Rugby Artists and Makers exhibition - Five Senses

Hanging this exhibition today. Goes live tomorrow 21st January and closes 1st February. The title was plucked out of the air at a meeting in November, I think. I decided to run with it and arrived at the print Sensing.

Here's the flipbook catalogue:

Sensing

This print brings together a number of ideas that arose while I was working on other projects. Some I have already used; others I just slipped into my pocket with my car keys. They all came tumbling out when someone suggested Five Senses for the name of the upcoming Rugby Artists and Makers exhibition. So here they are brought together in a sensual game of consequences.

So many artists and ideas came into play here. Touch comes from Harold Speed’s book, The Practice and Science of Drawing – the notion that outline comes from the act of touching – it’s an idea I’ve wanted to draw for some time, and it sneaks in here. The hearing woman is based on a figure from an old life drawing by an unknown artist. The whispering man and the seeing woman started out as the couple in Nolde’s Mann und junges Madchen. The sensuous pomegranate eater has been in my pocket since I did the Song of Solomon prints, and if I ever do a full set of those he will reappear. The model for the pomegranate eater is by the way a small classical bust of Hermes I keep for these purposes. The woman smelling the flower is of course Anna Bloom, pretty much directly lifted from my Rote Blume print. Finally the pregnant belly with the eye comes from Shiko Munakata. The navel eye appears frequently in his work; I’m guessing it’s Bhuddist, but For me it feeds sufficiently into that Room for a Life thing and maybe that Gut Feeling thing to place the viewer in a slightly uncomfortable place.

Finally, I recently bought a print by Maria Beine-Hager of a puppeteer and puppets that was done as simple line work in white on black. So provided the overall feel of what I wanted to do. As I was working on this I was reminded of an article by Eric Gill in the Woodcut Annual for 1927. He suggested that it was relatively simple to make intaglio prints from small wood engraving blocks. I am minded to try making intaglio prints from this block. If it works out I will no doubt post again.

Christmas Card

 This year's card has more... joyful silliness about it. A combination of the moose and my mother-in-law's anaglypta wallpaper. The previous five had more of a feel of hoping for future brightness about them. This one just seems happier, despite mooses being so lugubrious. Maybe I can see a kind of light in the distance now, maybe the tide has turned. Maybe.

More fun with local landmarks

 I added another couple of foregrounds that I could use with the local landmark prints I made for the Diwali thing. This time vaguely Christmas themed. The first with shepherd and sheep. The second with a moose. Very Christmas. These three are the only ones I've got left. Will add more if/when I reprint.

Rugby Open 2024

 First time I've got the three prints I entered accepted. At first, I felt a bit gloomy about the prospect of entering, a feeling that I hadn't done enough good work this year. My wife suggested I put forward my two successful entries to the Leamington Open at the beginning of the year. Seemed like a plan. But I swapped out Blackthorn, Cemex for Artist's Bedroom, Cemex - as the latter is a bona fide 2024 print - and stuck with Skinny Woman. I then decided to add Close Work (the colour version) - it's one I wrestled with, and came good in the end.

Eric Gaskell felt that having Eileen Cooper RA on the judging panel would be good for me, as we're both artisss that have a narrative approach to people in their art. Looks like he was right.

The show runs from 30 November to 20 February next year.

Leave it to Jerome...

 We have received a number of donated books at the Alex, so we thought if we had a library of arty-ish books people could read, that would be cool. So this is my first try at a book plate. I thought St Jerome would be suitably bookish, and his lion would offer an admonishment to anyone who wanted to walk off with it. I think this one needs a couple of small tweaks, but I;m not sure C will like it.

Inktober 2024

 I had a touch of artist's block at the start of the month, so Inktober forced me to actually sit down and draw every day. This year's words struck me as some kind of adventure, so they turned into a story...