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!

Julia McKinlay - Newcastle University Summer exhibition

Julia McKinlay was the 2016-2017 Print Fellow at Newcastle University, during which she produced the following lithographs and screen prints.


Influenced by research expeditions to unique landscapes, museum collections and the writings of explorers, McKinlay's work is an attempt to reveal another world within her work. Her sculptures represent individual characters or elements that are found in nature. Specific subjects are collected together to create a balanced fictional environment within the work. 


The prints are translations of observations of the Icelandic landscape.



McKinlay works across sculpture, drawing and printmaking and frequently prints are taken using the sculptures as printing blocks, creating a version of the work that lives as a collection of prints.

http://www.juliamckinlay.com/

Rhythm in Research by Rachel Duckhouse

Rachel Duckhouse is a Glasgow based artist working in a range of media including drawing and printmaking. The complex patterns and systems in nature, human behaviour and the built environment form the basis of her practice.

She makes responsive, research based work that reveals hidden patterns in specific contexts. She uses the physical processes of drawing and printmaking to investigate relationships and flows of energy within real or imagined spaces and situations.



‘Rhythm in Research’ presents screenprints, etchings, lithographs and drawings created in response to several artist residencies and self-directed research projects she’s recently undertaken in Scotland and Canada.



As artist in residence for Watershed+ in Calgary, she worked with City of Calgary water engineers to research and develop a series of drawings and prints describing the complex flows of the Bow River through city infrastructure.



As Associate Artist at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) she worked with gallery staff to create a series of drawings based on their complex relationships to climate change, within the context of the GoMA building.





Most recently, as part of an on-going research project ‘Multiple//Parallel’, making work based on the geology and hydrology of southeast Canada.



"I'm interested in the patterns and rules that govern the universe as we understand it, from a molecular to planetary scale. I often work in series; posing a question or exploring a concept, devising a set of parameters or rules, and testing out a series of variations on the theme. The result is a set of images that work together to pull and push an idea in different ways. To make just one image would suggest a definitive answer to a question. To make several suggests there are an infinite number of possible answers."

http://www.rachelduckhouse.co.uk

http://www.edinburghprintmakers.co.uk/exhibitions/Rhythm-in-Research-by-Rachel-Duckhouse

'LAZOS / TIES' at the XL Gallery, Newcastle University

Tonight was the opening of 'LAZOS / TIES' at the XL Gallery, Newcastle University. It is the last of the exhibitions presented through the UK-Mexico Cultural Print Exchange curated by Erika Servin.

The exhibition features collaborative print works by recent Newcastle University graduates Miriam Hancill and Daisy Billowes alongside the work of Mexican artists Orietta Aguilar and Eduardo Martinez, from Taller Imagen del Rinoceronte (TIR). Prints by Erika Servin complete the exhibition and she forms the tie/lazo between both cultures.

http://www.daisybillowes.com

http://www.miriamhancill.com

http://www.estilomexicano.com.mx/#!edu-mtz-vibraciones-de-la-memo/c253e

https://www.facebook.com/orietta.aguilar.1?

ref=br_rshttp://erikaservin.wix.com/erikaservin#!blog/c17ko)


The exhibition runs until October 31st.

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.

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.

Tuesday's prints

I've had another productive and fun day in the inking up etching room printing onto seaweed with liquorice allsorts.

Here are a selection of the prints I made today.

I've done a few prints onto white paper because I want to try engraving the patterns onto seaweed and other materials. In order to use the laser cutter to do this, I need to prepare the files correctly, and so will scan the prints on white paper and then work with them in Photoshop before they can be used by the laser cutter.

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.