It has been a really busy few weeks since my last post, with Christmas and New Year’s festivities, two markets at Port Fairy and two birthdays in the family. So lovely busy, not exhausting busy. Today I had the opportunity to travel to Portland Bay Press with my printmaking and market buddy, Denise Regan. We had lots of visitors pop in to the Julia Street Creative Space and the printmaking studio. We often get comments that people remember linocut from secondary school and I try to guess whether it was a positive or negative experience for them.
So this, my first linocut for 2019, is a sequel to “Upwelling”, featuring the Southern Right Whale and calf. This species of whale is a regular visitor to Warrnambool during winter, when sheltered beaches along the Southern coast become whale nurseries. I wonder if you can see the anatomical heart in the image?
I love the effect of linoprint on different textures, so I have been trialling some alternative fabrics and papers with these little bandicoots. Top left is white paper on a 30cm x 30cm canvas and top right is eco-dyed paper on unbleached, organic linen. Bottom left is the eco-dyed paper with several coats of shellac and mounted with wooden strips and leather hanger. Lastly, a 100% unbleached, organic linen tea-towel with the print. Which do you like best?
You might have heard of the Coastcare project that uses Italian sheepdogs to protect the Little Penguins on Middle Island in Warrnambool. In 2016, the Environment Minister announced funding to support a Guardian Dog trial that uses Maremmas as “Bandicoot Bodyguards”, so these little marsupials could be protected from foxes and feral cats outside their fenced enclosures.
Eastern Barred Bandicoots – collagraph background in sepia (kangaroo grass) with linocut bandicoots
This piece is a commission for a conservation ranger who works to maintain 100 acres of remnant bushland in SW Victoria, one of only three places in the world where Eastern Barred Bandicoots survive in their natural habitat. This species is classified as extinct in the wild, with only about 1,500 surviving in zoos and captive breeding programs.
The background is intaglio printed from a collagraph plate with pressed kangaroo grass, while the bandicoots are printed from a shape-cut linoprint. It was quite challenging getting the tone balanced across both processes and each of the eight prints are very different. I will have six prints available for sale at the next Port Fairy Community Market on 22nd December. The mounted print only is $80 and framed prints are $120.
This Saturday we had our first stall at the Port Fairy Community Market in Railway Place. It was lovely to speak to people who seemed genuinely interested in the different printmaking processes, some of whom remembered linoprinting from high school days. I was very pleased to sell several of my collagraphs and two more “Upwelling” prints. There are only five of twenty left in the edition. I was delighted to sell one of the prints to a newly married couple for their new home, so I hope they get many years of enjoyment by having this work on their wall. I will need to get busy for the next market in a fortnight’s time, so I have more prints available.
On the 20th October, the “Small Things Festival” was held on the Civic Green, outside the Warrnambool Art Gallery. It coincided with the launch and opening of the Paul Jennings exhibition, “Unreal”, so there were lots of children and families about.
Encouraged by the enthusiastic Colleen Hughson, Denise Regan and I brought our collections of marine plastics to create a mandala from debris washed up at local beaches. With the assistance of many of the children who attended, we formed a colourful pattern about 4m across over four hours or so.
During that time we talked to families about the issue – sources, alternatives and solutions to the huge problem of ocean pollution. The kids had the most creative ideas, suggesting alternatives to balloons as decorations, such as coloured flags, paper chains and lanterns, piñatas, bubbles and paper confetti.
We were able to collect signatures of over 80 people pledging not to use plastic cotton buds. We hope to present this to manufacturers and local suppliers, so alternatives can be made available in Warrnambool.
It was a great experience, with stalls promoting environmentally friendly products and workshops demonstrating sustainable practices.
“Eastern Barred Bandicoot” is a copperplate, hard-ground etching in sepia.
“Time to Leave the Pouch” is a copperplate, hard-ground etching in grey.
These two images were created using a copper plate, rolled with hard ground (a bitumen-like medium) and etched with a sharp implement. Submerged in ferric acid for about 20 minutes, the exposed lines are further etched. White areas are then painted with bitumen and the plate sprayed with acrylic (in lieu of the aquatint process) and submerged for another five or so minutes. Turpentine is used to remove the hard ground and bitumen prior to printing. This site, Non-toxic Printmaking, has several alternatives to the traditional methods.
