchbook. After trying to "make them more interesting" I went back to the original ...

 and divided them up among the four blocks -

 Some things to learn and/or remember -

What the course will cover

A useful reminder

Efficient cutting of paper

 We'll need sheets of paper for printing next week -

First square up the deckle edge

A reminder of making the kento (registration notches) - I need more practice with this...

At home, I took a moment to check that the images lined up properly - and they didn't!

This is what comes of not following instructions! I decided to put a mountain (but not a moon) on the other side of the shina plywood. The first skyline wasn't mountainous enough (bottom left, below; you're seeing it upside down), so I zoomed in closer, and cut the mountain again and added a "cloudy" sky (top right) and at bottom left (upside down) cut the solid sky and some foothills. Both sections of both blocks can be printed separately (and I may try the other, the distant view, just to see what it looks like) -

 Bonus picture - lovely little curls ...

Drawing Tuesday - National Portrait Gallery

Love the mosaics at the entrance to the NPG, and there are more inside as well -

Wandering to a distant room, I found this grouping of portrait busts, most sculpted by Chantrey (1781-1841) -

Quite daunting in detail, and it was the light and shadow that drew me to them - so I took off my glasses and blind(ly) drew what I could see -

With glasses back on, things looked quite different. I'm in the bad habit of starting with the most interesting thing, in this case the nose on the right -

Gradually the group came together. I'd bitten off more than I could chew with these, could and maybe should try again - but do not want to revisit them!

 Others had more interesting work.

Jo did her work on the s-l-o-w bus into town

Michelle's unknown lady

Najlaa took a deep breath and tackled "faces" (Mary Ann Clarke,
mistress of Frederick Duke of York) - then
relaxed with some pattern

 

Sue captured Edith Sitwell and Harold Moody

Edward William Lane, Arabic scholar, by Joyce

Janet K found two Edwards - the Black Prince was, appropriately, cast in
black metal and drawn on dark paper

Carol found a vista, and flocked wallpaper

Edward William Lane again, by Janet B, and also Joseph Collet

 Extra-curricular activities

Najlaa's quilted fabric face

Joyce's pattern stamping, inspired by a piece in the Anni Albers exhbition

Janet B's machine embroidery, and a soap carving based on a bird in her sketchbook

Michelle has gone seasonally glitzy

Found and remembered

If you "never" throw away your experiments and samples and suchlike, they re-surface years later - and you might not be able to remember when or why or how you made them! These are done with biro and were probably made while having an enforced stay in Brussels when Eurostar trains broke down in the tunnel - that was December 2009. They are done on what looks like hotel stationery of some sort, and a biro would have been just the thing after seeing work by Jan Fabre there - a ceiling encrusted with beetle wings. I remember pointing it out to Tony and telling him about the exhibition of his work in the Louvre, which included large, buckled drawings solid with ballpoint pen marks that had made a lasting impression on me: simple, subtle, intense, laborious.

Some of these textures now strike me as "interesting" for putting into or onto, which is it, the porcelain pots...

Also found, remnants of a work-in-progress called "Speech Marks" - snippets developed from marks made to "record" overheard conversations on mobile phones. Often the record showed my annoyance at the loud voice, the self-absorption of monopolising the conversation, the triviality; all sorts of grumpiness that of course we can rise above now....

These are somewhat similar, but it was working towards a project, or series, about counting -

Brent Wadden at Pace gallery

The show is called "Sympathetic Resonance" and is on till 10 January.

At first glance you might think, Oh yes, stripes, positioned in a variety of ways - is this "art"?

 Looking closer, you find that it's not painted, it's woven ...

The wide works consist of strips of fabric, stripe-matching and selvedges adding a bit of disruption -

The works are large-scale -

 Here's what the gallery says about the show:

 Influenced by folk and Bauhaus textiles, the language and techniques of traditional North American tapestry weaving, as well as painting movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Wadden complicates hierarchies of media and disciplines with his work, throwing the distinction between high and low into flux.

OK, it's art: hierarchies have been upset, disciplines have been jumbled together, high and low are up for grabs, let the viewer decide.

("Traditional North American tapestry weaving" - Navajo blankets, I think?)

Pace London is adjacent to the extended Royal Academy, in fact there's a door into the gallery from what used to be the Museum of Mankind. If you stay in the Burlington Gardens wing and cross to the other side of the building you'll find a complementary exhibit - except it's not an exhibit, it's functional - the ladies loos, built round the curve of the lecture theatre -

November reading, and some intentions

The month has seen very little reading of entire books, and what there was is unashamedly escapist "comfort" reading, borrowed from the library -

In another library - the paleography and book history library in Senate House, on the way to a talk in a back room - I saw this on the recent acquisitions display but didn't have time to even glance inside - "an illustrated history of books in paint" -

These two are also on my wish list, seen in the Horniman's Lore of the Land exhibition -

Bookstores and charity shops have provided more fodder for the bookshelves -

Strangely, I have neither purchased nor lusted after any textile, pottery, craft, or even art books for some time now. Well, maybe a few art books ...

Studio Saturday

Very little ceramics got done this week. I did visit the studio briefly but decided to have some time working at home on "new directions" - and later in the week, hot on the heels of starting the new woodblock printing course, I found myself in the grip of a Mokuhanga Moment, researching registration and - sock knitting in hand - watching a variety of printmaking videos (makes a change from watching  a variety of Gresham College lectures!). 

At the studio, I left well enough alone, apart from filling up the gaps in the display, caused by several pots going to new homes -

 ... and found this little artwork made up of the pins that held the cloths on the tables -

 At home, much of the day was spent grappling with various unhappinesses in the, hmm, shall we call it a storeroom at the moment? One was the sewing machine - the PQ1500, which just about has vintage status by now, with its manual settings (love them - just turn a knob, no tedious clicking/beeping through automatic settings) and straight stitch only.

The machine used to be at the "weekend studio", in those days-gone-by, and in the move back here had become separated from its bobbins. I'd been using a sewing machine so little that one bobbin sufficed for everything - all the others in the drawers of the machine table were for the Janome, which is put away.

Now I needed a variety of bobbin threads, so a big search ensued - with a successful result, including lots of pre-wound bobbins from Superior Threads, 10 or more years ago. The rummage in the drawers also drew my attention to the many variegated threads on hand ... when and how could I ever use them? (Their joy was in the purchasing.)

Another thing that need attention was the state of the room. Things have piled up and were - still are! - gathering dust. This is the organised part of the room -

Some shifting of items, including the essential "putting it where it belongs" in some cases, led to what felt at first like vast areas of clear surface -

 Once the materials came out, the surface quickly disappeared -

Here's a new shape, new size, and new subject matter - first try - oh and new technique, made on the machine not by hand-stitching -

 These are harder to see. On the left, each panel has squiggles of wire pushed through the sinamay.

On the right, a dress shape has been machined, using the "silver" thread on the bobbin; after stitching the dress, I hand-stitched the fabric into a cylinder - it's quite tall, compared to previous pots.

Now I need to find bigger containers for dipping. Another thing that's needed is metallic sewing machine thread (for the bobbin, probably) that actually contains metal, rather than shiny plastic. Hmm, there's this industrial stuff... and this...