A bit of History

Most people following this blog will not know the background to the Photo etching we do. Many years ago when Rebecca was a visiting lecturer at The University Of Newcastle Upon Tyne's Centre for Lifelong Learning, Photo Etching was one of the courses she ran regularly and I was one of her regular students.

Moving on and much detail in between I took over whilst Rebecca was on maternity leave and when she came back to work we job shared which meant more printmaking courses because there was two of us doing it.

Then we got our own studio but we continued to run some courses particularly Photo Etching from the University's print room as they had the dark room and equipment. BUT... after the university got shot of the Lifelong Learning department to The University of Sunderland our position on Newcastle University premises became less guaranteed. Sure enough three years ago the university said they no longer wished to give us access on weekends to run any of our courses and this meant whilst most of our courses could simply shift to our studio Photo etching could not as we had not facilities or equipment to do it from there.

This was not unanticipated but it was still a big blow especially as there has always been a huge demand for photo etching - the course was always over subscribed. It took us 3 years and much research on Rebecca's part to find a suitable exposure unit that would fit in the limited space in our studio. Once we had the unit, time was required to become familiar with it. As soon as we were in a position to run our first course we were inundated with  enrolments and have had to turn away a significant number but this we hope bodes well for the fact that it will once again resume its popularlity and we will be able to run more and fill them easily.

Photo Etching workshop

This weekend our first photo etching workshop at our studio took place. The preparations we made in advance really paid dividends. Consequently, Rebecca put together a step by step checklist for each day which we could both check off where we were up to. This also meant no health & safety areas got neglected because either of us assumed the other covered it. It does need tweeking for day two when we run the course again in the future.

One of those tweeks, should in my opinion, be getting the whole group to make test strips for exposure times for their individual positives. Not only is this good practice anyway but given the nature of the positives people bring, anything from photocopies (some over exposed, some under), digital positives, hand drawn/painted positives on drafting film or acetate it is extremely difficult to come up with a hard and fast rule for correct exposure times no matter how many test pieces either of us do. To an extent the more we use the exposure unit and the more experience we gain from using it in our own work we will get a better feel for it. Nevertheless it is still good practice for our students to learn how to do this for themselves.

It is a challenge managing students expectations. We had to stop people rushing on making multiple plates before printing their first plates. One or two students needed to be reined in because the rush to get on resulted in mistakes and their plates had to be stripped and redone -  very frustrating for them and a waste of expensive film sometimes not once but a couple of times.

I'm looking forward to the photos of the final prints from today which I will post when I get them from Rebecca and I'm looking forward to the summer school now.

Photo Etching Preparation

Today I was at the studio getting prepared for the Photo Etching workshop Rebecca and I are teaching this weekend. It is the first time we have taught photo etching since The University of Newcastle Upon Tyne called time on our using their facilities on the weekends.

It has taken us a while to find a suitable exposure unit, at a price we could afford and that we could also fit in the limited storage space we have in our studio. Once the unit was purchased there has also been a period of experimentation to find out the best exposure times for anything from digital positives to photocopies, hand drawn/hand painted positives on acetate or drafting film. 

Our biggest challenge tomorrow will be the initial exposure times of everyone's plates to a dot screen (only unnecessary if using digital positives using grayscale). Exposure times are much longer than we were used to at the University - 15 minutes instead of 30 seconds/1 minute. In a busy class of 10 this will be tricky to manage but ... we have a plan.

Today I was walking my way through the plan to try and anticipate where potential problems might arise. Rebecca has provided lots of examples of hand drawn/painted positives using everything from pencil, china graph, wax/oil crayon, to touche toner, indian ink, black gouache. I set up the two rooms (our studio and the hall), realised the exposure unit had to go in a different position because of the spot and tungsten lights which will affect the light sensitive film.I also had to think through how to set out hte stations in the studio - wet area, dry area, cutting area, plate degreasing area so that it all works smoothly tomorrow. I'll update tomorrow and let you know whether it all worked or if we have to rethink some things for the future.

FRESH PRINTS from HORSLEY PRINTMAKERS @ THE BISCUIT FACTORY

For reasons I don't understand the notice i have put up on the right about this exhibition is not showing the dates and times even though I have entered them in in the required format. Technology is great when it works but a pain in the butt when it doesn't. So here are the dates and opening times. The remaining details are on the right if you scroll down.

Preview: March 12 6-9pm
Exhibition: March 13 - May 3 2010
Click here to see gallery opening times

More floral monotypes

Here are a couple more of the monotypes I have been working on. The rest are on Flickr. Click on the link lower down to see them. I took these to the Hexham Embroiderers Guild talk I gave on Saturday and they were very favourably received. Many of the women were suggesting ways in which I could take these images a stage furhter on fabric and embellishing them with stitch and beads. Interesting thought ... which I have stored away for future reference.

Hexham Embroiderers Guild

On Saturday afternoon I was invited by the Hexham Embroiderers Guild to give a talk about printmaking and specifically how it can be used as the basis for textile and embroidery work. I have run a number of courses in the past in collagraphs and monotype where we have encouraged the participants to print on canvas/fabric or paper. Mandy Pattullo has also done this in her work.

