Summer in the Park

This is the photo which inspired my latest print 'Summer in the Park'. Taken in early Spring when I met some co-workers for a rather chilly 'Wellness Walk', it captures one of the long, magnificent avenues of lime trees, which are later plantings from the 1950s, replacing older trees from the early 1700s. This was instigated by the then Park Superintendent, the renowned gardener Percy Thrower, who felt the older trees to be dangerous; at the time it caused quite a controversy, but seventy years on there are still around 250 elegant mature lime trees which seem to draw people to them, like bees to flowers. I began imagining what might be happening under the trees - picnics, reading, babies in prams sleeping - and perhaps, a little dog and its human enjoying a pleasant game of ball. So I began my first doodles and scribbles. This for me is the most interesting part; tweaking the design and making tiny alterations until everything works in harmony. 

Then came the lengthy process of registering the two colour blocks so that everything lined up correctly over the course of two printings per piece. 

This is quite nerve wracking, especially using a premium paper and I pulled each print through the press with great care and gentleness. I eventually had a batch of over 40 good prints which just needed the final, painstaking touch; the tiny red ball which the little dog is leaping to catch. I spent an evening experimenting with various methods, trying different printing implements and techniques, but I couldn't get a consistent result and one mistake would wreck the entire print. 

In the end I bought a little pigment pad and used a big type piece full stop, which did the job. Despite it's miniscule size, the ball is the focal point of the whole picture. 

Earlier this year, I reprinted an old lino block from my college days over thirty years ago, 'Little Red Coat'. I've been creating these little figures since I was a teenager and it's interesting to compare what I did then to what I do now. I can pick out similar characteristics, but there is something more joyful in my new print, as opposed to the quiet solitude of the older one. 

From a limited print run of 42, I have thirty 'Park' prints for sale here in my Etsy shop, and a few 'Red Coat' prints for for sale here, from a limited run of 30, as they sold very quickly. (Or click on the pictures for a direct link).

The old lino plate was pretty flattened by the time I'd finished and I won't be using it again. Now I have to do a quick tidy up and move on to the next one. 

Solstice Morning

The dawn view from the top field at 5am this Solstice morning. I find it hard to stay in bed when the sun is up and the birds are singing so loudly and so early. Even in the farm was quiet and for a short while, it felt as if I had the whole world to myself. 

I’ve been working on a new two colour lino print, using some lovely Cranes paper which a kind blog friend from long ago sent me. I have to work slowly, as my concentration isn’t very good, so it’s taken a few weeks to get it to the final printing stage. 

I’m using a lovely thick Cranes printing paper which was sent to me in 2008 by a kind blogging friend in America - I have kept this paper safe, even back when we had a chimney fire in the old cottage - hard to imagine that this photo was taken 16 years ago and how different life was then. 

I managed to get 18 sheets printed and hopefully can resume tomorrow after a nights sleep. 

Did you know - you can sign up as a free, non-paying member to my Patreon page, and access many posts for nothing, including this recent piece ‘Treasure in the Attic’, about how my ADHD affects my ability to do complex tasks such  as printing.

Mixing up green

My sketch books have many little hastily scrawled notes lurking in the back pages. They are my bank of ideas and often I have a plan in mind for them which I know may not be implemented for some time. For my first foray back into printing I chose this thumbnail of one of my cats, drawn in 2011. 

Mousie was a very slug like little creature and she was fluidly sprawled over a large cushion in deep sleep. At the time I knew that I'd want to turn this sketch into a two colour print, not knowing that it would take me eight years to realise this. 

Back in the present day, I re-drew the original sketch, adding more tail and took the artistic liberty of changing little browny-grey Mousie to a bright orange, which suited the sludgy green I wanted to use for the cushion. Then I cut two small, simple lino plates and backed them onto board to strengthen them.

I opened my tins of oil based printing ink with some trepidation, as they had been dormant for so long. They had acquired dried rubbery caps on top, but they were fine underneath. Could I still mix colour? Well yes, as it happens. To my surprise, I managed to achieve the understated green easily.

