Sketches and ATCs

Tuesday Night,
I guess I am still in painting mindset. I treated the ink like paint and glazed areas to get the softening I wanted around the edges. As soon as I added oil to the ink something happened. It became so good to play with; rich, oily and sensual. Who knew printing could feel so good? Using a paintbrush, I stroked the glaze onto the edges of the images and rubbed it into the main areas with a cloth. Now I feel much happier with the way it works with the paper.

Tuesday afternoon,
I worked on the book cover prints again on rag paper. I think I might play with inks to soften the edges of the circles. I find the edge of the blocks too harsh for such soft paper. Stitching might work well too. Hmmm, I should just get on with it as I still have signatures to make and sew for the book.

Tuesday Morning
I am hosting a steampunk themed ATC swap on March 1st. Here are 4 of my artist trading cards from the "Ticking of the clock" collection. I am planning to do some larger scale assemblage pieces on a similar theme sometime soon.

Below are some Pages from my sketchbook where I have been playing around with ideas for prints.

- and my arms still ache.....

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Encaustic Monoprint Technique

Today I visited a printmaking friend's studio. Amy is experimenting with encaustic monoprints. I have never heard of this before so I was excited to have a demo. Here is the basic process: 1. Heat up the homemade heat box. 2. Rub the beeswax pigment sticks on the metal surface of the heat plate to melt them. Create a design on the plate with one or more colors. Step 3. Lay a piece of rice or rag paper face down on the painted design and cover with newsprint. Burnish. Step 4. Carefully pull the paper away from the heat plate. Steps 5-6. Clean the heat plate with paper towels. Add more color to the heat plate and repeat the process to add patterns or more color to the print. The smell of the wax is yummy and the pigments are really thick and rich to work with. I had a little play to get a feel for what the print is like (image below). Now I want to build a heat box and play!!

A Sort of Artist's Statement

This is a sort of artist's statement, but far more boring and long-winded. My current form of blogging is to limit the text to as little as possible. I am lazy when it comes to writing and the blog tends to trickle off when I feel the pressure of having to add words to the pictures. I hung my exhibition yesterday, so today I will ramble a little about the reasoning behind it (and to help me get over the guilt for hardly writing anything in the last couple of months). Please feel free to skip the words and look at the pictures! For a long time after moving to America, I found it difficult to process who I had become and the new meaning of home. I was English, yet found the American "English" language a challenge. This culture that in many ways was similar to my own, is in other ways completely opposite and confusing. I still often experience a shock by a sudden feeling of otherness and a perhaps a reminiscence for the past, yet I relish the possibility of ne...

Longest day

I spent the day at the studio sorting out some piles of mess and racing outside to see if the water to the pond was flowing. The sorting was hard to focus on and the water never arrived. The anticlimax was excruciating! Hopefully the water will arrive tomorrow! This is all that is left from last years fill, the fish and I are very miffed!

Cricketts Inky Art Blot

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