Today I learnt how to do stone lithography. It is one of the most tiresome processes I have come across and is very labour intensive, not for the faint hearted! I think you definitely have to be a die hard printmaker to have the determination to go through with this process as it takes a very long time to do all of the preparation work thoroughly.
Here are some photos of my stone so far, I won’t be printing it until tomorrow as my arm started to shake so much from grinding the stone that I wouldn’t have been able to put the paper down steady enough!
It is a field of poppies so I think I will hand paint some of them with watercolour and possibly monoprint via silk screen with some of the others to get a coloured background down for them as I really like to get a bit of colour in my work.
I’ve now finished my degree show piece…scary! It’s all wrapped up and stored away now, ready to attach the hanging batons just before installing it for the exhibition. Because it’s so large I haven’t been able to find anywhere big enough to lay it all out with the proper spacing between the 9 panels so it will still be a surprise for me as to what it looks like when it’s on the wall!
I’ve had my first curation group meeting, finding out what each of the other students will be exhibiting in the same room as me. We are the room of the unexpected, each work has a slightly darker side to it than you first think. Everybody is excited to see this room when it’s all finished, it’s the only room to be curated thematically as opposed to visually or by media.
I have been making some small prints as presents this week, oh how I wish we had a letterpress to make it all easier! I have been creating letter press style posters for a friend who is getting married – no photos unfortunately because the big day isn’t until the end of the month and I can’t ruin the surprise! I have 2 ideas for prints entirely unrelated to my degree work that I will be printing for a local screen print exhibtion – they will be the first in what I am sure will be many in “the ridiculous animals” series. Photos appearing at the end of next week…watch this space.
I will also be designing some editions of small prints to sell at our degree show. I’m not entirely sure what the theme for them will be yet, whether they will be directly related to my degree show work or different to show that I can do lots of different things. I won’t be designing those until the Easter holidays though so plenty of time to decide on the content…
This is basically my degree show piece, still in the making but you get the jist of how it will look.
These panels will have 10cm gaps between each one and will be mounted on the wall, all will eventually have lace printed over them as well. The 2 in the middle need to be repainted as they dried darker than the others, not entirely sure why but they definitely need to be made lighter.
It’s been a long week of printing, this is just where I got to by the end of the Friday. I think by Wednesday this coming week I will be finished printing. All is going well!