 

I had kept my home made registration block, despite nearly binning it a few years ago. I was glad I did; it's only made from thick board but is still useful.

I made several test pulls as the lino thirstily soaked up the ink and the first batch was quite patchy. I also needed the practice of smoothly inking up the plate. Eventually (and with some trepidation) I moved on to my newly purchased printing paper. It took most of the evening to produce the quantity I needed and by the time I had finished I had amassed  a considerable amount of green blobs.

Only some of these were up to scratch, which is fine. Some will do for the first test pulls of the next stage, the orange cat.

When they were dry, I sorted them into three piles - poor, passable and spot on. Now I need to move on to the second plate, which should be less nerve wracking, as I've learned from my mistakes and should be able to produce a small edition of good prints. I've only attempted multi-block printing once, many years ago when I was at college, so this will be interesting. 

Making space for printing

  

When Andy and I moved to the cottage in 2012, the front room became the 'storage area'. And it's stayed that way ever since, as I've simply not had the mental energy, interest or funds to do anything with it. It has improved over the years, but last month Joe and I decided to really tackle it.

 

In the end it was just  case of getting rid of the old futon base and various cardboard boxes and shifting the furniture around. 

 

 

 

The room still needs re-wiring, re-plastering, re-decorating and something doing to the very old, cold linoleum on the floor, but for the moment this will do.

 

My principal motive for all of this was to make a small work area, as I am finally in the right frame of mind to start printing again. I haven't printed since 2011, when Andy and I lived in our tiny rented Cotswold cottage. (See 'Printing Little Hare').

A few months later, we would have moved to Shropshire and soon after that my life would be in pieces. Now I feel able to start again, and carry on where I left off. However, my poor old printer, which spent a few  years in the damp top shed, was also in much need of some TLC.

Time to get out the magic 'Liquid Wrench'. This is marvelous stuff, but being an American product it is hard to find over here. (I buy mine from the only UK seller on eBay who stocks it) It is a fabulous de-ruster and lubricator and I wouldn't be without it.

It looked worse than it really was, and after an hour or so with a sanding pad, I had it looking nice again and rolling smoothly. The big old cupboard is perfect for storing print gear in, and is just the right height for me.

Brian-next-door helped to to hoick the (very heavy) cast iron press up into its new space and drove me out so that I could get some thick plates of glass cut for ink rolling.  And then I was all set up for printing again, having unearthed my box of inks and rollers. Now I just had to get over the hurdle of actually using it.

 

Late summer visitors

Last week we had a very rare happening - visitors! A very nice Welsh Springer Spaniel and his humans came to stay for a couple of days. We didn't do much as it was nice just to take some time off and relax. We did manage a short walk nearby.

It's a funny thing, but even though we are in a very rural part of Shropshire, there are few footpaths and barely any  quiet places to walk. And with this being the busiest bit of the farming year, the little lane we were in had it's fair share of large agricultural vehicles managing (somehow) to make their way through.

So the next day was mostly spent in the garden, with lunch (mostly cheese) and beer.

Knitting was done - my knitting - though not by me. This is something I started and almost finished but couldn't. So my knitting expert friend managed to sort it out for me.

In return, I let my friend have free reign in my studio and she had a couple of impromptu painting lessons.

 

But play has to end eventually and when they were headed home, I finished off a couple of my own paintings, which are up for sale in my Etsy shop.  I seem to be heading for autumn a little prematurely, but then we are having an upsy downsy summer.

In my big studio tidy up, I also found a box of the last lino prints I made in my previous life, including the popular 'Little Hare. It feels a bit strange and very sad looking at old blog posts like with pictures of of the other cottage, such as 'Printing Little Hare' and 'Monsieur le Roitelet'. So to raise a few pennies, I've put the remainder back up for sale, at single figure prices in my shop print section.

