Diary of a residency…

I had lots of fantastic help from linda, don and francis from the print centre on monday when i ran a workshop in drypoint and chine colet in the morning.

the press got lots of use and the pupils got really into it and produced some great work, there was lots of mess, ink everywhere including the floor and some of the kids faces.

they have been looking at natural forms so there’s a bit of a theme to the work..

a few more…

i had a really interesting time when i attended the advanced research group for screen printing at the regional print centre with tara dean, we played with drawing on the screens with water soluble crayons and printing the drawings with medium, i brushed on some water and got some nice watery effects, it was also really nice to just draw and paint again which i didn’t expect to be doing with screen.

i also had a go at using a screen to press a stencil into clay and then tara fired it for me, i really like the texture and depth, i’m going to try printing onto it, maybe with gum arabic transfer although might have to try just rubbing as the press would probably break the clay.

Tara’s really keen to try printing onto different surfaces, i’ve always had an interest in combining print and ceramics, and also like the idea of screen printing onto Etched metal plates so hopefully i might do some interesting experimenting.

some more recent prints…quite sucecessful prints from copper plates etched using ink from a gum arabic transfer as a resist.

its taken me a year or so but i might actually be achieving predictable, interesting and pleasing results from this method, i’m still not satisfied though.

its sunday and i’m only just writing this about wednesday, time flies ..

i’m looking forward to running a workshop tomorrow with 17 of the year 10 pupils, i’ve given them drypoint card and plastic to draw on so hopefully they’ll bring in some interesting drawings.

i spent most of wednesday preparing for that and trying out the presss, i tried a quick drypoint on the drypoint plastic and it went really well, the press is lovely to use it didn’t need too much pressure either. we should have fun breaking it in tomorrow.

the drypoint plastic is nice as well and i used the water soluble calico inks which are normally a bit sticky but i added oil and theyt were fine, and so easy to clean up with, just soap and water!

i’m starting to use the room more although i have to pack everything away at the end of the day as its used for lessons on other days but i think its a good thing, its giving me good tidy habits, i always have a tendency to spread out very messily :-)