hello i'm back

A slight interlude - almost a month away from doing any work! And it's been getting to me...so good then to have 2 hours this afternoon to start on a new drawing.  I really want this one to dance, was really inspired by Conrad Shawcross' industrial machine replicating human movement in the Titian inspired exhibition 'Metamorphosis' at The National Gallery that I have had the idea to try and make my drawings dance, so that they too also replicate human movement.... I also want to try and depict differences in speed, slow passages of drawing and fast passages of drawing..... and I can also see this potentially in paint, too. All very exciting. Off to cycle surgery to fix my bike. x

My inked up woodblock

Woodcut print and drawing finished today!

Just finished a couple of works on paper - at last the woodcut print has got printed.  I have used Old Holland paints mixed in with block printing medium, using a palette I might use for a painting, paired down.  Because it was the first attempt I didn't want to be too careful or precious about it, so kind of slapped the paint on fairly randomly, with the exception of the Rose Dore on the roses.  What do you think of the first attempt?  I am going to be asking everyone what they think so please let me know!  It's the only way I might be able to make these prints better!

Having another look at it though, I am pleased with the results as a first attempt. Decorative, simple, strong design, a nice palette, and the subtle results you achieve with a woodcut are lovely, the grain shows through in areas.  All round satisfied and can't wait to give it another go.

Secondly, finally finished another drawing, which looks like this, according to my ipod.  A proper photo will be snapped for the website proper this evening, or tomorrow.  Again, any thoughts are warmly received! This one may be looked at again tomorrow just to make sure I am happy with the overall tonality of the piece, but I do like the shadows and interplay of light and dark in this drawing.

Opportunity for Painters and/or Sculptors - Artist's Residency/Colony in Serbia

I have been asked to find an English artist to attend this year's 'Artist's Colony' at Poganovo Monastery in Serbia.  I went to this in 2006 and know all about it so if you wish to have more information please email me! Lisafreemanart@gmail.com

The monastery is on the Bulgarian/Serbian border, situated among wonderful nature - stunning mountains and very pretty streams etc.  It is a haven for artists who like to work in peaceful surroundings.  The deal is that your accommodation and food is paid for and you get to stay in a village house within walking distance to the monastery.  You are expected to go to the monastery each day and paint - most art materials are available there but you may wish to bring some of your own paints and brushes.  It is asked that in return for food and accommodation that you leave 2 pieces of work that you have completed during your time at Poganovo, which they will keep for the village gallery's collection.  I had an amazing time at Poganovo and really really recommend this to anyone who is free and has a spare £200 for the flight to either Sofia or Belgrade!

Please get in touch before 13th July to express interest - sorry for the short notice!!

More information on Poganovo is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poganovo_Monastery
http://www.b92.net/eng/travel/culture.php?nav_id=35213
http://www.serbiatravelers.org/en/destinations/50-southern-serbia/467-poganovo/

Just finished this drawing - at last!  Took a while longer than I had anticipated but I am pleased with the results.  All done with a trusty Staedtler Mars Lumograph 3B pencil (for all you artist supply geeks!)  Am definitely pleased that I completed this with the photographic reference, because I believe it really helped me to describe a strong light source much better than if I had laboured over this in front of the subject, and I was much more able to really focus on the forms of the plants, rather than roughly sketch them.

I think that these drawings are artworks in their own right, but I am still really looking forward to receiving my wood carving book in the post and contemplating portraying this drawing in a wood relief.  I'd really like to spend some time thinking of a good title for this but for now it shall remain 'Flower Study'.  It's on my website here: http://lisafreeman.co.uk/artwork/2715941_Flower_Study.html

I am relieved to have found a frame in my studio which will accommodate the drawing so it won't get crushed within a week....providing no one drives their bulldozer over the frame!

Today's flower drawing (in progress)

I started this drawing last week, in the blistering heat, in my parents' back garden.  I'm lucky to have a mum who is a keen gardener, and so at the moment the garden is full of all sorts of really interesting flowers and plants.  I have no ideas about plants really, but I am fascinated by their forms...I really should learn their names.  Anyway I was particularly taken by the swooshing thing that looks like it has beans growing off it at the bottom of the drawing (I told you I'm clueless!), and I liked the circularity of this arrangement of plants. My session in the garden lasted a couple of hours but then the clouds came and it started to rain so I stopped and didn't return to the drawing until today.

Today the weather was also pretty nasty but luckily I had taken a photo of this arrangement the other day and decided to draw from the photo today.  I actually really enjoyed drawing from the photo, and actually for this kind of drawing, it might be better to draw from a photographic reference because you can actually use the dramatic light of the morning without having to worry that the sun will move gradually across the sky (yes, it does!)

