Biscuit Factory Spring Show

Horsley Printmakers & The Biscuit Factory Team
Preview Night of the Spring Show

on Friday March 6th 2009 from 6.00-9.00pm.

Come and join the team and the artists for a glass of bubbly and enjoy the exciting exhibitions The Biscuit Factory has to offer.

Horsley Printmakers: March 6th - April 19th

Horsley Printmakers Carol Nunan, Rebecca Vincent, Mandy Pattullo and Chris Daunt as well as many of their students return to the Biscuit Factory for the third year running with a wonderful selection of innovative handmade prints.

The rest of the exhibition includes the following artists:

Spring Exhibition: March 7th - June 8th

Diane Urwin’s beautiful still lives are on show in the Cube gallery.

The Corner Gallery hosts an inspiring installation by local artist Kathryn Brame.

We showcase the work of artists including Susan Dobson, Lisa House and

Rob Shaw and Stephanie Cunningham and we exhibit new work by artists

including Rod Sutterby, Frank Briffa and Pete Winstanley.

Sun Awards: March 6th- April 19th

The Sun Awards celebrate and showcase the best commercial photography

and photographers in the North of England.

Experiments in Fashion: April 24th - May 30th

The Biscuit Factory is proud to present the garments designed by students

during Experiments in Fashion, a 4 day fashion school residency for young

designers between the ages of 15 and 25 held at Woodhorn Centre.

¡VAMOS! @ the Biscuit: March 27th-28th

Launching the ¡VAMOS! Weekender, an exhibition of sumptious tango

inspired photography by North East artist Dan Prince.

New work

I have just been spending the morning uploading some of my work that is going into The Biscuit Factory Spring Exhibition. The prints above are part of a set of 5. The colour image in the centre of each print is about 4 cm square which I have 'framed' with a blind emboss using an uninked collagraph plate. I really like using this device with my work and it has been well received by previous buyers.

I'm sorry I'm aware the photos are not that great. It is difficult to photograph blind emboss if you aren't a prorfessional photographer who knows what they are doing. I'm also aware that if you click on the images they don't come up that big. I'll have to re-do them in Photoshop. I now have a Flicker account so I will be posting my new work on there soon. I'll flag it up here when I have.

The Northern Print Bienniale

"Northern Print is the centre for contemporary printmaking in the North East. They have initiated the Northern Print Biennale in partnership with culture 10 to be the first major project concentrated on printmaking in the UK for 20 years. The aim is to reward and promote excellence through showcasing the very best in new British and international printmaking through an extensive programme of activities."

Question is should I put work forward for this? I have never entered my work into any of these shows taking fright at the prospect of looking stupid alongside much better printmakers than me. I imagine the selectors, who are all very high and mighty from places like the V&A,
thinking I am deluding myself to think for one minute my work should be considered alongside that of nationally and internationally reknowned printmakers.

Or am I just looking for excuses not to test myself?

Working Methods - Part 2.

Here is another example of what I was talking about in my last post. This is a plate I made after I had been on one of the courses with Peter Wray. The plate has mounting card as its base with texture past added to the surface. I drew into the texture paste and took a blow torch to it whilst it was still wet which does really interesting things to the plate surface. Finally I dribbled PVA across the plate.

I don't always start with a plan in mind. I like to see what happens as heat develops the surface or PVA takes to the plate or whatever. Quite often I will ink up a plate in a single colour to see if the marks suggest images to me before I proceed with more colours.

These are just two examples of the prints I've made with the bottom one being the most recent.

Addendum to Working Methods - Part 1

Based on some really useful feedback from printmaker Aine Scannell I will endeavour to address her comments in the near future. I am very aware that I should be documenting the progress of a print whilst in the studio but keep forgetting to bring a camera every time I go in to the studio.

This is partly down to the afore mentioned attention span of a gnat and partly because at present I do not have my own camera, relying instead on the good will of my husband to lend me his. He gets a bit shirty when his camera stays too long in my work bag or the memory card fills up with my stuff!! Which I guess is understandable.

The other comment was about being able to click on the images to get a larger view and I'm sorry ... I don't know how to do that! I'll try to work it out but input from non-technophobes would be welcome. I'm not completely technophobic but some things do get the better of me.

A Look at My Working Methods - Part 1

I owe a debt of gratitude to fellow printmakers , Peter Wray, a fellow of the Royal Society of Master Printmakers and his partner, Judith Collins. A couple of years ago I enrolled on one of Peter's collagraph courses at The Hand Print Studio and it revolutionised the way I work especially in the way of inking up the plates.

I have a stash of collagraph plates that I made a long time ago when I was first starting out in printmaking with Rebecca Vincent and I have begun revisiting them. The resulting prints are 100 times better than the prints I made from these plates originally. Some of these plates I had discarded as right offs. They were not worth any effort because I was so disappointed with them but never got round to chucking them out.

It is so satisfying to be able to see the potential in them and get a good result this time round. This has fed into my fascination with colour and how it influences one's perception of an image. So unlike most printmakers who create limited editions of their work, I rarely edition mine. Instead each time I print from the same plate I choose a new colour palette or play around with an existing colour palette so that each print from the plate is an original. It is the same image but the colour changes the mood, the time of day, the season of the year. Far more interesting for someone with the attention of a gnat. See the two examples above.