Newcastle University BA Fine Art Degree Show

The Newcastle University BA Fine Art Degree Show brings together the work of 64 students, 14 of whom are exhibited at the Hatton Gallery, and the other work is shown within the Fine Art Department at Newcastle University.

Covering a wide range of artistic practice, the show includes painting, sculpture, print, performance, text and installation. 

The exhibition is open until 16th June 2018.

Lizzie Munn

Lizzie Munn

Lizzie Munn

Harry Pickup (woodcuts) and Susannah Curran (sculptures)

RISOTTO's RISO ROOM at The Lighthouse, Glasgow

Between 23rd March-13th May RISOTTO will be taking over Gallery 1 of the Lighthouse for a jam-packed print programme + exhibition, celebrating all things RISOGRAPH!

Throughout this period, the space will play host to a full programme of unique events. 

Highlights include:

Specialist workshops from leading movers and shakers of the print world; CORNERS (South Korea), http://corners.kr/   Atelier Bingo (France) http://atelier-bingo.fr/   and Wobby.club (Netherlands), https://www.wobby.club/ focusing on specialist prepress techniques, playful collage, and a collaborative zine workshops, respectively. 

This will be the first time these studios have delivered workshops in Scotland, offering a chance to learn from world-leading Risograph experts.

Poster Nights; our cheapest, fastest and most popular workshop will be back; and at 25 participants strong, this is as much a social as it is an intro to the print process. 

These workshops always produce a whole concoction of patterned prints for participants to take home.

Find out more about the RISO ROOM here:

https://www.risottostudio.com/category/specialworkshop/

BBC Arts Digital features designer Gabriella Marcella, Director of RISOTTO

BBC Arts Digital has created a series of short films focusing on specialist artists and craftspeople. 

The second episode in the series features Gabriella Marcella, a designer and Director of RISOTTO, Scotland’s leading risograph print specialist, and stationery company. 

Set up in 2012, RISOTTO produces creative print for a range of clients – from leading art organisations to bands and brands, quickly and sustainably.

Risograph printing is similar to screen-printing, using rich spot colours and stencils to create tactile and vibrant prints, affordably and with little impact to the environment.

I've had things printed at RISOTTO in the past, and they are great! As you will see from the clip below, Gabriella is really knowledgeable and her helpful and friendly approach makes RISOTTO an excellent company to work with.

Check out the RISOTTO website here

https://www.risottostudio.com/

Gridded seaweed

Now I have printed over 121 pieces of seaweed, I have enough (and a few extra) to form a grid on the large piece of material I have in the studio. Although I have in no way decided to display them on the sheet on the wall, or indeed on the sheet at all, I wanted to have enough to allow this to be a possibility. I can now test out different forms of display, such as if they were in a column spanning the wall and floor, occupying the space rather  like the role of paper currently does.

Currently they are placed in a grid with no specific reason why one piece is next to the another, other than that they were printed, left to dry, and moved from the print room into the studio at a similar time. Therefore I want to move the pieces around within the grid themselves, forming different relationships between them and seeing the arrangement as a composition.

I also want to try mixing the laser cut seaweed amongst the printed seaweed.

Rather than keeping the seaweed flat as sheets, I could try moulding them into sculptural forms. The sheet of seaweed itself is made of strands of seaweed that have been mushed together to form a sheet, so I could do a similar thing and apply the seaweed as one would with papier mache, using water to stick the pieces together.

Laser cutting seaweed and rice paper

I have been using the laser cutter to engrave and cut seaweed and rice paper. I scanned the prints that I made on white paper, and then did some editing in Photoshop to create the file for the laser cutter.

My initial experiment was to engrave seaweed, which had the affect of creating what seemed like a lighter tone of green in the places where the laser had engraved it. It wasn't as I had imagined, and smelled horrid!

I then learned how to turn my tonal scans into line drawings using the laser cutting software, and then laser cut a few different patterns from seaweed.

I also tried laser cutting the same design into rice paper.

When the rice paper is laser cut, one can see the slightly browned edges of the cut from the heat of the laser. This helps frame the little shapes on this translucent and subtle material.

I really enjoy the delicacy of the laser cut seaweed. I could display them amongst the printed seaweed.

Wednesday's prints

After another day in the print room I have now printed onto over 121 pieces of seaweed, and therefore have enough to form a grid on the large piece of fabric that I have.  It may be that I do not attach the seaweed to the fabric, but may pin the sheets directly onto the wall or lay them on the floor, but now I think I have enough to test out the options with.

I am now going to try to laser cut seaweed and engrave different surfaces with the patterns from the prints on seaweed.

Filling the seaweed grid with prints

Shades of grey

I am continuing to print on pieces of nori, with my intention being to cover a whole sheet with a grid of printed nori. I have no set composition at this stage, but am focusing on individual elements which will later be shifted about in order to create a whole. 

The patterns on the nori vary from piece to piece, sometimes using a range of  shape of stamps on one sheet, and at other times using just one stamp.

In order to add a bit of variety to the prints, I am using a range of light / medium greys.