This is how my drawing was looking a little while ago:

Looking at it as a little jpeg actually helps to see it, and I am really excited by how it is coming along.  At first I thought it might be interesting to just draw the bits that really interested me and leave the rest as the white of the paper, but now I can see in the bottom half that the depths and layers of all the foliage has a lovely rhythm about it.  Unfortunately the top page has just fallen out of my book! Which is really annoying but it means I have a good excuse to frame the drawing once it is done, if I can somehow fix the 2 leafs of paper together.

I had the idea that this might potentially become the basis of a wood carving - A relief carving made out of a better quality wood such as teak, that could be hung on the wall...or perhaps something a little more primitive wood-wise that I would gesso and paint once I had carved it.  This is totally new territory for me so I am having to read up on this new and unfamiliar subject every time I need a break from drawing or blogging!

Any ideas would be gratefully received, if someone happens to read this who knows about carving wood....cheers!

x

The Roses Part 2 - From Drawing to Woodcut

I left my drawing for a few days while I thought about the idea of creating a woodcut and reading up on the subject.  I found that the hints at tips in  The Printmaking Handbook by Louise Woods were useful, and I was surprised to read that I might be able to use some cheap plywood to begin with, as I had suspected I would need to head down to  Intaglio to invest in some more expensive wood that would be suitable for woodcut.  It said in the book that plywood from a wood merchant or DIY store would be relatively easy to cut and ideal for a beginner, as there is no worry about wasting high quality materials and money if you make a mistake. I figured as this was my first woodcut this would be the way to go, and so I headed to Lawsons and managed to find myself a lovely offcut that looked ideal for cutting into smaller rectangles for my first series of woodcut prints.

The plywood I had found at Lawsons was made up of 3 plies and was 5mm thick. It was just over a metre long and 40cm wide, for only £3.60! I was very happy, until some friends of mine said the next day it would not work for woodcut - that it would splinter and split as I attempted to cut through it. I sighed to myself but figured I would have very little to lose if I were to give it a go anyway.  I sawed a piece off the offcut that measured around 20cm x 40cm.

I invested in a couple of Pfeil tools from Jackson's Art Supplies (http://www.jacksonsart.com/search.php?input_search=pfeil&stock=0&x=0&y=0 ) and was SO relieved to find that they cut through the wood like a dream.  Having done quite a bit of linoprinting in my time I knew not to expect anything as effortless as cutting through some softcut lino, but I was delighted to see that carving through this wood was not much different, and I loved working with wood as a material...it is something I have always wanted to do.  I began by cutting out random lines and then making them look like branches, and then when I realised that it would be possible to, I began to use my drawing of the roses as a reference for my first ever woodcut.

I figured I should not invest too much time into making it precise, as this was my first time, I just wanted to have a play around, so I worked by having the sketchbook open on the roses drawing and used a HB pencil to replicate the forms of the composition, cutting as I went the areas I wanted to have white.  It take some time to work out how much pressure to apply, what angle to cut at, and how to avoid slipping and cutting more than you would like to, and I imagine you have to re-figure this out each time you set to work with a new piece of wood. I found it surprisingly easy to cut against the grain of the wood (as the book said this would be difficult) and also to make wavy lines with my cutter.  The pressure required was relatively high for a long working time, so I did find my hand ached a little at the end of the session.

This is what my woodcut looked like at the end of the first session - it was taking a little longer than I had envisaged, but I was quite excited by how it was looking.  I decided to use some hatching to describe areas of mid tone.  

Tone is something that was making me think - how was I going to tackle it? Having areas of hatching, then large areas completely cut out (the bits that appear white in the wood) and then areas left uncut meant I basically had 3 tonal values throughout the woodcut - a little less than I might have in a drawing or a painting.  However I think I may try varying tone further in my print by brushing the ink on, and mixing different colours with different tonal values, so that the print itself undulates in tone and colour, and my print will end up being half way between a conventional woodcut print and a painting.

The other thought I had was to apply gouache or watercolour washes to the sheet of paper I am going to print on, so that the print is laid on to blocks of colour, which might also work quite nicely with this composition.

I found that by the time I had completed cutting across the whole bit of wood I had run out of space to fit the whole composition of the drawing on to the piece but that did not bother me too much.  I really liked the woodcut as an object - it reminded me of old book illustrations or of the carvings you might see in the back of a pew in a church. I'm a little bit worried that the ink I use to print with will stain the wood, but at least I have some photos of it looking all pretty and clean!