Printing Extravaganza

On Thursday I held a 'Printing Extravaganza' where participants could either improve their skills,  learn, or combine techniques.... and their work was superb! We focussed on lino, dry point and collagraph. It's quite a challenge to run this workshop and keep everyone happy, so I didn't get time to photograph everyone's work ...sorry! But then again, I didn't even get time to eat a biscuit! ..and it's normally me that eats most of them! 

Lino cut gift tags that will be embellished at home ...

This was a great effort for a first time at drypoint! Several prints were made and they may be hannd coloured later. 

Trying to represent snow on the fell is no easy task ..this collagraph captured the feeling of the Northern Fells. 

A fabulous collagraph by an experienced and regular attendee - superb! The plate is above the print.  

By carefully removing ink the stones stand out in this image - the inking up of a collagraph plate is often the hardest part. 

...and  I love the feeling of the light coming through the trees in this collagraph! 

Collagraph workshop

The workshop season has started and this morning's was an experimental collagraph printing session. We began with a PowerPoint outlining methods and hopefully giving inspiration. I then asked everyone, after a demonstration. to make two different 10cm square collagraphs using 'Enviromount' card and one with mounting board. We used abstract designs, in a single colour  for this, so we could really focus on the tonal qualities of the prints. Cuts were made and foil added. We found, I think, that the Enviromount was easier for the less experienced to cut and peel compared to the mounting board, but the mountboard gave a greater variety of tones when peeled away. The Enviromount gives a much deeper tone when peeled away than the mounting board. Handprinted in Bognor Regis supply the Envioromount card. 

This was my piece I had prepared with the plate on the left. 

Some of our test pieces ....

We compared two kinds of tape - aluminium builders tape which you just peel off a roll - and the type of backed aluminium sheets you put behind things to reflect heat. The backed sheets were easier for cutting shapes, but complex shapes were tricky to peel away. The buiders tape was more robust and very sticky! .As always a lot of the skill lies in the inking up - and in an ideal world we would have sealed our plates - but in three hours I think we made a pretty good attempt at introducing collagraph. Both kinds of plate printed well for two or three prints. 

Having learnt the basic skills we then went onto experiment with our own ideas ..I particularly like this one of tree bark, where  the texture was made by overlapping pieces of foil ..although I still see it as a landscape! 

Bowberhead Wet Felting Workshop

 As it was National Meadows Day, Cumbria Wildlife Trust had an open day at Bowberhead; allowing the public to explore the beauty of this upland hay meadow. As part of this I was able to run two workshops: in the morning a wet felting workshop and in the afternoon a sketching workshop. I began both by leading a guided walk through the meadows looking at the flora and management of the meadows and hopefully inspiring participants for their artwork! The meadows, due to the weather this year, are past their best, but there was still plenty to see with notably good displays of Hay Rattle seedheads, Betony, Knapweed and a range of grass species. Due to the unpredictability of the day's weather, we felted inside the lovely old cattle shed ...everyone was pretty much a beginner and threw themselves whole heartedy into the process! The photos below are while the felts were wet and some will be embellished with a bit of needle felting, embroidery or bead-work once dry. Well done all!

More workshops

Part of the plan in 'retiring' is to concentrate workshops into a couple of weeks each month, allowing us to travel and go off on day trips in the other weeks...these last two weeks have been workshop weeks! A lot of super work has been produced and it's really good to hear that you can learn more on one of my four hour workshops than on a two day residential ....

Drypoint.

Drypoint.

Sketchbooks.

Gelli print.

Collage.

Collage.

Lino.

Collagraph.

Collagraph.

Collagraph.

Reduction lino.

Lino.

Quirky Workshops - lino cutting

Last year I met with Annie, of Quirky Workshops in Greystoke, to discuss some potential workshops. Saturday was my first time teaching in this gorgeous venue where participants (and me!) are treated to not only a quality workshop, but tea,coffee, biscuits; lunch and scones and tea. We had an excellent day with some great work being produced - click here for more information about Quirky Workshops

All set up and ready to go...

After a PowerPoint about lino cutting, including history, techniques and inspiration we looked at the huts at the back of Port Mulgrave beach in North Yorkshire. 

I modelled different approaches to the same scene...

...and we produced a collaborative piece of work that gave everyone the chance to try different tools and experience both Soft Sculpt and traditional lino. 

After lunch everyone began work on their own buildings ...

Interestingly for me, we found that we ended up printing with my good old-fashioned oil-based inks rather than the Calagio Safewash and water based inks, as when you are trying to print off a lot of prints at the end of the day the latter two were liable to slip in the press creating a slightly blurred image  - not so with the oil-based relief ink - but of course it's harder to clean up. Having said that the Calagio Safewash worked perfectly at home when I was testing it  - maybe I was working more slowly when taking prints.

Kente Cloth

What a great day - working with all the year groups, in a local school as part of their African week. We looked at the traditional story of how a spider inspired the cloth designs; what the symbols and colours meant and how it was woven. We then, depending on the year group, tried our hands at weaving and created our own printing blocks before printing on both paper and fabric. The older class also created different patterned papers which they interwove. The nursery class listened attentively and then using premade blocks printed their own patterns on fabric. ...and it was so busy I never got a to photograph the wool weaving on a loom! 

Printing on paper ..the foam block is at the top.

Printing and oil pastel with water colour weaving.

More paper weaving and below. 

Printing on fabric - the masking tape grid was removed after it had dried. 

Nearly got the pattern! 

Printing blocks - the corks glued onto the back helped nursery to print the blocks. 

Printing on fabric....

..and paper.

Felted Primroses

We all look forward to spring and being as it feels nothing like spring - here is a sample piece that I prepared for a forthcoming workshop,  primroses. 

The finished sample.

Layng down fibres ...

Needle felting onto prefelt...

Adding detail...

Geting there ...

Needle felted ...

..and wet felted.