I had gathered a number of samples together of Mandy's work so the women could see the progression from print to applique, machine and hand stitching, etc.

I was somewhat phased when I arrived. Not really expecting the number of people that there were. The place was packed and I suddenly felt very unprepared. However, I divided the samples between collagraphs, monotypes, linocuts - which were the samples we have but not the limit of what printmaking media you can use to print on fabric. I talked through what the various print media were and what the possiblities were. I had an hour to fill ... an hour ... I thought I would never be able to talk for that long ... but I did and the feedback was pretty good afterwards so that was a big relief.

It will hopefuly result in enrolments on our courses and possibly some additional courses being put on as well for them.

feedback

If you visit my blog in the next week (between Wednesday Feb 10 and Tuesday Feb 17)  please give me some feedback on whether you like my new Floral Monotypes and if so which ones are your favourites. They are all posted on Flickr. I will try to number them today. Alternatively you can see them via Facebook where they are numbered.

Floral Monotypes - how

I've had a fantastic response to my floral monotypes since posting them on Facebook with some enquiries as to how I made them so here is an explanation.

1. One 20 x 20 cm aluminium plate rolled up with a background colour.
2. With some backgrounds I also rolled up a piece of wall paper with a stripy raised pattern in a contrasting colour and pressed it into the surface. With others I used an almost but not quite dry brush dipped lightly in white spirit with most of the white spirit dabbed off on a rag.
3. I cut a number of simple flower shaped templates.
4. I inked each one up in different colours. (I don't bother too much with keeping colours separate as I like the way they blend together when rolled out.)
5. I used the same wallpaper technique as I did with the backgrounds on some flowers.
6. I placed the flower templates on the background plate choosing between them to get the composition I wanted so not always using all the templates I inked up.
7. The flower templates quite often were laid outside of the edge of the plate. 
8. Initially I printed the whole composition on a larger piece of paper (Surrey 180 gm cream) but I wasn't pleased with the results of some and in experimenting with further layers of transfer drawing I cut the prints down to the size of the plate.
9. This seemed to work better so on subsequent prints I cut the paper to plate size.
10. What I liked best was after the initial print when I lifted off the template for re-inking there were these lovely shadowy shapes left on the plate so each new print was informed by the previous print and developed out of the ghost image left behind.
11. I moved from using Surrey 180 gm to BFK Rives (dry not damp) and then to Somerset Satin (because we seemed to have run out of BFK Rives).  

If anyone has any questions just ask.

Good News! Camera cable found and more

Well my best news is that I received an email yesterday from Printfest 2010 to say I had made a successful application to take part in the event this year. It takes place at Coronation Hall, Ulverston, which I think is on Lake Coniston ... please excuse my ignorance, I am not a native Brit ... Anyway, I am very pleased about that so now I know I have something to aim at for the summer and it was OK to take the risk not to be involved with Art Tour at The Hearth. Hopefully, it will prove to be a fruitful move for me.

Coming with me is Kim Lewis who will man the Horsley Printmakers stand ... I have one to myself. She will have her own work up alongside Chris Daunt and Rebecca.

AND ... I found the camera cable so my work is now uploaded onto Flickr which you can access from this page.

Lost camera cable

This is so frustrating. I have 'lost/mislaid' the cable that connects my camera to my laptop so I can download the pictures I took of the floral monotypes I've been printing. I took it from it's usual place to download pictures onto my new laptop and I rmember saying to myself you need to put that back where it came from or you will lose it or forget where you left it. Prophectic words! Why did I not listen to myself. What am I? An EEJIT is what I am.

Floral Monotypes with Stencils

Had great fun at last night's evening class led by Mandy Pattullo. So good when someone else is doing the teaching. I learn so much and not just about the subject in hand but teaching styles and many other snippets. The pressure is off and in two and a half short hours you can't be too precious about what you are doing.

Last night I was on a roll. Not sure the prints were that fantastic, I'll have to look at them again with a fresh eye tomorrow when I'm back in the studio, but I sure as hell had fun. I cut out a series of acetates, a 20 x 20 cm plate and a 20 x 20 piece of blown wall paper - the relief kind - and just two colours Cadmium yellow deep hue and cyan.

Both colours were mixed with transparent ink as well as the solid tin colour. I began by inking up the plate with a blended rollup of the cadmium yellow deep hue and a lighter version of it. I then rolled ink onto the wall paper and pressed it on to the inked surface of the plate. This was followed by inking up each acetate with solid cadmium yellow deep on either the top or bottom along with transparent cyan at the opposite end of the acetate. The acetates were carefully placed on top of the inked plate in the correct positions.

At the start I also drew into the ink with a kebab stick and cotton earbuds but as the evening progressed I abandoned this idea to pare the image down. The first couple of prints were fairly average but I could see the potential especially once I got into working with the ghost image when i peeled off the acetates and flipped them to build up the image. I'll post jpegs tomorrow when I am back in the studio.