Prospect Printmakers in Clitheroe

Running until the end of March, Prospect Printmakers are exhibiting at Longitude Gallery in Clitheroe. I have 2 framed prints on display - 'Hard at Work' and 'Barn Owl' as well as unframed work in the browsers.

It's a lovely space and a fabulously varied exhibition, dedicated to printmaking in all its forms. Over 20 artists have work on show, including original prints by Alan Birch, Jill Randall, Peter Cave, Lorraine and Chris Waites, Gary Thomas and many more.

 

Work is for sale. Please do pop along to the exhibition if you are in the area.

To see more of my work, please check out my website: www.carolynmurphy.co.uk where you will also find an online Shop with currently available work. Thanks!

What a Great Print Exhibition!

It was a great day out! On a really wet and windy day today, we visited the second annual Great Print Exhibition, at the Rheged Centre near Penrith, on its final day. I'm so glad we made the effort, as the space was fantastic, the work inspiring and the exhibition was busy. It runs from the end of November to the end of February, with sales before and after Christmas - and the response has been excellent, I'm told.

With work from many well-known printmakers, a good number of Cumbrian print artists and a wide spread from across the UK, it was great to see so much high quality work in one place, well presented and well lit, with unframed work also available in browsers.

Some photos below will give you a feel for the exhibition and some of my own personal favourites.

To see my own work, please check out my website: www.carolynmurphy.co.uk where you will also find an online Shop with currently available work. Thanks!

Great fun experimenting with collagraph

Earlier this year I spent a whole weekend playing with collagraph at Prospect Studios in Rossendale - it was something I'd been looking forward to for a long time and was great fun! Previously I'd used mount board as a plate and cut into it - and had added materials like tape, carborundum, wallpaper or glue. This was the chance to check out all the other things I'd spotted or read about printmakers using, from bubble wrap to food. Some were more successful than others, it's fair to say. I'll be using a blow torch again with tile grout and packing tape, for example, but probably giving linguine a miss for collagraph prints.

The prints I produced are below. You can also see the plates - some wood, some mount board, some metal. I've listed the materials used in each plate - and outlined the ones I liked and didn't, for my own reference and maybe other printmakers will find it helpful too. Thanks to Alan Birch and Jill Randall for a fantastic weekend workshop.

 Here are the plates, all shellac coated - with a mix of "ingredients" added:

 

Ply wood plate with lentils, carborundum, sticky back plastic (burnt with blow torch), glue

 

Mount board plate (cut into in places) plus bubble wrap, lentils, wallpaper, embroidery thread & cotton

Metal plate with tile grout, scratched into, carborundum, wallpaper, lentils, porridge, beads & glue 

 

Mount board plate with embroidery thread, tile grout (scratched into), pieces of material, sugar, carborundum and glue 

Mount board plate with added linguine pasta, porridge, lentils, carborundum, packing tape, tile grout, wallpaper, glue  

 

Wooden plate with tile grout, carborundum and sticky tape, burnt and distressed, using a blow torch

 



My favourite materials were the tile grout and sticky tape, especially when burnt. They make fantastic textural patterns. The tile grout once bubbled with heat will break up a bit in the press. Tile grout scratched into and left to dry was excellent, along with carborundum and sugar.

I liked the bubble wrap but it's hard to control the effect. Glue when used thickly was excellent. For me (in moderation!) the lentils and porridge were great. They need to be shellac-ed well or they will try to come off the plate under pressure.  The threads worked well - particularly the thicker embroidery thread.

Linguine was far too brittle. The beads were far too thick and deep. It didn't work well to have too much variation in depth, for example cutting into the mount board as well as adding bubble wrap. I also tried rolling over a relief colour into the linguine rooftops. There was too much depth in the plate for this to work effectively. Another lesson learnt!

It's a great effect for a simple plate, as shown below, from a previous occasion:

 

Close up of collagraph print of the Isola Bella in Taormina, Sicily, with a blue relief "roll-over"

 

Shallow mount board plate, cut into, with added sandpaper and glue

The same plate printed in mono.

That 20:20 time of year!