I'm hoping to sell enough to be able to buy some WD40, to get my trusty old printer back on the road, so that I can print again. Sadly it's been in a damp shed for too long and needs some de-rusting before I can use it.

Back when I printed the lino cuts in November 2011, I was trying to juggle needle felting with printing and painting.  Then Andy and I began the big move to Shropshire and just over a year later, Andy was dead. Now my life is back on track, with a different love and I am still needle felting, starting to paint again and hopefully printing soon. In those days I was lucky enough to do it as a part time job. Now it's a life necessity. But I try not to analyse it too much; it's all a bit odd really. Such is life.

Monsieur le Roitelet and the Birds

Nearly everything I buy comes from the internet; the village has a couple of food shops, but that's it for anything useful to me; I don't drive and what buses there are, are infrequent, expensive and take a long time to get from A to B. Buying something like good paper, which really needs handling, is a problem.

However, handily, there is a brilliant paper merchant Paper Resources, literally just down the road from us. So in search of some really nice papers, I popped in to see them. Unlike a lot of paper suppliers, they are more than pleased to sell small amounts to individuals and the choice is fantastic; hence I emerged with a decent amount of gorgeous smooth, specialist papers, for about ten UK pounds, all handpicked by the merchant and myself, with much deliberation, including a wodge of hard-to-find Mohawk paper from the USA. Happiness!

So commenced another round of remembering how to print. Lino printing seems to be a bit of an ugly duckling in the art world - not regarded as sophisticated as etching, more akin to stamping or potato printing. However, there is a bit more to it than that. For a start, to get a really good, smooth print, the ink has to be rolled just so, the paper chosen to go with the ink viscosity and then the actual rolling of the ink onto the lino block is in itself a delicate operation, to get an even surface. I don't want edges on the print, so it mustn't be too thin or too thick.

That up above is a nice vintage Speedball brayer, which I was trying for the first time; I'm going to stick with it from now on as the roller is nice and densely soft, making the ink go into the block better than the harder rollers on my other brayers. I roll the ink out about an hour before using, to let it harden a little and get the right 'tack' - then it is rolled out thinly and again on a tray and then on a glass slab, until it starts making the right kind of light hissing noise. And only then it is carefully rolled onto the block, checking it from every angle to make sure that all areas are covered evenly. I look for a velvety surface like this;

To minimise ink getting where I don't want it, I use a mask while I'm inking up the block. The bed of the proof press I use has also been carefully raised up with various layers of paper and card, to get the depth of impression I want - even slipping a single sheet of newsprint underneath makes a difference.

And then yet another mask, for the actual printing.

The paper is held into place with a bit of tape, but I also like to hold it down lightly with my thumb as I make the first pull across, to stop slippage and misprinting.

I do two 'pulls' - quickly but carefully, not taking the roller off the paper, or it will slip minutely and give a double, blurred impression. It's a single, smooth movement and often goes wrong for me, with the first practise pulls. Here we go, with the first - the impression showing through.

And after the second pull. Now you can really see the deep indentation. Taking care to remove the paper so that you don't smudge anything, you peel the print from the block...

Breath a sigh of relief, as this time it came out well.

A now familiar sight in our little front room-cum-print-studio. Much has been discarded over the three hours of work and out of this lot, only a handful were deemed good enough to put in my shop.

Printed on the gorgeously smooth Mohawk Superfine heavy ivory paper, there are 14 copies of this printing of 'Monsieur le Roitelet and the Birds' for sale here at a princely £5.25/$8.

I'm really pleased to have managed that many, as it's a vast improvement on my other print runs and I think I'm getting back into the swing of it at last, after an 18 year break. Less bodge, more hurrahs.

If you are in or near Oxford, Simon of Paper Resources is going to be selling similar packs of paper at the Fine Press Book Fair on the weekend of 5/6 November at Oxford Brookes University, details here. I may well be going myself, to look up some old friends and seeing what's new.

(PS - There is a reason why my little man is called Monsieur le Roitelet, but I'll let you Google that one yourselves).