Shared Ground

After Mary’s excellent introduction I demonstrated the practical business of setting up a screen on the bed, how to mix inks and how to print. I had already printed a two colours from a layered CMYK halftone. For my demo I used the magenta screen and showed the group how to register the layer using an acetate sheet and registration makers.

It was quite crowded around the screen but everyone was able to see and I gave a couple of the group a go at printing my image.

After this I set up the next bed with a screen which we had exposed with the ID photos we had for their ID badged. The photos were lined up in a grid making it an ideal layout for a small fold book. I asked everyone to print one off and they formed a que and off they went.

I kept an eye on them and helped them when necessary, but they did really well. They said I made it look easy to do but they instantly realised that it takes a lot of physical effort to make a good pull. They seemed very impressed with the process and especially with the immediacy of the print. its much quicker than wiping an intaglio plate!

After lunch Joe talked us through his photo-polymer relief process which he has used with great success on a recent project on the South Pacific island of Tonga. The unreliable English sunshine meant the that he and Sarah, our resourceful print technician, had to experiment with our exposure unit instead. They came up with a range of media that would work for a negative/positive exposure and Joe took us through the best of them.

The photo-sensitive plastic sheet is a material I had come across in Utah in 2009 as a less time consuming method for letterpress printing. It works really well at capturing detail and bold relief and we are going to see if we can all have a go next week and introduce it into our books.

Today I had arranged for two of my print students to talk to the BYU group about their use of the screenprint process. As BYU’s printmaking department do not use screenprint I wanted them to see how versatile a print method it is and have a go themselves.

Barbara Swan, 3rd year Fine Art, explained how she has produced a life size ‘army’ of figures taken from prints of her own body. She talked about her process it’s benefits of scale and reproduction and how she has been able to work on a large scale installation for her degree show.

Mary brought along her artists’ book ‘Beast’ to demonstrate how she has incorporated many different visual languages into her screenprinted imagery in a sequence of nine progressively coloured pages.

Her explanations for the process and the conceptual development of the piece were illustrated with all her support work from initial sketches to colour trials and models. She was asked many questions by the BYU group who seemed very impressed both by Mary’s delivery and by the quality of her final piece. Joe Ostraff was keen to impress on his students the support work accompanying the final book and how Mary had been able to communicate her process to them through her documentation.

Mary was understandably nervous of talking to so many people but she did a brilliant job of explaining the many steps she took to realise her project brief and was congratulated by the group afterwards.

Here are some comments from Bernie from WMC, Maggie and Brooklyn from BYU about the book arts introduction session and the beach……

Bernie McHugh WMC

What a fun exciting day we all have had !! As students from WMC we shared our learning progress to book folding, such as the ploughed (plowed) field,the beak, the turkish fold and the blizzard with students from BYU. I feel this was a good chance to interact and get to know them in a less formal way. We were all able to give our encouragement to their new artistic adventures to book making. Our achievements as groups, using old books and personal choices of images, showed that in a short space of time what can be achieved. I was impressed with the input of ideas, combining different folds, which gave me and others more confidence into book making. Well done everybody!! 

Maggie Golightly

Today was a day when my eyes were opened to many new ideas and sights. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to organise my ideas into a book form and today’s class helped me to feel much more confident. The lessons were simple, informative and fun! Practicing together as a team helped me to see book art in a personal light; I felt that I do have the ability to turn my concepts into book art. I loved working with the other students and learning from them. Everyone had wonderful ideas.

Later in the afternoon we spent time at Crosby beach. A few of us spent an hour gathering sea glass. The colours and shapes were just dazzling to me and i couldn’t help but wonder at the story behind each fragment, each was special in its own way.

I felt today that my soul was filled with new knowledge and vision, and I am excited to further my studies in Liverpool.

Brooklyn Day

Today is our second day in Liverpool and we seem to be feeling a little better now that we have had some time to adjust and meet everyone. I loved the project we were given today. We were given old books to work with and use as supplies and inspiration to make a collaborative group book.

Our books were filled with photographs from New York and the English countryside. We worked with the idea of place and how we connect ourselves to certain favourite places. Ours was a three tiered flip book, each tier having different landscapes from both the US and England layered in stacks. The point was to have the viewer create and combine their own landscape by turning the pages as they wanted.

We loved all the possibilities for landscapes this book allowed, and how it combined cultures and nations that both groups held close. It seemed to mimic how we were combining as new friends and fellow artists from different places.

When we went to Crosby beach I felt at home, I’m from California and grew up going to the beach every week. I was so happy we were able to visit such a beautiful place. Even though been to a beach like that and I’ve never been to Liverpool, I found similarities and familiar things there and felt more connected to the landscape here than I ever thought I would.