Mawbray birds

A brief respite in between two stormy days allowed us to take a walk along the coast at Mawbray on the south side of the Solway. A spectacular light and colours when the sun managed to peep out from behind the rapidly moving clouds. Large numbers of oystercatcher, curlew, sanderling and godwits.

Experimental collagraph

Well I need to work out how to do a collagraph print in under two hours - as my courses are only two  and a half hours including a demonstration. I bought some thin sticky aluminium foil and was hoping that, as I have read, it covers the plate enabling you to print immediately rather than waiting a couple of days for any varnish to dry. I was worried that there would be a loss of definition and texture and maybe there is a loss of texture, but I found the results to be promising. I prepared a plate of the Langdale Pikes in the Lake District and annoyingly, made the rookie mistake of not reversing the image when designing the plate - however with the wonders of Adobe, I can of course reverse it again to correct for my numptiness! Time to play now and improve the original plate design...

The sketch...

The plate...

Plate with foil...

Inking up...

Inked and wiped...

Printed and turned the right way round on the computer! 

Drypoint - tetra packs

A quick experiment this morning, so excuse the lack of detail in the print - this was about the process. I've read that you can use tetra packs as an alternative to drypoint plastic and being as our local council doesn't recycle them, reusing seems a reasonable option. The only disadvantage is the size of the sides of the carton which limits you unless you want to get a crease line on your print. Also it's not easy to draw out a rough design on a shiny surface - I'll experiment more on what to use. However, if you are happy to draw freehand with a scratching tool it worked perfectly well. The outside of the carton showed up the scratched lines more than the inside, but any writing or images may prove confusing when scratching. Sandpaper worked exceptionally well to create more subtle lines.

The designs on the inside and outside of the carton.

Inking up before wiping off any excess ink.

After wiping off excess....

Printing onto damp paper....

The first print....

The second....

Buttermere through the year....autumn 2019.

..and finally in my series of seasonal blogs, we come to autumn...we obviously didn't manage a nice frosty and colourful visit this year! Thankfully winter this year did provide a couple of good trips..Click here and and here.

Buttermere through the year....summer 2019.

...and following the previous blogs ...we enter summer.....

Buttermere through the year....spring 2109.

Following on from our trips in winter - we have ....spring.

Buttermere through the year....winter 2019.

Last year we tried to walk around Buttermere once a month ...we failed, but I did manage most months and all the seasons. So here is the first entry ...winter. The next will be spring and then summer and autumn...