Collagraph printing

Over the last week I have been experimenting with inking up techniques.

I have found that I needed to increase the pressure of the large press to 1 still with the 2 newsprint papers and 2 inch sponge.

I used no drying agent but 10% easy wipe, however, 4 days after the prints are still not dry. Today I used 3 pipette drops of drying agent and about 8% of easy wipe yet found that the ease of the ink is too malleable, so I will try it with more drying agent and no easy wipe tomorrow.

Images are to come, just waiting for them to dry...

Geology of Yorkshire

I have been having a sneak peak at the geological structures in Yorkshire.

I am ordering a book of geology in Britain as well as most of my experience is with South Welsh geology. Some of the structures are already fascinating but I need to first look and travel around Yorkshire itself.

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Renee Van der Stelt

'How can a drawing affect and shape space in a new way? The works on this site seek formal and conceptual ways to assimilate drawing into the sculptured form. In recent years, I have also become increasingly intrigued by how we think about space through mapping strategies and cartography as well as NASA and satellite images.

The sculptures/drawings are produced through cutting or repeatedly puncturing the surface of the paper with a pin or shaped punch. The resulting images and forms describe space in both diagrammatic and topographic ways. Depending upon the direction of the light and the placement of these forms in space, these visual maps appear as two and three dimensional dots, low reliefs, or points of light. The drawings, which can also be considered sculptures, suggest the globe and our galaxy. They also explore strategies for mapping three dimensional space as well as movements around the globe such as wind, water currents, or bird migration patterns. They reveal the biases and limitations of how we think about space as well as of how we use maps as a tool to perpetuate those ideas.

While in residency at the Roswell Artist in Residence Program from June 2008-2009, the work focused in part on the mineral resources available in the geographic region: specifically the location of water, oil, gas, and electric lines. The desire to understand complex systems of local and global human interaction with natural resources is what lies behind the abstracted drawings/sculptures. If successful, when seen as overlapping images, there is an attempt to give the viewer a broader understanding of the region.

Additionally, ink and graphite drawings exhibit a more intimate, response to the land by literally tracing the movement of varied grasses in the wind. The drawings of flight patterns in the sky made by Cranes, Bats, and Starlings from locations in New Mexico attempt to find fugitive visual lines in space. And works capturing the transient movement of raindrops on varied days or in different storms show another form of transient drawing. The drawings are simple attempts to capture hidden movements in space through the practice of drawing.

The cliché verre drawings (seen in the mixed media section) are created through scanning and enlarging cropped sections of 4 x 5” ink blot drawings to become large lamda prints. The resulting images resemble deep space photographs from NASA or satellite images of planets. Once again, they reveal the biases and limitations of how we think about space as well as of how we use technology as a tool to perpetuate those ideas.

The digital block prints (seen in the digital drawing section) explore how space and lines are ‘drawn’ by the specific placement of the blocks, but also by an altered perspective. The block diptychs change from a traditional to an aerial perspectives, alluding to Google-Earth views of urban space. How does satellite photography affect the way we conceive of personal and urban space?

Drawing is a visual mark of any kind in the most basic sense. In representing some thing, we are always representing ourselves: we both seek to capture an existing thing, but create a new one in the process. Paper is a widespread support for drawing, and drawings are generally two-dimensional. While interested in these traditional notions and strategies for drawing as a practice, I am also very interested in following new practices that may extend the definition of what an active life of drawing encompasses.'

Renee Van der Stelt

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Chris Nau

Having done the blind collagraphs I have become interested again in the use of shadows. This was initially begun in Foundation with the end of year exhibition piece.

Textures and layering in the landscape is one of my key interests, however, Chris Nau's pieces have inspired me to look more in to installation and follow up the projection work I was doing earlier in the year.

'Cutting entered through my drawing practice as reminder of the real within the fictional space of painting and drawing. This came from a part-time job as a painting restorer from 2000-2002. A painting of a landscape, for instance, depicts an illusion of depth. Punch a physical hole in this painting and this illusion collapses, and the object-ness and material of the painting dominates. In the process of restoration, I controlled the threshold between what was real and physical and what was illusion because I controlled the brush that in-painted over the patched hole to “restore” the image. In some restoration projects the moment of crossover was breathtaking and spectacular, stopping me in my work to simply look at the paradoxical image in front of me. I made this in-between stage the main subject of my work.

