Getting closer to Quietly and Gently

This time next week I will be happily ensconced in Rockhampton, getting ready to start teaching on Monday morning.

I have a full class (12 people) for my Quietly and Gently workshop being held as part of Wrapt in Rocky.  Twelve is quite a large number to prepare kits for, and given the most folk are travelling a distance and can't carry everything they need I am supplying quite a few things.

I have spent much of the week cutting paper, lino, embossing materials and so on to make sure everybody is ready to go and to get into things when we begin.

I have also been working on my own samplers for the sampler book which folk will be making.

I have been astounded in a way that there are so many ways to work white on white...

The analytical part of me has been thinking that you can work above the surface, on the surface, through the surface and within the surface.

That sounds a bit esoteric, but stick with me.

Above the surface means you can add depth by cutting out shapes and and attaching them to the page. or by stitching things onto the page, like this feather.

You can work on the surface with the marks you make on the surface - here some with gouache and with gel pens.

You can work through the surface when you cut parts of the surface away - like these letters and shapes - or by piercing like these holes and this sewing.

And finally you can work within the surface (creating texture by pressuring the surface, not cutting or piercing) as we do with embossing and de-bossing. Some metal letter stamps debosssed randomly into the page and some tracing wheel indents.

What delightful few days of exploration it has been - I can hardly wait to get people involved and having fun.

Given that one of my strengths is NOT the ability to remember names easily, I thought I would also make up name tags for everybody in case they didn't bring their own.

A little bit of light graphite and pencil work - entertainment for this rainiest of Sundays.

Thursday Thoughts...

“I love ebooks. I love the idea of storing books in “The Cloud”, because honestly, reading and rainy days go together like peanut butter and umbrellas.” 

 Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not for Sale

I have no idea why umbrellas and peanut butter go together (altho I am very happy to hear suggestions), but I do think reading goes well with rainy days.

I was tickled by the notion of storing books in 'the cloud' and the link to reading on rainy days, and began imagining all these book up there, coming down with the rain so we could sit and read them.

Today is a rainy day and we have been busy hosting a group for a play day with Barry; but we are inside now, bunkered down and I am drawn to read.

Honestly, curling up with a cup of tea, a cup of coffee, a glass of wine (depending on the time of day) and a good book as it becomes grey and damp outside seems like the perfect recipe, forget dinner!

Just popped outside to photograph this book on our wet deck.

It hasn't all been print!

Despite an absolute flurry of printmaking and print-related events of late, there has been time to push a few small projects forward.

I am preparing to teach Quietly and Gently at Wrapt in Rocky (class full!) in a weak or two and went and bought some lino for participants to emboss with.  I thought it was the same as I usually buy but of course it wasn't quite and and I had bought it in bulk.

I thought I had better do a test plate and see if it would work or if I had to go out and buy more.

For reasons best known to my subconscious brain I chose this fluid question mark, made with a  handmade comb pen as my image. What was I thinking?

But I kind of like how it worked out anyway.  The lino is manageable for cutting and embossing so I think we are good to go.

I have also been preparing some backgrounds for words - calligraphic and letterpress. Nice soft colours with a bit of movement.

And doing a few calligraphic drafts of the word Lexicon - to see if it will work for a friend.

And around town there has been a bit of action too - we had Knitfest here on the weekend, and amongst other things, they yarn-bombed the police station with the Tardis!

And today we went out in the rain to the offical opening of Barry's sculpture for the Unity Water wetlands.  The work looks so gorgeous in situ.

A lovely corner of the post.

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.