Behind the Scenes on 'September Evening'

For this year's 20:20 print exchange I decided to capture a familiar and favourite view. It's one I've seen a lot of during recent lockdowns and on a warm, summer evening, it's hard to beat. Nothing exotic - it's the view to the west from our own backyard in Manchester. Our own little space, haven and outside space. From here we have watched the bats and the International Space Station fly over regularly. The shared garden behind has mature trees, hedgehog residents and an insect hotel, amongst other things.

I've included below some reference photos I took - both day and evening to guide me:

One of the trickiest challenges was how to take the image over the edges of the paper and register consistently. Thank you to printmakers on Facebook's Linocut Friends site for suggestions and tips! I finally went for face down registration - using a basic template. 

I then started by testing gradation colours, to explore how best to create a good illusion of twilight. After deciding on a composition and what to include and leave out, I finalised the design and transferred it to the lino in pencil. The cutting was fairly intricate - especially the section with the leaves. You can see some work in progress shots here:

Trying alternative colours

Starting to cut the lino plate

The tree section starts to emerge

Initial cutting completed

From here I proofed the plate in the my chosen colour way, removed and refined elements to clean up the image. Once I was happy with a proof image, it was time to print the full 20:20 edition of 25 for Prospect Printmakers submissions.

First rough proof

Later proof

One of the challenges I spotted late was that printing right to the edges means you can't peg prints up, which is my normal route. Maybe I finally need to look at flat drying racks after all! In the meantime, I have all the edition drying on the studio floor. And the gorgeous studio cat is temporarily banned! This is how the edition developed:

The gradation - printed from a plain lino block

Printing the edition

The finished linocut edition - drying on the floor

The plate and the image together

2020 20:20 print exchange box

This year, the suspense was greater than normal! It took me until February 2021 to get my 20:20 print exchange box for 2020. In the middle of a global pandemic and UK lockdown, it was hardly 'essential travel' until I combined collecting it with picking up work returning from an exhibition. Anyway, it was worth the wait! 

My 2021 box

In my randomly sorted box, I received a great mix of original prints, including lots of linocuts and two works from a Russian workshop. My own image was a two-plate linocut called 'Towneley Hall' - a new colourway of 'That Window' which I created for the Impressions exhibition earlier in 2020. This is printed in water-based 'copper' ink and oil-based ultramarine.

'Towneley Hall' - my 20:20 submission in 2020

I also worked out that this is my 10th year of taking part. The first year may well have been 2011, in fact. In some mad years (2014 and 2016, I think), I entered an edition with both Hot Bed Press and Prospect Studio. Over the years, I've enjoyed the huge variety of work I've collected - some of which is up on the walls of my home. Some work was on the wall in my office at The Manchester College at one time. And I've picked up a few extra favourites over the years to supplement these!

I've pulled out below some of my own 20:20 prints, submitted over that time, just to see them together. I've started with my first one 'Distant Pebbles' from 2011...

'Distant Pebbles' linocut

'Hideaway' linocut

'Into the Woods' linocut

'Meandering' linocut

'Near Ragusa' screen print

'Regenerating' linocut

'Riviera' linocut

'Adjusting the Sails' linocut

To learn more about my work, please check out my website www.carolynmurphy.co.uk where you'll find my gallery, online shop and links to my social media.

20:20 Print Exchange 2020

I love taking part in the 20:20 Print Exchange! It's that sense of community amongst printmakers in the UK and, increasingly, around the world. And the random nature of the selection you will receive - all sorts of techniques and images, some you love, some less so. And the exhibition goes on tour - for ages.

Of course, this year has been more challenging, so well done to Hot Bed Press for even managing to do the sort! I'm looking forward to receiving my box, in exchange for the edition of 25 'Towneley Hall' linocut prints I submitted. I decided on a new colour way of my 2-plate 'That Window' linocut - this time in copper and blue, specially for this year's print exchange. 

'Towneley Hall', my 20:20 linocut for 2020

Preparing the edition - colour 1

To learn more about my work, please check out my website www.carolynmurphy.co.uk where you'll find my gallery, online shop and links to my social media.

20:20 Print Exchange 2018

This year, I submitted my 20:20 edition of 25 prints 20 cm x 20 cm with Prospect Studios, one of the 40 or more print workshops taking part. The 20:20 print exchange was created and is organised by Hot Bed Press in Salford. Every year, as it's grown and grown, their staff and volunteers face the huge task of sorting the work of around 500 artists, so that every one gets back a box with their own print and 19 other randomly sorted works from across the UK, and now internationally. This year print workshops in Iceland, Moscow and Melbourne, Australia took part.

