Printmaking events continue

We have had another whirlwind week with printmaking events helping to celebrate the 50th birthday of the Print Council of Australia.

We had our 'committee' meeting on Tuesday - where the six of us who have been busy pulling it all together took a short breath and thought "wow" after the success of the previous events, then put our heads down for some more.

Wednesday night saw Tory Richards, Judy Barrass and I presenting to an interested and enthusiastic crowd at the Caloundra Regional Gallery. Tory spoke about her passion for intaglio and etching and showed just how skilled she is at this difficult and time-consuming work. I spoke about my passion for letters and letter press and Judy completed the evening with a talk about the frontiers of printmaking and how we are constantly pushing the boundaries of what can be called print.

It was all very fascinating and so interesting - I learned so much as I listened to the others.

Ac couple of slides from my talk.

Then on Saturday morning we had two more events - I gave a letterpress demonstration at the University of the  Sunshine Coast Gallery, and this was followed by 12 of the participating artists doing a 'Meet the Artists' event where we each spoke breezily about our work, our inspiration and our processes.

Both events went really well - people got engaged with my hand-waving enthusiasm for letterpress and the beauty of the machines and type; and again it was wonderful to hear from other artists about their passions and their work.

I did mention the hand-waving enthusiasm didn't I?

And the apron - made with scrabble letter fabric.

Image by Tory Richards

Showing folk some metal type

Image by Tory Richards

And a locked up chase - people really did get up close and personal with the work.

Image by Tory Richards

I decided it was time to have a go at locking up chase in public - a bit stressful, but important to do. I successfully locked the chase up and none of the type fell out! I got everybody up to look over my shoulder as I did it.

Image by Barry Smith

Image by Barry Smith

It stands up and no type falls out!

Image by Tory Richards

I mixed up beautiful blue ink.

Image by Tory Richards

And then everybody had a go at printing.

Image by Tory Richards

And we made small thank you cards.

Today I took the plastic bag off the ink  that I had left on the glass plate so I could think about doing some more.

And of course, just had to do a mono print!

I was intrigued how the lettering on the bag actually printed - I wonder if the ink reacted with it somehow over night? It's a mystery.

Sunday has been much quieter - packing and putting away and fiddling a bit here and there...Ahh.

Thursday Thoughts...

“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.” 

Mark Twain

This might seem like an unusual quote for me to ponder, but this week's topic is life and this fits nicely into my thoughts about life in general.

I think Mark Twain often wrote big ideas very succinctly. He could put a twist into it and pull you up short, just as you were happily going along with whatever he was saying.

I remember capturing this quote to my list and thinking oh yes - growing up with stars in our eyes, me and so many of my friends could probably have benefited from this sagacity.

So simply put, in words we can all understand, it almost hurts.

I think it is basically saying strive for equality and partnerships in relationships; make sure you are respected and value yourself and your needs in a relationship.

If I had a daughter I imagine I would use these words or some form of them as she started thinking about serious relationships. Same too for a son I guess!

Camouflage by Sabrina Gschwandtner

This patchwork square is perfectly balance, no one takes the limelight, both darks and lights need each other; they are equally sized and balanced.

We saw this in New York in 2013 at a great exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum. Her artist statement in the link is very interesting.

Poor p

As a follow up to my printing peace I wanted to share a lesson I learnt.

So often for me, I learn from mistakes. I am not always able to anticipate what might happen if...but once it has happened I am not too bad at working out why it happened and the principle I need to apply in order to not repeat it.

Such was the case on Saturday as I printed.

One of the things I was hoping to do, was to demonstrate how with letterpress, a 72pt sized piece of metal type is the same height; however the letters in that typeface may be much bigger or smaller compared to a different 72pt typeface.  Bear with me.

So I printed the lovely Empire which looked tall and elegant.

And then I tried to print a thus-far-unnamed typeface, also sized at 72pt.

I knew that the type would barely fit on the business card sized piece of paper, but I thought it would if I was really careful with the registration. The weird perspective in the photo doesn't necessarily convince you, but it really did line up pretty perfectly!

