Thursday 19 May 2016

Inspirations in May

Saturday 14th May
A lovely sunny day - first I called in at Stockyard North Salvage in Trafford Park - a place I've been trying to visit for awhile - it's like a cross between Grumpys as was, second hand furniture and car boot.  
Alan spotted these canvas strips with numbers stencilled on to them. He said I should have haggled more, but I was happy with a fiver.
I can't wait to start working with them - I like the stencilled numbers but the backs have just as much potential.
 
On to  Salford Quays for a walk and we called in at the Lowry and saw Katie Paterson's Syzygy. I particularly liked th mirror ball which was quite disorientating but also mesmerising.   
Round the corner was a timeline for Lowrys work and what was being created st the same time. I saw this Julian Trevelyan from 1938 which was very reminiscent of the John Pipers collages which have inspired me for years.

Thursday 12th May. After hours in Manchester
To the Castlefield to see the Left wing writers perform and hear the delightful Vocal Harum sing A Capella

Thursday 12 May 2016

"Painterly"Developments


The Faber and Faber artist pamphlets pages  often provide the backdrop to my work. Originally the pages were a background and it took awhile to realise that I could digitally print onto the pages.  I had a folder full of paintings that I had detached from the pages which I have used in printmaking, but only recently recognised that I could use them for digital prints as well. The surfaces of the paintings are semi glossy, which changes the colour and appearance of the subject matter of each piece. 
This week I decided to try using the paintings in the work in other ways, partly to bring a more painterly feel  back into my work.

Lobster Pots - cutting up sections from several paintings to recreate a recurring theme

The Dustcart ( painting back onto digital print/ found painting).

Landscape -combining sections from different paintings together  to create a  background to the piece.





Monday 2 May 2016

Knitted Helmet Permutations for Bookmaking

I have been working with the knitted helmet images and wanted to develop a concertina book. 
I have also been taking some of the titles from the knitting patterns from the Handicrafts book and putting them together to create a stream of consciousness.


I photocopied the text and painted faces in knitted helmets  over the top with black indian ink, working (as ever), with negative and positive.  Whilst I liked this piece  I intended to use the Risograph and realised I would have to separate the  layers between the image and the text.
It seemed simplest to cut out the text physically and begin to play around with layering the image.
 First I tried  printing onto tracing paper and layering over the top.
Next I began trying smaller images of the face behind each cutout.
The riso never comes out as I planned and  I am dependent on the colours available. 


The result is effective and now the book needs a title.