Inktober 2022

 Just got to the end of Inktober this year. It has been a challenge. Very few of the words have lit my boat, as it were. But it's been worth pushing through that. Getting outside my comfort zone. 

I also give myself the limitation of not spending much more than 20 minutes on each one. After all there are lots more things to do in a day. So they are almost all disappointing in that they are not finished, polished works. But they have been opportunities for me to try different things, so are valuable in that sense.

PS It must still be Sunday in Google Land, hence the date stamp on this post.

PPS I just noticed that I didn't update #16  word. Ir should read "Fowl".

First Light

 Another postcard. Sometimes you see something and the shape is so cool it burns itself on to your retina. You know you have to use it. Starting from that lovely bum in the middle, I had to work out what other elements to include and organise them around it.

I wasn't sure what to do with the background until quite late on. I walked into a room and saw the shadow cast by the venetian blinds on the wall and bed head. I love the sharp angle it makes in contrast to the round smooth bum.

In the end I feel it has more of a Shunga vibe to it than any of my other naked women. Like Utamaro at his most restrained.

Personal Archaeology

 I found this in the bottom of a drawer. Letter to The Guardian December 16 1986. I'd half forgotton about it, but Gosh. Half a lifetime ago and I was a master of art bollocks even then.

There are lovely bits in it, and some of it makes me laugh, even now.

"Nostalgia" appears to have gone the way of all things, replaced, perhaps, by "ideology" as the insult of choice for both sides in an argument.

Plus ca change...

Pictures at an Exhibition (Tweaked colour)

 So. Having tried out over-printing the same block with different colours, I'd got a better idea of what I wanted to achieve. In the first version I printed an orangey red over a more greeny blue, and the result was a tad blackish. This time I used a more purply red over blue (still a bit greeny), resulting in a better purple colour.

I wanted to make more of the yellow to contrast with the purple, so I made another block to print some yellow over the white as well as over the other colours. I'm happier now.

Pictures at an Exhibition (Colour experiment)

 I made several drawings of gallery visitors when I was looking after various exhibitions over the last year. I wasn't sure what to do this last weekend so I went through my sketchbooks in search of something. I combined these people who came and looked at the gallery on different occasions and made the place look more crowded than it was.

I thought I'd try adding colour by inking the block partially with different colours and see how they come out. I'm reasonably happy with this, though I think I'd like to tweak the colours a bit and maybe use masks when inking - what I did was just roll the ink roughly where I wanted it. I also didn't really let the ink dry between impressions, so it's overprinted quite patchily.

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.