Green Fig

Not a usual look for me. It’s something I’ve been working on as part of another piece. But then I thought given its size and shape, it might work as a stand-alone image on a card.

I’ve also got some blank brown/grey cards that I hadn’t thought of a use for. So this seemed an ideal opportunity to try them out, too. 

This one's a wood cut print. For no better reason than I wanted to have a go with the decent hangi-to I bought a little while back. The darker green ink is stuff left over from the still life with a tank, applied with a bit of sponge on top of the brighter green. 

Have to work on the rest of the bigger picture now.

Comely… as the Curtains of Solomon

I’ve been thinking recently about making some prints based on verses from the Song of Songs. When I was about 17 I thought that I ought to actually read some of the Bible. Everything I’d heard so far were interpretations of hand-picked stories. So lets read the words, I thought.

It’s a big, fat book and quite daunting, so I thought I’d pick something short to start with. Oh, the Song of Songs/Solomon. That’s only a few pages. Turned out it’s about love and sex and passion. I hadn’t expected that

Listening to Kate Bush’s Song of Solomon recently prompted me to go back and read it again. And it’s chock full of inspiration for art. As Kate says, ‘Just pick any line, “Comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love.”’ I might use that one, too. 

Anyway. This is Solomon 1:5. “I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.”

For the window shutter, I used a piece of hardboard grille from a radiator box. Does that count as wood?

Rugby Artists and Makers first exhibition

Today the first Rugby Artists & Makers Network exhibition opens in the Floor One gallery at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum. (Catalogue here)

We were offered the gallery space 4 weeks ago and we have put together a quite remarkable exhibition in that time. I feel I could do with a good rest after being part of the hanging team yesterday, but I’ve got to crack on with Warwickshire Open Studios over the next couple days.

Do check it out if you’re in Rugby over the next 2 weeks. The exhibition runs until 8 July..

Making money

£4 notes.

In my head this is a complex satire. First of all it’s about my fellow artists who “produce” giclee prints. They make a picture and then get some fancy-schmancy colour photocopies made. “Not real printing,” says I. Puts me in mind of one of the Goon Shows:

Grytpype-Thynne: Here’s a photograph of a four pound note. 

Neddy Seagoon: But the four pound note in the photograph – it’s a forgery!

So. These are real £4 notes. Price £4. And I promise I will give £4 to anyone who brings one back to me. So it’s real money to anyone who believes me. It currently has an exchange rate of £1 = £1, but as the government printing presses are working much faster than mine, these Bank of Steve notes may well end up strengthening against the UK£.

Not the Rokeby Venus

 

It has been about 6 weeks since I’d done any cutting. I’ve been too busy printing, framing, hanging and all kinds of other stuff in preparation for Warwickshire Open Studios.

So I thought I’d do another postcard while waiting for visitors yesterday. Get my hand in again. I’d been aiming to do a version of Velásquez’ Venus and I’ve done a good few drawings. But I didn’t feel happy. It just seemed too much of a copy. So I expanded my range of inspirations for nudes-from-the-rear. The woman here is based on one by Ferdinand Hodler in his painting Night.

She seems more relaxed, somehow. And she has … feet! Feet are so difficult to do, even Velásquez and Manet side-step the problem. But I wanted to do some feet in this one. Tiny ones cut out of lino.

What she’s doing in Velásquez’ studio, I don’t know. On the mobile phone, probably.

Catalogues and Flipbook of my cards and postcards

 In advance of Warwickshire Open Studios art weeks I've gathered all (I think) the cards together into catalogues, so people can easily see what's available:

...and, just because I'd done the work, I've done a flipbook of the 3 booklets together in a big fat tankobon.  

 CLICK HERE

 

PS. I've also done a catalogue for my full-size prints to date

HERE

Warwickshire Open Studios – Summer Art Weeks 2021

 Given no further government restrictions, I’ll be open for this years Open Studios event, 19 June – 4 July.

Here’s my Profile Page on the Warwickshire Open Sudios site.

You can find the specific days and times on my Summer Art Weeks Page

And on This Page in the Flip Book Brochure