Printing the Coast and Ravilious and Co

  It's over a week now since I was 'Printing the Coast' with Alice Fox at Studio 11 in Eastbourne.  I had a fabulous inspiring time , with lots of ideas to take forward.
 On my arrival I was lucky enough to catch a talk by curator Andy Friend of the 'Ravilious and Co' exhibition at the Towner Art Gallery . The accompanying book is lovely  with  prints on high quality paper and an interesting, lively read. The exhibition by Becky Beasley based on one of Ravilous's interiors included some large painted vintage fabrics!

 It's a huge exhibition and I only had time to skim the surface, I was particularly struck by how Ravilious captured sound in ' Cross Channel Shelling'  

Our first day in the studio  we constructed some simple folded 8 page pamphlets of  thick cartridge paper  then headed to the beach , spending an hour ( which went very quickly ) making drawings and beachcombing

Rusty bits of metal were a particular focus ,immovable  larger pieces  on the breakwaters used for making rubbings . For collecting  we hit  the jackpot   under the pier where there was some old  scaffolding parts , Alice had already been out foraging for nails at a place  further along the beach where they burn pallets.

In the afternoon we were setting up rust prints on paper and fabric using tea  ( a process I'd already done with Alice a few years ago at CQ winter school ) . I loved the results on paper, some interesting ones on fabric too but I still have mixed feelings on it as is difficult to stitch.

 5 of us staying  in accommodation  met up for  dinner at 'Harry Ramsdens' . I think I'm done for fish and chips for the year now! Afterwards I spent a while walking along the front to the sounds of the 'Jersey Boys' playing at the bandstand to a packed enthusiastic crowd.

The  second day we headed off at 9.30 ( already very hot) to Cuckmere Haven - definitely a candidate for my list of favourite places.  I didn't get very far along the path  when seeking out shade I came across this windblown hawthorn with a secret path underneath. I took rubbings and attempted to capture the negative spaces between the branches

Then , the  bright violet of thyme in the turf on top of the chalk bank caught my eye  and I managed to find a path to the top, rewarded by the best chalk grassland I've seen since my survey days of Salisbury Plain Training Area 30 years ago. I was in botanical heaven , sitting amongst the smell of thyme watching the bees and butterflies. Not much drawing went on, I was reminded of being on Prawle Point  when  all the six-spot burnet moths were emerging, not much painting got done then either!

The views of the river were spectacular too, little changed since Ravilious painted it.

Sitting in an overgrown bank among longer grasses, I found my favourite , 'quaking grass'  and remembering sketching on Box Hill,  drew the shadows cast on the paper

I never did make it to the beach and the view of 'Seven Sisters'.

I lost track of time and was late back to the car so hadn't collected much in the way of plant material for ecoprinting which was the focus of the afternoon . I have mixed feelings about picking plants, even though I took only what I knew to be very common or weeds.  

For ecoprinting, rather than using mordants, we were wrapping fabrics with rusty bits of metal. Mine weren't very successful but it worked better on paper where we inserted flat bit of metal along with the leaves into our books and these were clamped with rusty bull dog clips!

There were a few issues with the steam not penetrating the pages,  the softer , more absorbent khadi papers  worked better. Alice uses an electric steamer - its' on my list , they're not very expensive.

Our tables and boards were beginning to look very interesting and varied now!

Our 3rd day, even hotter, we headed back to Seven Sisters climbing down the staircase at Birling Gap. Besides drawing on pamphlets , taking rubbings etc , our focus was collecting flat objects for monoprinting (eg feathers,  bits of rope)

It was a treat to use the etching press , the embossed details of the feather were lovely

 Most of the time I was just as happy with inking up a manky bit of  rope and using a roller.  Rather than doing one drawing over a whole opened up pamphlet, at Birling I'd drawn on it  folded and consequently had a wider range of marks and layers (above) . The printing made an interesting addition to my drawings of grass shadows (on  which I'd also carried out some rust printing ( below)

I missed the morning session of the 4th day as I was unwell ( reminder to wash hand thoroughly after handling beach finds!)  so only had time  for a quick catch-up on waxing papers with  soy wax and  different book construction methods before we packed up.

