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

Drawing Tuesday - National Gallery

On the way to the designated venue I popped in to the National Portrait Gallery "just for a minute" and got caught up in the Elizabeth Peyton exhibition when these opera singers/characters caught my eye -

Hmm, not quite....

Once done, I went closer to look harder and noticed these marks in the lower left corner, the colours that she had used - what, carmine? where? - very subtle

Then to the National Gallery, and this nice little panel with scenes from the life of St Benedict painted by Lorenzo Monaco in or around 1399 -

Coloured in, from memory, at home (gotta fix that green, and pay more attention to perspective) -

Sue had been in the Elizabeth Peyton exhibit too, caught by a pastel (The Kiss) that looked at first glance like a shapeless cluster of marks. She told me that a profile had revealed itself, and as we looked at it together, the penny dropped and we suddenly saw the second profile -

Again, those little marks in the corner to test the colours

Sue also found a sculptural subject in the National Gallery -

 Michelle's subject was a 16th-century Madonna -

 Janet K searched out animals -

Najlaa found a painting that Bridget Riley had done straight onto the wall, "Messengers" -

 Jo collected moments and objects while having a pre-lunch coffee -

Judith stayed outside the gallery and drew a variety of people ("they all kept moving") -

Joyce got some buskers and other people just standing about -

 The previous week Judith had been in northern Spain and busy with her pen -

Blast from the past - sketchbooks from the mid-90s

While digging out the sewing machine from under the workbench I couldn't resist revisiting just one of my old sketchbooks. Oh how I enjoyed filling them! Each term I started a new book for the new course (Creative Embroidery with Julia Caprara) and put in it not just the class work but my researches in books and museums. Outside of my fulltime job, and being a single mother, these sketchbooks were my main occupation.

These pages are some of my favourites from one of the books....

Class visit to V&A for a drawing session

Pots from the British Museum, possibly drawn on a lunch-hour visit

My focus was on the huge pots of Knossos - I filled a folder with embroidery
and felted samples, keeping for the first time to a limited range of colour

A bit off topic, but the wineglass motif was later used
(less chaotically) in the first quilt I exhibited with the Quilters Guild

 In the furthest corner under the workbench I saw this box, nicely labelled -

and left it there "for now". Coward!

Studio Saturday - sewing and printing but still no pots

The fantasy giraffes are finally finished; why did they take so long?  - 

An extra woodblock printing session on Thursday ...

 My blocks were based on the uneven edges of ikat -

and I got a few prints done, starting with one that combined two different blocks and used one dull colour -

... and moving on to multiple impressions of the same block and various nuances of colour on the same paper -

On Saturday a friend came to do some sewing, so I dug under the workbench to get out the second machine, and dusted and wiped in a corner that doesn't see the light of day too often. Usually the rolling towers of drawers live in front of the old sketchbooks and the other bits - hmm, what actually is  in there?

 The room is still set up for sewing -

but at least that serpent's nest of zippers has been sorted.

We used a very few of them in making lined zipped pouches -

... and hardly made a dent in the mound of fabric -

Now that we've done prototypes, a production line could produce a few dozen more ... or maybe just a few more. But basically the aim was to have a small project successfully done, as we are both trying to encourage ourselves (and each other) to get back to garment sewing.

Seen, enjoyed, photographed, noted

Display of postcards from the printmaking department's postcard exchange at Morley Collete

... including one of mine

my favourite

The kinetic work of Takis at Tate Modern - most of my pix are videos and I've never figured out how to put videos on blogger

 Also at Tate Modern, Olafur Eliasson's retrospective (till 5 January 2020) includes things, maquettes, light, liquids, fog... ideas, ideas, ideas -

Selfie in the fog - the fog was yellow, the camera lies!

 At Bankside Gallery,  wonderful watercolours in "The Art of Travel" (till 9 November) -

Gertie Young

Anne Lynch

 At Japan House, lovely exhibition of the illustrations of Anno Mitsumata, which made excellent use of scaled-up versions of his papercuts for window display (till 27 Oct) -

 At National Portrait Gallery, drawings by Elizabeth Eyton (till 5 January) -

 Society of Graphic Fine Art at Menier Gallery (till 2 November) -

 Antony Gormley at the RA - good to see his varied early work -

Land Sea and Air (lead cases for stone, water, air)

In the RA magazine he said that the work started on an excursion with his brother:

Other favourites -

Blanket Drawing - drawn with clay - handle with care

A lead bowl. A bowl full of lead. Heavy.

"Grasp" - altered stone

 Love the simplicity of the drawings -

 ... and the multiplicity of the notebooks (four vitrines) -