To intensify the presence of this in-between place as my subject matter, I began “stacking” opposing elements within my work, especially in the more sparse monochromatic wall-cut drawings. I explored the real and illusion; the creative and destructive; light and shadow; space and object; drawn line and cut line; natural and mechanical etc.

The wall-cut drawings became for me the crossroads of these stacked opposites.

Both the paintings and the wall-cut drawings explore the impermanence of all forms.'

Chris Nau

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Travis LeRoy Southworth

His works intrigue because of his statement; not only are they interesting in themselves with their erratic marks and the beige palette, but Southworth is a digital retoucher. He is used to removing the blemishes in photography and promoting perfection, yet his drawings are far more about celebrating and even enhancing them. A celebration of 'undesirables'?

'Detouched is a collection of abstract portraits. My professional work as a digital photo-retoucher, which involves eliminating imperfections such as blemishes, shadows, dust, and other “unsavory” elements in photographic portraits, influenced this series. The final works are created from the physical “flaws” that one uses to define oneself—wrinkles, moles, blemishes, and stray hairs—which are often removed from commercial portraits. Each face is digitally erased except for these imperfections, which now seem to float in a white void. This new configuration no longer bears any facial resemblance. Instead it suggests a nebula or celestial body, revealing connections between one’s own physical markings and those of the cosmos.

Detouched is divided into three series—Single Portraits, Composites, and Studies for an Aggregate.'

Travis LeRoy Southworth

Website

Douglas A. Kinsey

The Reality of Somewhere Else 3 - Drawing Charcoal, 2009

The Pushback 7 - Drawing Charcoal, 2009



The Borderline Revisited 8 - Drawing Charcoal, 2009

Pushback 18 - Drawing Charcoal, 2009

Jacobs Ladder 2 - Drawing Charcoal, 2007


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Myspace

'When looking at my work the viewer should consider them as configurations of spiritual geography. In this manner I refer to them as, “Interior/Exterior Landscapes.

The primary blue or black shape will refer to geological forms found in the geographical landscape. As such they mark and delineate borders much like a rock cairn would. This marking indicates a place of spiritual solace and a point of reflection. Their intention is to make deep soul contact.

My intention is to explore the subconscious symbols of an “interior” spiritual reality when consecrated by the borders of “external” physical reality.'

Douglas A. Kinsey

I find the use of edges and crack communicate landscape to me.
They are clearly abstract works yet how can they embody an environment such as the landscape that is so often captured in a literal and idealistic manner?

Jennifer Mcgregor

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The space in these drawings are what interest me.

In my own work I draw / paint beyond the edges of the paper to communicate vastness but have also experimented with drawing well within the parameters of the papers edge. I wish to explore this further.

"Future Memory in Place" Art Project

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Today I worked on Catrin Webster's project "Future Memory in Place".

It was a fantastic day and I learnt so much, initiating so many ideas for ways to put the arts as well as other subjects in to an interesting context for Primary school children. I worked with other art students in years 6, 5 and 1. I also learnt about the fantastic folding canvas contraption... which I shall be shamelessly stealing in the future Catrin!

I hope to work in some more schools as I thoroughly enjoyed working on a 'real' arts project so directly. I have had experience installing and invigilating for LOCWS over the last three years, however, this project is so much more hands on and engaging. It has also given me that much more confidence for my Arts in Action project in June.

Arts in Action

So today I went to Clase Primary School for the induction. It was a school buzzing with energetic teachers who were very excited about engaging with the project I have written.

The class I am with is a year 6 group and three special needs children, as the school as special needs units for things such as autism. I am very lucky that the class group will be a maximum of 20 children. Another bonus is that the children are currently working with water as a class theme so I am going to plan the lesson around this and when they go to the beach it can put in to context what they have learnt. Also, a very exciting thing for me, is that the next project the teacher will be doing with them is erosion. I am excited because this is a specific interest of mine so I am going to introduce them to types of erosions and geological features at the beach.

