Studio Saturday - mornings in the studio

It's so enjoyable to sit in the studio every morning - with my back to the mess that must be tackled someday. The table by the window is mostly clear - but this week there were lots of shavings from the "Anni" woodblock

 Kinda like a great cloud tumbling over a tiny landscape...

One bit of fooling around involved cutting holes from magazines - I wanted circles that were part dark, part light -

 Nice big punch -

 Strange things appear through the holes -

 and the cut pages can be arranged "interestingly" -

 as can the circles

Not sure where this is going! Waiting to see where it might lead...

This is a collection of bits of blue tape removed from my cutting mat -

 and a rubbing taken. Again, just play.

The worktop was clear enough, thanks to a burst of clearing up and throwing out, for laying out some inky drawings that surfaced -

 "channeling Munakata and Carli Accardi". And using "chinese money".

Sometimes I spend rather too long looking at instagram, and sometimes an image calls out to me -

After awkwardly starting drawing in the little notebook, I found that if I "liked" doing it, it flowed. Looking harder made it look better. I'm quite pleased with the results -

Poetry Thursday - Morning, Just by Alberto Rios

This week's poem comes via Instagram - who knew IG would supply the "verbal" as well as the visual?

Alberto Rios (b.1952) is new to me, and a good find - thank you for this "small story about the sky", Carol.

He grew up in a Spanish-speaking family but was forced to speak English at school in Arizona, leading him to develop a third language, which he describes as "one that was all our own". My own experience of speaking one language at home and another at school wasn't as extreme as his, but his view of translation, or rather re-naming, resonates with me:

"I have been around other languages all my life, particularly Spanish, and have too often thought of the act of translation as simply giving something two names. But it is not so, not at all. Rather than filling out, a second name for something pushes it forward, forward and backward, and gives it another life."

Woodblock Wednesday - reduction

The new project is based on an Anni Albers weaving seen at Tate Modern's show. I was drawing the structure and enjoying the way the black and white threads are combined to get two shades of grey, and how these relate to the black and white elements, when a kind woman took pity on me and mentioned that there's a postcard of that one.

The postcard was helpful, but knowing a little about weaving and doing the drawing was essential for quickly making sense of what Albers was doing.

What I ended up doing digressed rather from the original intent.

A section copied onto a small block, 8cmx8cm

Using a larger block - 20cmx20cm

 At that point I discovered that I'd blithely cut "a four" that should have been "a horizontal two" and of course that unbalanced the design. Much revision and this version will have to do...

Layer 1 is cut

An investment in "proper paper" (and blocks for the next project)

Thinner paper, from a roll, on the left;  ho-sho on the right

 I wanted a nice solid pale grey and ended up with lots of wood grain. Would cutting back on the nori help?

 Would using less "ink" (watercolour) help -- or diluting it....

 So for each of the six prints on ho-sho I diluted the paint, with seemingly little difference -

 And finally, a couple of prints with 1cm borders, printed using a floating kento -

The effect of paper at maximum dilution of watercolour

 Next, reduction. Careful delineation of what needs to be cut -

 Ready to print layer 2 -

 Rubbed so that rough areas can be identified and dealt with -

 And printing can start -

I discovered that a couple of "fours" squares hadn't been completely cut, just the verticals (or was it horizontals, doesn't matter, too late now) but a couple of days later am hard pressed to find which ones they were -

Thin paper on left, ho-sho on the right, and layer 2
is too dark on both!

Too much pigment, leaving blobs in all the wrong places

Trim as necessary...

 Diluting (considerably) with each print eventually got the grey more to my liking -

Next, reduction again. The areas are marked and I'll wet the block before cutting, it's so much easier to chisel it off that way.

Pared back and ready to print -

 Same old procedure - first the two on thin paper, then the six on good paper, then two with a little border ...

 This time I didn't dilute the black - I wanted it to be black, especially where the dark grey was too dark, eg the first print -

Print 6, on the right, got pretty much the balance of values I was aiming for.

At the end of the day the block and I were exhausted!

Time for a glass of wine, and a quick trip across the road to find something for supper.

Drawing Tuesday - Brunei Gallery

Upstairs was Japanese lacquer (till 21 September), downstairs a chunk of Namibian music history, popular music from the 1950s80s, including many album covers, including this "fictitious album cover" by David Megameno Amukoto - it's a cardboard print, not a medium I'd heard of before.

 This photo caught my eye -

Dance Competition 1959, Windhoek

The legs still aren't right...!

 Jo enjoyed the way the man's suit blended into the background -

 ... and the vigour of this woman's dancing, in another photo -

 She also collected some vintage boomboxes -

Janet B, who usually confines her drawing tools to a simple pencil, had some pencil crayons in her bag and found this costume -

Among the lacquer, Carol conveyed the shine and dimensions of the lacquered clam shell -

 Sue found a beautiful lacquer box -

 ... and in the foyer, an enormous head -

I spotted a lovely piece of lacquerware by Koyanagi Tanekuni on the way out -

Maki-e Tray "Dawn cloud"
This red lacquer tray with luminous shell inlay expresses the
impression of the eastern sky in the morning, and filled with
the feeling of hope.

Miscellany of the week

Yet more apples to cook and freeze - they are windfalls and obviously pesticide-free as each has its wormhole and messy core needing cutting away -

The never-ending saga of the railway bridge, once "home" to about a dozen rough sleepers, who were moved on by the barriers going up purportedly for a scheme to improve the lighting. That was in February, if memory serves.

Big bubbles at a funfair - fun, or humiliating? (or, claustrophobic??)

Lunch at a local cafe - pink tables and a choice of seating. And that Stroud Green Road view....

The grandbaby has returned from her holiday and is now a Big Girl. She has a new seat that expedites playing in the bath...

and another for use out of the bath, eg, joining in family meals. With both, she can't resist trying to get some or any part of it into her mouth, and size is no obstacle, not at first anyway; she gets That Look in her innocent blue eye and in an instant the mouth is approaching or has already reached the desired object -

Some of those windfall apples became a cake, whipped up by Tom -

Sunday morning in Priory Park, doing some bushwhacking the with conservation volunteers, revealing a hidden pond -