So I locked up the chase and set to printing. My first attempt missed the imagine completely!

So I did some realigning and positioning and pretty much got it positioned perfectly. So far so good.

But the pressure was a bit weird on the second line, so I padded it out a bit and tried again. Almost there.

And then I moved something so that I could really get the pressure right.

And this happened.  The bottom of the p got lost and there was hardly any pressure on the rest of the piece at all.

I pondered what? how? what? and then worked out I must have really misaligned everything and that the arms that hold the paper to be printed in position must have been hitting the p.

And they had. I had smashed the serif off the piece of type and there was no longer a serif on the bottom of the downstroke of the p. Who knew you could do that? Who knew you had to really really look hard at the consequences of every little adjustment you made? I do now!

So here is the damaged p.

So sad. This is one of those random sets of type that I have retrieved and scavenged and I worried that I might not have another p - but luckily I have a spare. So now I only have one p but at least I have that!

So I learnt my lesson about positioning blocks of type that take up the whole piece of paper.

And I also confirmed that 72pt typefaces might take up the same height-space, but the letters can be of incredibly different heights.

Printing peace

We have only had a few hours back in the studio since we returned home - but I tried to make the most of it.

I am part of a panel of three printmakers giving a talk on Wednesday night 8 June (6pm - 7pm at Caloundra Regional Gallery - book here). I am talking about my love of letterpress printing and printmaking.

I am also giving a letterpress printmaking demonstration t the University of the Sunshine Coast Gallery next Saturday 11 June from 10.30am - 11.30am (to be followed by a 'meet the artists' event at the Gallery from 11.30am - 12.30pm).

So I wanted to get back in and play and print with the letterpress - so I have some small examples of letterpress and to prepare for next weekend's demonstration.

It was fun and as ever I could have stayed all day and all night and all day again; but it was not be as there are always other commitments in our lives.

I started out thinking I would just print a business card-sized piece for a give away. One style, one bunch of letters, spacers and furniture to work out how to lock up and that I would go print crazy with that.

But in the end I thought I'd tried a bunch of typefaces, and here I am testing a few to see if they fit on a business card sized piece of paper.

So far so good, so I began locking up the chase. And again.

A part of me loves the jig-saw like challenge of trying to work out how to keep the type in position; and get the quoins to press on the right parts to keep it firm etc.

It's always such a relief when you pick the chase up and the type doesn't fall out!

And then to inking - mixing up a nice grey.

And printing...

Empire 72 pt - so elegant - I am a little bit in love with this typeface.

Bodoni Ultra Italic 36pt also rather nice.

After lots of letter play I thought I'd try to print an ornament - quite interesting.

And then I was picking up all sorts of random paper and printing on them. Here is a funny old rust and transfer print that didn't work and had been added to my scrap paper notes pile - for writing notes on in the studio. I went to cut it up and found this image on the back and thought why not print on that?

Dorchester 36pt typeface

And any report of the weekend's work would be incomplete without a mention of the wild weather event that the east coast of Australia experienced.  We had such heavy rain, but it was only for 12 hours; and then we had really strong winds for another 24 hours. But we are safe and well.  And here's one of my rain shots from Saturday.

Thursday Thoughts...

“I take great care of myself by carefully shutting myself away.” 

 Vincent Van Gogh, a letter to his brother, Theo.

This Thursday Thoughts has cycled back to art, and I think this quote is about art and the making thereof, but it is possibly also a bit about life! Or at least how I tend to live my life - tucked away a bit.

The words resonate with me and I think "of course that's how we have to do it". We have to cloister ourselves away, let our minds go a wandering, not be distracted by chatter or engaging in details with others.

And then we can create.

But then  I wonder if there are artists, makers and creators who actually thrive more on the busy-ness and engagement of shared social art spaces, whose ideas bounce off others' ideas and then get made?

For me; I am a bit like little Vincent (but not completely like Vincent, don't worry). I need to take care of myself by shutting myself away.