After having had to take some time off from printmaking, I'm back and have just completed my 2015 edition for the 20:20 print exchange. This year I submitted prints with Prospect Studios, as I've done most of my recent work there. It's a hand-printed multi-plate woodcut, called 'The Low Road' based on a Scottish landscape:

I've chosen to adapt a 3 plate woodcut initially developed in Lucy Schofield's fantastic Japanese woodblock printmaking course, which I really enjoyed in September at Hot Bed Press in Salford. It was cut in the traditional Japanese fashion with a knife, called a 'hangito'. I've added some development phases below so that the transformation from the Japanese style is obvious.

My unfinished 3 block Moku hanga Japanese woodblock print was painstakingly cut in the correct fashion with the hangito knife held like a dagger to create a 'living line' (image size 14 x 10mm). The image was cut into 4mm Japanese ply, with kento registration marks, and inked up using water-based ink onto Japanese paper. It looked pretty good (though unfinished) at the end of the course on ozuwashi paper:

Course info on the link, in case you're interested:
http://www.hotbedpress.org/courses/japanese-water-based-woodblock-printing-mokuhanga/

I liked the image but wanted to add overlap colours (not a Japanese thing to do) to add interest. I also decided to add gradations and worked up a prototype to see what I could achieve with the same 3 woodblock plates. Once I was happy with the prototype (first image below) I finished cutting the final plate, removed kento marks and built up my 20:20 edition colour by colour. This is how the image built up - colours 1, 2, 3 and a border:

Below you can see the key plate, entirely cut with a knife and surrounded here by a mask to keep the 20:20 image clean. And finally all the 20:20 original woodcut prints, hand-printed at home, drying in my dining room 'studio'!

 

The Old Parsonage Didsbury - Spectrum Exhibition

I'm now at the final preparations stage for our Spectrum exhibition at The Old Parsonage in Didsbury, Manchester. There will be a mix of older and new work. I've been finishing off some new prints this week at Hot Bed Press, to make sure they will be in the show, including a new 3 colour lino print of Manchester bees and a large scale lively and chaotic screen print:

I'll also be including "Scottish Sheep" exhibited previously at Stockport Art Gallery and An Talla Solais in Ullapool.

We are expecting a good turnout at the Preview on Saturday afternoon (7 Feb) 2 - 4 pm, so really looking forward to Spectrum, the first exhibition I've been involved in for a while.

Some of my etchings

I'm trying to decide what to include in the Spectrum exhibition - and may include some etchings. The only one that has been exhibited so far is Bridgewater Canal, which was selected for the Stockport Open Contemporary Exhibition. Choices include (in order) I Love Manchester 2012, Cwm-yr-Yglwys, Strumble Head Lighthouse, Bridgewater Canal and On the Verge:

Feedback is very welcome!

New 20:20

This year's 20:20 print swap and exhibition is going to be bigger than ever. Hot Bed Press has confirmed 500 artists from 40 print workshops will be taking part in 2013. The deadline for getting prints in is here and print sorting, a massive job, will be taking place this week, before the exhibition opens at Hot Bed Press in Salford (and online) on 30 November.

Below is my design - the first time I've put in a screen print, instead of a lino cut. I've really enjoyed the challenge. It's called 'Near Ragusa' and is a 4 colour screen print on 300g Canaletto off-white paper. I'm looking forward to getting my box of 20 swap prints. It's great to be part of such a big printmaking 'family'!

Hideaway - My 20:20 print 2012

My own 20:20 print, Hideaway, is a 3 colour multi-plate linocut design, based on a sketch I made of a small seaside cottage in Cwm-yr-Eglwys on the north Pembrokeshire coast, near Fishguard.

20:20 Print Exchange is launched!

On Friday (23 November 2012) Hot Bed Press in Salford launched its biggest 20:20 Print Exchange yet! Well done to Sean and all the helpers, who sorted prints from 30 print workshops across UK and Ireland. 392 printmakers in total produced prints for the collection.

Each artist has now received their own box of 20 random prints. I picked mine up on Friday night and am delighted with the mix. Some of my particular favourites from my own box were these lovely prints:

They are (in order) by: Jenny Lines of Oxford Printmakers, Emily Rae Manning of Stew Print Rooms and Peter Kirley of Fife Dunfermline Print Workshop. Copyright is with the artist.

To see the full set of 392 prints, arranged by print workshop:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hot_bed_press/sets/

Hours of happy viewing!!

Full details at:
http://www.hotbedpress.org/