The class teacher seemed really enthrawled and it has made me work harder again as I want to create resources worthy of arts projects next year as a workshop leader.


Also Friday I am doing a school based arts project with Catrin Webster, a fantastic artist and teacher who works in the landscape. I aim to absorb as much information and tips from her to help guide me through the next few months, especially whilst I am doing the lesson plans for next year's job.

My time in Iceland

All this fantastic coverage on the volcano has caused me to look back at the photographs I took whilst out in Iceland myself.

I have a great interest in the geological features, as they are so active and prevalent, in Iceland and in the future I would love to secure funding to study the landscape over there. It would be an ultimate ambition to work there for a few months and respond directly from and with the landscape. I am also going to see if I can go on a geology fieldtrip again in 2012 or 2013 but plan on far bigger projects than the first time I went out there [which was more about absorbing the fantastic place and putting my geological studies in to a physcial and real context].

Lithograph Video

I am becoming more and more interested in printing methods and am currently reading 5 printmaking and drawing books and kept coming across the phrase lithograph. When I had asked our print tutor he told me it was done with stone but I couldn't fathom how this was done so I had to see it, and I came across this video.

It has ignited my imagination and I am knee deep in books and the moment and shall report back with some fantastic imagery soon...

Icelandic volcano further updates

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Once again Iceland lets off some phenomenal steam, ash and more.

The images of the volcano that has been updated today are inspiring but also put in to context the sublime power that the earth has and how insignificant we are in comparison. The first image illustrates the severity of the ash fallout so far and just how large this volcano is.

Apparently the volcanoes ash has begun being a problem for the airports around Europe, I am hopeful for a repeat of last year where there will be no aeroplanes in the sky, but I highly doubt this having researched the new protocols airports have put in to place.

Paul Jenkins

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The paintings of Paul Jenkins have come to represent the spirit, vitality, and invention of post World War II American abstraction. Employing an unorthodox approach to paint application, Jenkins' fame is as much identified with the process of controlled paint-pouring and canvas manipulation as with the gem-like veils of transparent and translucent color which have characterized his work since the late 1950s. Born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1923, Jenkins was raised near Youngstown, Ohio. Drawn to New York, he became a student of Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the Art Students League and ultimately became associated with the Abstract Expressionists, inspired in part by the "cataclysmic challenge of Pollock and the total metaphysical consumption of Mark Tobey." An ongoing interest in Eastern religions and philosophy, the study of the I Ching, along with the writings of Carl Jung prompted Jenkins' turn toward inward reflection and mysticism which have dominated his aesthetic as well as his life.

Dr. Louis A. Zona, Director
The Butler Institute of American Art

Phenomena Blue to See By 1987
watercolor on paper 43 x 31 inches 110 x 79 cm

Vertebrae Cosmique 1954
ink on paper
21-1/8 x 14 inches

Untitled 1954
21 x 14-1/8 inches

Sun in Scorpio
poems by Joyce Wittenborn
ink drawings by Paul Jenkins

Untitled 1985

Phenomena Mistral Veil 1970
acrylic on canvas 120 x 96 inches 304.8 x 244 cm

Phenomena Kwan Yin 1969
acrylic on canvas 88 x 119 inches 223.5 x 302.5 cm

Phenomena Uranus Burns 1966
acrylic on canvas 85 x 70 inches 216 x 178 cm

Phenomena Yonder Near 1964

acrylic on canvas 116 x 63-1/2 inches 295 x 161 cm

Phenomena Yellow Strike 1963

acrylic on canvas 80 x 40 inches 203 x 101.6 cm

Phenomena Yellow Eye 1962
acrylic on canvas 39-3/8 x 32 inches 100 x 81 cm

Phenomena Over Albi 1960
oil and enamel on canvas 77 x 51 inches 195.6 x 128.5 cm

Divining Rod 1956

oil and enamel on canvas 54 x 38 inches 137 x 96.5 cm