But I also know I need to come out of hermit-hood and engage and share and be with people who inspire me, encourage me, make me laugh. And then afterwards,  I go away quietly and just try to make.

We have been down south in two cities this week - being inspired and enthused at a Conference about social justice; and then catching up with some of our best ever friends and sharing time and food and love of life together. All so special and all so wonderful. But busy. And cities.

And I come home to this quiet quiet space to create...

It certainly takes great care of me.

Busy times and time to play

The weather is turning towards Autumn at last, even tho winter officially starts here on 1 June and it just hasn't really been cold yet.

To my surprise, the garden has been busily continuing to provide us with heaps of produce and I was happy that I was able to find the time to take the next steps with it.

We have collected, husked and shelled nearly 40kg of macadamia nuts this year. Here is a quarter of them, ready to be roasted. Without husks and shells the nuts themselves weighed 8kg - this is 2kg.

And they were roasted and popped into jars. Delicious eating.

The citrus is going wild and we are juicing oranges, lemons and limes; and here is my first attempt at preserving lemons underway... orange cakes probably begin soon.

The bell peppers are still going, so sweet child sauce continues.

 And then the banana started ripening at a rate of knots; here are three mini banana cakes and there is a big Banana bread loaf as well.

But after being such a kitchen person, I headed to the studio to play with more paper cutting.

Whilst we were away in Scotland we were reminded of Charles Rennie MacKintosh, his wife Margaret MacDonald and Glaswegian roses.  Here are ac couple of attempts to cut stylised roses.

First drawing on the back

Cutting from behind

Looking at it from the front (over white paper)

Looking through it to some grey marks on paper.

And more a Glaswegian rosebud style perhaps.

Over white paper and thought to the grey again.

I like where they are going, will just have to keep on the path and see where it leads!

A re-do

A while ago I was asked to make a special presentation book. The pages were simple printed from the computer pages but the cover was going to be nice. The story was that it couldn't just be presented in a plastic folder.

So I spent  quite a few days peppering the covers and then doing a 12-needle single page binding.  For various reasons, the book caused me grief; and I ended up unstitching it and then there were three attempts to get a Perspex slipcase that fitted. You know those projects where it seems everything that can go wrong, does?

I said farewell to it and was pleased to have finished it, and have it out of the studio and into the world where it belonged.

Until.

The book came back.

It had been sent away for approval of the contents and somebody higher up the line had said they needed to insert several more pages - at the front, the middle and the back.

And then they would need it quite quickly.

The poor local fellow just didn't even want to have to tell me. He was so apologetic! So I said that it was possible but I might need to do it differently (with memories of the complicated stitching still prominent in my memory) and we agreed we would have a go.

I re-printed all the pages including the new ones and together Barry and I set about doing perfect binding (a la our style, as opposed to proper and perfect perfect binding).

Here I am gluing the spine with the book held  in our very make-do system.

The glued spine after it dried.

And then the tarlatan glued to the covers.

Mary paring back the leather for the spine cover.

Attaching the leather cover.

So we then put it under weights and crossed our fingers, left it overnight and returned...

To find that two pages slipped out - they were heavier weight and the glue somehow didn't hold them.

It felt like the first book all over again - just when you think you are almost there, it falls apart. Oh my goodness.

So we tried a new approach, a last ditch effort, and measured up and sawed into the pages, to include string and glue to hold them again. I am always slightly anxious when I see a saw and a book in such close proximity; but Barry is so good with a saw.

And here are the glued in strings standing up before snipping. With the remnant of glue from having removed the leather spine cover...

We went on to add the leather spine cover again and hoped we had it.  Almost. The same two pages appeared tenuous even with this, so we then did some more gluing.

And then it held.

The book  has gone (again). It was collected and is ready for signing and the strings above are the last photo I have of it. The funnies thing about it, is that I never even photographed the final!

I think my subconscious just needed it gone.

The local guy was really happy with it and I liked how it looked; but boy I am OK if I don't see it again in a hurry... except at the award ceremony.