Hectographs with Mirela Bistran

Hectograph experiments

All set up and ready for some experimental printing

 

Preparing plate for hectograph

Fellow artist, Mirela Bistran and I are going to do some experimental hectograph printing. The initial stage is to make the plate using gelatine, glycerin and water. 

We have left the (rather smelly) concoction to set overnight in the cool environment of my NewBridge Studio, and are hoping to do some printing later in the week. Watch this space!

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/

Laura Slater

Arresting printed objects for every day use within the home

Informed by the interaction of colour and shape, the designs focus on the translation of drawing and surface through hand printed processes.

Laura's specific interests lie in engagement with pattern and it’s ability to connect us to the environments around us. This is explored through approaches to drawing, process, materials and product.

 

 

 

http://www.lauraslater.co.uk/

In the hands of the printers

In the last few months I have been working with UnstapledPress to create a publication containing a collection of my texts along with some drawings. It has been an exciting process, and has been a real technological learning curve for us all. When we started the process,  my photoshop skills were limited and I had a lot of skills and techniques to learn in order to realise my ideas. I have surprised myself; through experimentation and by asking lots of questions to photoshop pro's, I have become more confident with the tools and have enjoyed creating the designs. 

Don't get me wrong, I am in no way a whizz on photoshop and I have plenty still to learn. Working with the team at UnstapledPress was super and we taught each other skills that we had gained.



Now we have sent it off to HATO, the printers, who will be using risograph to produce the publications. We look forward to receiving the proof print shortly. 

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.

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.