Woodblock printing - Construction Lines series 2

 These prints use the invisible basis of patterns created by traditional geometry (drawing patterns with just compasses and straight edge). In the first series I tried to add the pattern itself to the grid - that turned out unexpectedly!

This time I was after the interaction between the grid of circles (flower of life) and the overlying grid of lines from which the shapes were chosen. 

The boards

The prints

I wasn't happy with my choice of colours - too many possibilities, not enough intention!

But I carried on...

... to the point of printing on the back of some prints -

Fronts

Turn them over!

Meanwhile I was enlarging the lines, working towards making the star into a negative shape; that was going much to slowly for my impatience to be finished with this project. In fact I decided just to stop.

Quite a lot of prints, but nothing to write home about

At the eleventh hour came this surprising juxtaposition - the dabsof paint waiting the be brushed evenly on the board (quick, take a photo!) -

I took a rubbing, and painted  and cut out some circular dabs - could this perhaps make something interesting? No, not really, but it was fun trying! 

My other favourite outcome of this project is the rough and ready rubbing of circles and lines -

Construction lines, second version

 At the start of last week's class I hadn't got very far with "construction lines", my second attempt at the concept. The lines are the grid of compass circles and certain points joined with straight lines, from which the shapes used in geometric patterns emerge. Previously I also printed the shapes and collaged them onto the printed lines. 

The blocks have been printed, and even juxtaposed, but I wasn't at all happy with the combination.

And they're a bit minimal, dull on their own -

Here's the sum total of work so far -

In class I printed both blocks with Payne's Grey and cobalt turquoise -

To be continued...

This rubbing, taken weeks ago, is to my mind the best outcome so far, and I'd almost be happt to leave it at that, or try a few versions of rubbings, rather than carry on with proper printing -

Woodblock prints: Construction Lines series 1

 A project in Spring term 2022, based on the compass and ruler lines that are used to start geometrical construction of patterns.

Working out the grids (and deciding which to use) -

Rubbings and printing -

At some point before cutting I randomly jettisoned some of the curved grid lines and felt much happier about how things were going - more open, more interesting, more accidental and surprising. A bit of experimentation with layout of cut star shapes and another block was ready to cut and print with sumi ink onto the watercolour backgrounds.

In fact the stars originated from a cutout grid; I debated whether to print the "net" or the stars and had to make a mockup to decide. On the print, you can see the altered grid of circles; on one side, almost all the lines are left, forming a sort of border, over which I sometimes printed diagonal lines -

"Warming up the board" on newsprint, and adding some leftover stars; just playing...

Three of the finished prints, the coloured stars cut out and glued on -

More finished prints ...

... and my favourites -

Combining geometry and woodblock

 My first attempts to combine geometry drawings with woodblock printing were small, about 10cm x 15cm. Rather than standing the design nice and square, I had it tipping off the page -

Same idea, slightly different, a bit more interesting - and printed with rather random inking (using watercolour, not ink) -

Further inking experiments -

and combining blocks...

Other designs, not the right scale -

Interwoven -

After these came a larger printI was aiming to do a reduction print of some sort -

Even so a second block was needed, with other elements -

It didn't look very promising - 

So I started stitching, adding stars  ...

The threads are woven within each star -

A third block and a chance to try some other colours, why not -

New possibilities -

Would you call these monoprints? They're not strictly an edition! -

You can just about see the stitching on some of them.  The bottom row contains prints from the single blocks.

This one was printed in three stages, but hasn't been stitched yet -

Something to get back to, one day; possibly soon. I'd like some closure on this idea. Much as I appreciate the hexagon, it's a bit too "Grandmother's Flower Garden" for my current liking.

First step is to get individual photos of them all, and to arrange them from Best Favourite to least. I am resisting the temptation to sew them together into some sort of paper quilt!

Those have been languishing since May. In June I started thinking about the construction lines for the geometry drawings, and how they make nets containing the eventual shapes ... but that's another story ...

Drawing Tuesday - "from my collection"

 It's hard to go through life without any sort of collection of objects, so the "collections" topic gives lots of drawing possibilities. This group started out to go drawing objects in museum collections - and now we're treating our homes, and the online world, like those museums, as repositories of collections.

Also we can draw on our collections of drawings...

From Jo - From a collection of "modernist" pebbles. Unfortunately the two "best" ones (in a "safe place") so those remain to be done another time. It makes me despair of "art" really, when "nature" is so talented!

From Carol -  an early drawing in 2016 when I was using A6 books and very fine pens, not yet brave enough for colour. It’s a very interesting exercise to go back and see how your work has changed and I don’t feel it has stopped changing yet. After very much enjoying drawing at O level I spent most of my life being too busy for it with a feeling that it was not a ‘purposeful’ enough pastime, my parents view I think –then it sort of exploded out (in a tiny A6 sort of way).

From Sue B - A watercolour of tuscan hills through a newly erected arbor….2019, which was the year when I really started sketching in colour again, following a gap of 41 years after A level!

From Mags - I've been going through my indigo stash including a selection of Ndope strip cloth pieces from Cameroon, bought from John Gillow. I did have a go at drawing a small fragment last year, you see so much when you draw, the variations in hand twisted thread for a start.

From Janet K - Happy friends.

From Joyce - some pebbles pick up from Climping beach, I can’t resist picking interesting stones and shells.

From Judith - From my collection of stencils and french curves that due to computer Aided Design have become obsolete except for stitchers and fashion design!

From Janet B - I finally managed to sit down for an undisturbed hour and draw these two rock and roll teapots from my extensive collection of kitsch. 

From Jackie - A collection of earrings  from :

Top Row:         Cambridge, mother in law’s costume jewellery..50’s, V & A, S Africa

Second row:    Hong Kong, India,  Scotland, Iran

Bottom row:     my mum’s collection, India, Islington, Israel

From Ann - A sombre painting from 35 years or more. The plight of refugees.

From Sue K - Here’s my piece from my batch of personalised handmade birthday cards. This was for Richard’s November birthday - he loves mushrooms, (sadly l’ve developed a serious aversion) so l found a selection of edible wild mushrooms to get interesting shapes & colours to make the letters.

From Gill - my collection of shells found and bought. As my sister gave me a big box of metallic acrylics for Christmas I have used them all to colour in the shapes and now have a colour and pigment reference of them.

From Najlaa - From perfume pictures I collect.

From me - My own "collection" refers to research for this term's woodblock printing project, "something to do with Children's Day" - I zero'd in on kokeshi dolls, checked them out online, and quickly bought this one -

They are made in the forested northeast of Japan - this short video made in 2011 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfPapG4EnPg&ab_channel=JapanstoreTV) shows the process of making them.

Finding more images online, I "collected" various faces in the traditional style -

and also traditional patterns, mostly sashiko, for the figures' kimonos -

To give you an idea of where this is going - a two-block print, about A4 size

I used the waste areas of the figures to practise cutting the fine details of the faces (they need to be even smaller) and to try the white-line patterning -