The full collection of work can be seen on flickr - check out this link.

My 2018 print uses the same plates I cut for my 'Halo' linocut earlier in the year, for the 'Pennine' exhibition with Prospect Studios. Because it's a 3 plate multi-plate linocut, I returned to play with the colours and cut the finished print down to 20 x 20 cm, calling it 'Regenerating'.

I've included some pictures of its development below:

'Regenerating', 20:20 linocut by Carolyn Murphy

Three lino plates used to create 'Halo' and 'Regenerating' linocuts

'Halo' linocut by Carolyn Murphy, created for the Whitaker's Pennine exhibition

Printing plate 1 at Hot Bed Press

Using the Albion press

'Regeneratin' after printing one colour

'Regenerating' in the drying racks, after colour 2

Trimmed 20:20 prints ready to go for 2018!

It won't be long before I receive my box of prints. Fingers crossed for a box I really love! Having taken part since 2011 (sometimes for both Hot Bed Press and Prospect Studios)I have a great collection of 20 x 20 cm prints. Some are on my walls at home. Some have been on my office wall in the past. And I still can't resist picking up a few extras, when something jumps out at me, like yesterday at Hot Bed Press Open Studios, when I bought a print from Iceland's 2015 collection.

To learn more about my work, please check out my website www.carolynmurphy.co.uk where you'll find my gallery, online shop and links to my social media.

A new 20:20 linocut all ready to go!

How quickly another year comes round! It's not long until the deadline for submitting work to this year's 20:20 print exchange, organised by Hot Bed Press. I've just finished my multi-plate linocut 'Into the Woods' edition of 25, which will be one of a set of prints from Prospect Studios.

'Into the Woods' original linocut by Carolyn Murphy

This original print is based on a sketch of Welsh woodlands, which I did a few years ago. I loved the mix of rock and undergrowth, light and shadows.

Over 500 artists from more than 40 print studios across the UK and beyond are expected to take part again this year, with work touring and on display on-line.

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!

20:20 Exhibition Touring during 2017

Throughout 2017, the Hot Bed Press organised 20:20 print exchange will be touring the UK, sharing the work of 508 artists from 39 print workshops, this year including prints from Hong Kong and Australia for the first time.

I submitted 2 print editions this year - a bit crazy I know! Images below. One was through Hot Bed Press in Salford, where I'm a member, and another through Prospect Studio in Rossendale, where I printed most often in 2016.

'Meandering' is a 2 plate linocut, based on a sketch for print that I did looking over the stunning Dovey Estuary in mid Wales, just outside Aberdovey / Aberdyfi and Machynllyth.

Above is 'Adjusting the Sails', another 2 plate linocut, this edition using a technique of scratching into lino to create tone, something I experimented with after seeing the Picasso linocuts at Lady Lever Gallery last year. The name of the print is based on a quote from a lovely card given to me by a former colleague: "We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails".

The entire collection can be viewed online, along with prints from previous years, on flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/hotbedpress/

Venues for the touring exhibition can be found at www.2020printexchange.com

Time to Stand and Stare

One of my favourite poems is well known, in parts. It's called Leisure by William Henry Davies. You'll probably recognise it:

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies                     
                                               

As I contemplate and explore ideas for a forthcoming exhibition in Bury and my 20:20 print exchange editions for 2016, this poem resonates with me. From observing, to cutting lino and capturing a feeling of peace... It's time to stand and stare.

Work in progress images below - concept for a night sea and sky, using tone in lino, as well as a developing twilight view of a Welsh landscape, in 3 plates.

 

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'!

 

Some of my 2014 20:20 favourites

My favourite prints from my 2014 20:20 Print Exchange collection so far are:

Cathy Ferns of Hot Bed Press - her stunning 11 colour linocut:

Alexandra Buckle's atmospheric Brackley Reflections, another linocut, this one from Buckingham Printmakers Network:

Dave Foley's dynamic linocut:

A screen print by Meg Kenny of Limerick Printmakers, called 'Somewhere Out There':

And finally another linocut (am I biased?), this one is 4 colours 'Wild Hops' by Tina Brown of The Hazelnut Press:

The full 2014 collection of all 581 prints can be seen on the Hot Bed Press Flickr site - link below - happy browsing!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hot_bed_press/sets/