Leamington Spa Open 2022

 

Both my entries were accepted for this exhibition. They are Bent Flower 1: Tulip and Bent Flower 2: Yellow Chrysanthemum. Both were done during the Open Studios weeks in June/July. I felt they were strong, but it's nice to have that confirmed, as it were.

The exhibition is at Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum at the Pump rooms and will run from Friday 7 October to Sunday 8 January. So do check it out if you're over there during the next few months.

Postscript 6th October. Just been to private view - There were 350 entries to the exhibition, of which 135 made the shortlist which was whittled down to 48 for the show.

Handprinted

 This one kind of sneaked in today. I'd only planned to do the carnation print but I had the need to do something black and graphic as well.

Last night I saw a Man Ray photo on Ebay. Its of a naked woman (Turns out it's Meret Oppemheim) posing with a priting press. Probably a litho press, with a big wheel. She has her hand to her head in a mock "wiping the sweat away" gesture, and she had black ink, from her elbow to her fingertips. As if applied with a roller. I loved that ink and couldn't help wonder how her arm would print up.

So here's a postcard done from my quick scribble of the inked hand. Handprinted.

Bent Flower 4: Carnations

 There's a Youtube video of Tal R making a woodcut print. During the process he says, "If it looks good on the block, it'll look good in the print." I've come to understand that view. If a block doesn't look good, making a mirror image print won't be enough to cure it. And a good-looking block has never let me down. Looking at the blocks for this print as I cut them, I knew they were coming good.

Carnations are among the earliest flowers to impinge on my mind. My parents had red ones, white ones and pinks in the garden. They seemed to have a weed-like character. You could pull bits off, stick them in the ground and tthey would grow. A great lesson to us all.

Figs

I felt it was my last chance to do some figs this year, with Autumn coming and all. I picked some ripeish ones and did some drawings before I ate them. Erich Heckel did a lithograph of 3 figs and a leaf in 1965, so this is me taking my hat off to him.

I decided on woodcut because it seemed a bit more “heritage” for the Heritage Open Days we’re doing at the Alex. And I like the texture. 

There's a sensuality about figs and I cut the one in half to emphasise their edibleness. And I wanted to eat some there and then. I'm pleased with how the colours work together on this one. I've been trying not to be intimidated by colour and have been letting each one assert itself as it will. I also rmember the Beano and other comics from when I was a kid and how sometimes the register would be a bit off and things would happen to the image. Not sure what, but "things". So I've been packing around the blocks on the press to achieve just the right level of offness...

Apples and Pears

 More colour in an Expressionist/Fauve manner. There's a food and drink festival coming up in Rugby, so the Alex is going to dispay some food/drink related art. So this is part of my offering.

Like the flowers, I started from a crayon drawing and then worked in this registered/not-registered manner in the print. I'm really quite pleased with how it's gone.Colour definitely has its challenges, but I'm trying not to be scared of it. I found an old frame thatt I'd bought in a box of odds years and years ago - it's wood with a bakelite insert with fruit and flowers moulded into it - it quite suits this picture. If I can get mirror plates on it'll be my entry for the Leamington Open. 

I think I'll try a few more fruit/veg/meat pictures and then push the subject matter in a different direction.

The next couple weeks at the Alex are part of the Heritage Open Days events. So for this I'm planning to revert to black and white and on a smaller (postcard) scale,