The 'Australian reverse piano hinge' was a revelation - no stitching or glueing involved and once back at the hotel (I was staying another night) I put together 2 books  which I'm very pleased with   

We did quite a few drawing on thick tracing  paper which interacted well with other pages in the book. I particularly liked the drawings below  of the cliff face at Birling where you can  catch glimpses of lines beneath the surface ( and note the anchoring 'pins' used in the binding)

The structures are quite springy  so I made some retaining bands of leftover strips of paper (below)

I'll definitely be  continuing with the idea of   taking out pamphlets out with me when I go sketching and exploring more ways of building up layers of marks. Also writing more ( one of the outcomes too from sketchbook course at City Lit). With  repeat course of ecoprinting with Brunhilde coming up at FoQ I'm  starting to think about collecting and pressing plants and using papers as well as fabrics .

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In regard to fabrics , Alice asked me whether I would use them in my work. Probably not as I like to hand stitch and I don't like handling the  rusted fabrics. Photos of the lovely marks printed onto  fabrics are an option I've used before for journal quilts.
Having said that,  a lot of the marks reminded me of breakwaters  and along with some fabrics from  previous rust dyeing session  maybe  a piece will come out of it.

Out of Australia and thoughts on mark-making

 Took the afternoon off work yesterday to see the exhibitions of prints and baskets associated with the Australian season at the British Museum. Besides being very interesting in themselves, it got me thinking about the nature of making marks and how to make them personal and relevant.
The artists that particularly struck a chord  were Fred Williams composing aerial views of landscapes with calligraphic  marks (especially liked the use of tiny multicoloured blobs of paint) and many of the contemporary Aboriginal printmakers. These abstract representations of their  lives , beliefs, customs and ceremonies are full of meaning and the marks that make them up individual, unique to the maker( even  the tools, like the Tiwi 'pwoja' comb of Pedro Wonaeamirri ) . Untitled No 1 by Kitty Kantilla , is a vivid represenation of Cyclone Thelma aproaching the shore. It reminded me of the stitch patterns I've used to create waves or ripples but without that depth of meaning!!

So how do you go about developing a language  of meaningful marks, personal to you?

In this small quilt (accepted for 'Liberte Freiheit Freedom' exhibition to be premiered at Festival of Quilts ) the marks are the lines on my hand. The linoprint was inspired by an earlier print exhibition at British Museum!

Less literal, this example from 'Take it Further' Challenge theme of 'lists' where I'd manipulated an old shopping list in Photoshop and printed it on colour catchers has a lot of potential. Mind you I said that at the time 3 years ago - sometimes things take a little while to sink in....

Much as I enjoyed Jo Budd's class at CQ summer school, I wonder whether I would have benefited more from Helen Parrott's class - Margaret's account of this covers a lot of the same ground as these current ponderings (which have taken 2 hours for a relatively short post!)  

Experiments in Screenprinting

I had very enjoyable birthday with a workshop at Rainbow Silks on Freehand Screen printing (thanks to George and Sheila) and wonderful fishy meal in the evening at 'Oporto' (thanks to Sue and Peter )
I did 'proper' screenprinting at school for 'A' level art ( involving one of those vacuum presses which suck the paper down). Even then I had a loose scribbly style so I didn't take to the time-consuming process of accurate cutting of individual screens, getting the registration right and waiting for ink to dry. I thought the ones that went wrong had more character but got marked down on those. This method was much more fun! First of all in true Blue Peter fashion we made our own screens from duck tape and net curtain and then for templates used freezer paper ( for curvy shapes) and sticky-back plastic (for geometric shapes). Results on paper using poster paint above
My favourite technique however was using torn strips of masking tape (above)
After lunch and some retail therapy in the shop ( silk rods and 'BubbleJet Set ) we moved onto fabric, Ruth demonstrating scribbling with Neocolour 2 crayons and using acrylic fabric medium instead of printing ink to push it through the screen. Magic!
I noticed that the colour went through more than 1 layer so used some silk organza in the top layer. When it came to using the printing inks (below) the colour went through 3!(silk organza, thin kimono fabric and cotton sheeting as well as leaving a trace in the old sheet I had as a printing table). I realised afterwards the similarities between what I'd produced and shibori!

Several people in the group were discussing how you never use do anything with the samples you produce on workshops. I'm not sure I agree - I'd made an effort to bring fabrics which I thought I could use in potential projects rather than just relying on those supplied. Also with limited time and money for workshops I select ones I think I can get the most out of. Having said that, I'm not sure how much screenprinting I'll do in the near future - the main drawback is the rinsing out of screens and as our kitchen sink is tiny and made of white resin, even washing my brushes out is a trial! However I did bring my home-made screen back and I've yet to try out the 'thermofax' screens I bought a while ago (along with some 'Speedball' Inks) - the Neocolour crayon technique appeals.