Old friends and a 5 day collagraph school - What's the connection?

In 1967 two seven year old girls, me and my friend Dianne met at the local convent school where we lived in Zambia. There began a friendship between our two families; our parents became surrogate aunt and uncle to each others' children; Dianne's mum worked as my Dad's book keeper; we made our first Holy Communions together, our Confirmation, we played in each others homes, had sleep overs, went on to boarding school together, first discos, first boys, etc, etc.

Then in 1976, my family left Zambia and returned to Ireland, Dianne's family moved to Botswana and then South Africa. Gradually over the years the two families lost touch.

Fast forward to 2010 and the power of the internet - Facebook to be precise. Dianne's older sister Beth contacted me and the intervening 34 years rolled back. It turns out Beth and I are both artists and Beth was particularly interested in the printmaking I am doing. Some months ago she convinced me that if I ran an extended collagraph workshop she was sure she could get a group together from Johannesburg to travel here to Northumberland for it.

So that is what we are doing. As neither of us has done this before it is taking some organising. Working out the course content was the easy part. Lining up all the other ducks in the row - dates with accommodation, flights and flight costs for a group of 10 is proving to be the most challenging part. However, I am confident we will get there ... and ... having done it once it will be easier to do again if (when) it all comes together.

The next post will be the details of the course as they stand. Whilst the course has been primarily arranged for participants coming from South Africa it does not preclude anyone else who may wish to join us.
Just contact me if you are interested.

A Collagraph Summer School

There have been many exciting developments in my life recently. Following months of despondency following my husband's redundancy and carrying around lots and LOTS and LOTS of ideas in my head I just couldn't see the wood for the trees. Two weeks ago I went on an excellent course that gave me the time and space to lay my ideas out on the table and think about what it was I wanted to do. Most importantly it gave me the courage to be prepared to allow some of them to see the light of day and test them out.

SO ... the collagraph printmaking summer school is PHASE ONE! What makes this one different from all the others I have been teaching for the last 10 years? 

The printmaking workshop is primarily (though not exclusively) for South African artists wishing to travel to the UK for the course. Why South African artists you may ask? Well, having re-established contact with an old friend Beth McAlpine via Facebook - we grew up together in Zambia - I discovered she too was an artist. Over the last year or so I discovered she was really excited by the printmaking I was doing and wanted to learn how to do it herself. She, however, lives in Johannesberg whilst I live in Northumberland and she has lots of artists friends in South Africa who she is confident would be interested in coming on such a workshop in the UK.

We are in the process of hatching a plan. We are organising a five day collagraph summer school here in the UK to which Beth plans to bring as many of her artist friends as she can muster in July or August. I have drawn up the course format and lined up accommodation, transport and meals.

This is a new departure because whilst in the past Horsley Printmakers has put on many a summer school or weekend workshop we have never concerned ourselves with creating an all in package that includes anything other than the workshop itself. Beth will be promoting the workshops amongst her friends and contacts in South Africa and organising flights. So for those coming from South Africa the price will include flights, accommodation, breakfast and lunch and transport to and from the accommodation and to and from Newcastle airport. 

However, the course is not exclusively for South African artists - it is open to anyone who is interested. The price for anyone else will exclude flights and transport to and from the airport  but will include accommodation, meals and transport to and from the studio to the accommodation. We are in the process of finalising dates and prices. I will post the details very soon. So, if you are interested let me know and I will update you when the details have been finalised.

Mandy's evening class

I had one of those Eureka moments in Mandy's evening class last night! After Mandy's quick recap demo of what I missed last week (in particular Chin Colle) she let me dip into her treasure trove Chin Colle bag of papers - accummulated over many years of collecting scraps of paper from everywhere. I began experimenting with a page from Elle Decoration of patterned table mat designs, a piece of Trompe D'Oiel wall paper, and a picture of a salad from one of the Sunday supplement magazines. I took small scraps and incorporated them into a linocut I started at the beginning of the week. I'd printed stage one of a reductive print and this was stage two having cut some more detail out of the plate. The patterned table mat designs, and the Trompe D'Oiel worked but not the salad.

As I was nearing the end of the class I decided to just test out one of the other plates which did need more cutting but the basic shape/form was there and it would do just to test an idea I had using a page from a 1960s Women's Weekly magazine on embroidery stitches. There was some spare gold ink that someone else was using so rather than try and mix something and make more mess to clear up I rolled the plate up with the gold ink, cut out a piece of the magazine of flower stitches and printed the plate over this scrap and onto the base hahnemuhle and it all came together beautifully. I was so excited. THIS is what I wanted to get my head around. It's all about chosing the right piece of scrap paper to match the subject and take it somewhere one did not necessarily envisage at the outset but which takes ones idea to a competely different level of lateral thinking.