Working with what I have

I know I'm not the only one who has days sometimes when nothing works, I have no ideas and I feel like I should just give up trying to be an artist.  Last Friday was one of those - just terrible! (It didn't help that I was trying to print in greens. That, I think I should give up on!)
At least I have other creative interests and after giving up for the day I could do some knitting!

I have had a couple of much more positive days in the studio in the last week and also have to remind myself that part of the issue at the moment is that I'm working under the self-imposed restriction of working with what I have. As a printmaker who doesn't often work on a large scale I have lots of small pieces of 'leftover' paper and this year (being somewhat financially challenged!) I am attempting to use up what I have.

Also, I suppose part of the problem at the moment is that I have been working on a body of work that will hopefully have several  groups of outcomes - a series of square format prints in different (smallish) sizes, some larger works that will be pieced from yet smaller squares and a series of small artist books. So currently I have a lot of work in progress, but at times have difficulty in seeing how I will get to a finished state with much of it.
So these are some of the pieces that hopefully will eventually be part of something!

And trying out some possibilities for a pieced work in blues...

or this

(Most days) I have enjoyed experimenting with colour and layering forms both natural and manmade, using stencils on a gelatin plate, working with cardboard collagraph plates, and finally overprinting some with linocut text - fragments of Leonard Cohen lyrics/poetry.
Still a way to go!

I suppose it is too late to wish you all a Happy New Year!

I am beginning to settle into my new life - and am loving it! I've never lived in the country before, but have for many years had a desire to do so eventually, and have been talking about making this move - to Castlemaine - for about ten years. So, it has taken me a while....
I'm currently driving to Melbourne once a week for a couple of days work, and am really enjoying it; getting to see the countryside in the best light, particularly the early morning, but early summer evenings are lovely too.  I've begun to realise why so many artists are drawn to the landscape as subject. I'm beginning to feel quite emotional when I reach the hills as I near home - after only a few months!
And although I've still two or three fairly major things to organise - particularly getting a shed lined and insulated and transformed into a decent studio - I do have a small studio space in the house and have started playing around pretty regularly with ideas and media.  I visited the studio of a new friend, a local artist, and we had a lovely couple of hours of show and tell, which inspired me to get back to making books.
So I made a gelatine/glycerine plate, pulled out some book works-in-progress and have had a few sessions playing.
I'm quite pleased with these experiments and beginnings.

 

I am also currently working something to have a small presence in the Castlemaine State Festival in March - having a lot of fun cutting circles from prints.

 

I've got a month or so to fill that white shoe-box with circles.  It's a looking back at my printmaking up to this point.  Seems a reasonable thing to do, with everything changing...and moving made me realize what a lot of work I have sitting around in boxes and folders. 
I'm very much steeped in Leonard Cohen lyrics/poetry at the moment, as I'm reading another biography - I'm Your Man, by Sylvie Simmons - given to me by one of my lovely sons for Christmas (although he didn't actually choose it. You get the best presents when you buy them yourself!)  The biography is the best I've read...and it makes me go back to the songs, listening closely.
So the shoe-box of circles of prints will be titled after a Cohen song - That Don't Make It Junk. The lyric goes, 'took my diamond to the pawnshop, but that don't make it junk'. These are all quite flawed diamonds - mostly student works, proofs and unsuccessful prints.
I also had one more miniprint edition to send off in January - for the Winged Messengers Exchange, which will be exhibited at Hahndorf Academy in the Adelaide Hills during Adelaide Fringe Festival. Proceeds from sales will go to the Bird SA conservation fund. Some more information and images can be found here.

 

There are birds there! See, four of them, on the wire, (another ongoing Cohen-esque theme in my work), and it's not the first time, either, that I've used the 'Counting Crows' rhyme!

The Obsessions of a Woman of a Certain Age - Cohen & cats

It's been very quiet here lately because I've been frantically preparing for a solo exhibition at 69 Smith Street Gallery, Fitzroy. You might call it a self-indulgent celebration of things I love!

It's installed now, in a small gallery upstairs.  There are two bodies of work - A Taxonomy of (Art) Cats, linocut prints of cats from Art History, organised into pseudo-scientific classifications; and From the Book of L.C., a cluster of small paintings of fragments of Leonard Cohen poetry/lyrics in colourful abstract fields. The opening is on Saturday afternoon - do drop in if you are able!

Here is a peek at the paintings. It's not actually that blue. I was SURE I had the camera on the right setting!

Nude as wallpaper - Sample Book from 2011

Goodness! Where did January go?
I was going to post images of the book I was making for the Linden Postcard Show...but time became very tight.  I started sewing the book at 2pm on the day it had to be delivered (across the other side of the city) by 5pm.  Fortunately it was a small book, coptic bound with only 12 or so signatures.  It didn;t take too long, although I had trouble getting the second cover on firmly.  It was a little looser than it should have been...but otherwise, I was very happy with the book.  If I had been thinking I could have taken a couple of pictures when I arrived...before I handed it over...I had about 30minutes to spare, as it turned out. Oh well! Hopefully I can put something up later.
But as I don't have any images of the book (called Counting Crows...or Magpies), I'll share some images of a book from a few months ago, Nude as Wallpaper - Sample Book. Nudes from Art History (some more recognizable than others) are simplified (some more than others) and printed over text from Kenneth Clark's opening paragraph from his book, The Nude.  It's side-bound with a hinged cover - like a wallpaper sample book!

Happy New Year!...and new book projects for 2012

Happy New Year to all!  I hope that 2012 will be a happy and productive one.  I've started the year very excited about being involved in Edition Four of Book Art Object. More than fifty artists have signed up to make an edition on ten books inspired by one of the 100 short story titles from Sarah Bodman's project- An Exercise for Kurt Johannessen.You can find information about it here. Artists have been allocated to groups of eight and each will take one of the titles to create an edition of artists book that will then be exchanged with other members of the group.  The title I'll be working with is A girl waiting.  No idea what I'm going to  do yet, but it suggests lots of possiblities, I think. 

I've had a couple of days off this week and so I've been able to make a start on an artist's book for the Linden postcard show.  It's to be called Counting Crows...or Magpies, and is based on the counting rhyme...One for sorrow, two for joy.  There are a number of variations... still have to decide which I'm going with.  These are gelatin prints I've been making as a first layer.  Hand-cut stamps of birds and text, as well as  collaged elements to come.  Here is a positive and the negative print of the same stencils.

When making the gelatin plate I lined the scone-tray with clingwrap so that the gelatin would be easy to remove and love the printed effect of the wrinkled surface.  





Layering is always an experiment.  Never really know whether it will work or ruin what you already have!