Before the plates are printed, the edges are filed at an angle of 45 degrees to prevent cutting the wool mats. The plates are warmed before inking, to reduce the amount of ink used and to make the ink more fluid and movable. After gentle wiping with tarlatan, the plates are polished with paper and put through the printing press.
“Shoulder to the Capstan” is a two-plate linocut in black and blue.
Chiaroscuro in art is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects and figures. Similar effects in cinema and photography also are called chiaroscuro.
Further specialized uses of the term include chiaroscuro woodcut for coloured woodcuts printed with different blocks, each using a different coloured ink; and chiaroscuro drawing for drawings on coloured paper in a dark medium with white highlighting. Chiaroscuro is a mainstay of black and white photography.
I was very fortunate to spend a week in Hall’s Gap at “Grampian’s Brushes”. I attended two workshops, one two-day event with Lawrence Finn (Exploring Chiaroscuro Prints) and four days with Marion Manifold practicing hard and soft ground etching on copper plates.
The image above was created in the following process:
Step 1. On a piece of thick paper (the same size as the linoblocks you are working with) create a ‘cartoon’ or quick sketch of the image using pencil and then over painting with ink. Decide the direction of light and add highlights in umber gouache.
Step 2. Leave a border around the edge to hold the ink roller away from large areas of white. Transfer the image onto the lino (remembering to reverse the image if required) and paint over using waterproof black ink. Once the ink has dried you can use a fine scraper to remove any errors or create interest.
Step 3. Once you are happy with the image, start cutting the lino, remembering to use a variety of tools and diverse marks.
Step 4. Test print and make any adjustments.
Step 5. To create the second plate, print the first block (the key block) onto acetate and then onto the second piece of lino. Talcum powder can be used sparingly to dry the ink quickly.
Step 6. Using this second block, cut out the areas you want white on the final print, leaving areas that you want printed in the second colour. For example, all the coloured highlights that you painted in gouache should remain raised on the second block.
Step 7. Using masking tape on the print bed (or another registration method) print the second block made in colour and overprint with the first block in black.
“If the world could remain within a frame like a painting on the wall, I think we’d see the beauty then and stand staring in awe.” ~ Conor Oberst
Don’t images look so much better in a frame? A mount creates quiet space around the image, allowing the eyes to focus on the artwork. In a very active print such as “Upwelling”, a mount and frame is vital for balancing busy and quiet areas. This image was created for the Portland Upwelling Festival in November and I made an edition of 20. Unframed prints (image size: 30 x 40cm) are available for $80.
Latham’s Snipe – Framed collagraph. Image size 28 x 28cm
“Migration isn’t a one-directional process – it’s a colossal process that has been happening in all directions for thousands of years.” ~ Mohsid Hamid
Tonight was the opening night of the “Overwintering” exhibition at Portland Bay Press. This is the first time my work has been in a show, so I was a little disappointed not to be able to attend. However, I will make sure to be there for the opening night of the “Upwelling” Festival in November. It is great to be part of a print-making community, where each of the members have different talents and interests and diverse printing styles. One of the members collects her own rocks and soils to create pigments and another is an expert in multi-plate copper etching. I hope to be able to learn from each of the members to improve my practice.
“With most of his life dedicated to the miniature and highly detailed art of wood-engraving, and the slightly larger but equally disciplined format of the linocut, his last decades saw a joyous transition to the freedom and flourish of gestural lines executed in black gouache brushmarks on vast expanses of Arches and other imported artists’ papers…….His later work, on a grand scale, is the very antithesis of the art of wood-engraving. The surety of touch and control of the medium in the late gestural works is heavily indebted to the discipline engendered by the precision necessary for meaningful wood-engraving.” ~ Jenny Zimmer, in an article about printmaker, Tate Adams.
A few weeks ago I had the great pleasure of participating in a wood engraving workshop with David Frazer at his studio in Castlemaine. This traditional craft predates linoleum, but is also a relief printing method, often used historically to illustrate pages that included letter-type. The blocks, made of box or lemonwood, are the same height as letterpress type and very durable, because the end grain is used, rather than the lateral grain of the wood. First developed at the end of the 18th century, the artisan uses much finer tools (such as an engraver’s barin) and is capable of achieving a much more detailed image compared to woodcut or linocut techniques.
David Frazer is a master with this method, producing small, intimate pieces such as “Lost”, which features a caravan surrounded by domestic animals, which he calls an “Australian Nativity scene”. He also creates much larger scale works in linocut, engraving and lithography, which are filled with the same amount of detail, creating truly impressive images.
