Cricketts Inky Art Blot

After leaving my graphic design job, I was lucky enough to get my portfolio accepted into the Visual Arts undergraduate course in Pittville Art School. Pittville is an awesomely cool campus at the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham, UK. It was a childhood dream to go, not only to art school and paint, but to go to this actual college. I have memories of driving past the college as an elementary school student, thinking how lucky the students were to be able to paint ALL day! The miseries of math were far behind them and that alone sounded appealing. I loved practically every minute of my time at Pittville, it was like everything had finally clicked into place for me. Well almost everything, I was a mess in the print room but somehow managed to scramble at the end of each semester to pull it all together. Ceramics seemed too easy at times, I should have found more ways to challenge myself, but painting and printmaking gave me the stimulation I was looking for and it was goo...

Quick update with the comparison of the blue and green editions. First green, Then (with bad lighting)the blue;

I marked out the areas that I wished to keep black, took a deep breath and hacked away at the last of the matrix. I had originally intended to have a thick black layer, that heavily outlined the peacock. After watching the layers build up, I made a late decision to keep the lines relatively thin. Here is a test run of the black: And here is the final "Green Peacock" print. I will post the blue version with this green one for comparison later.

I finished my transparent yellow layer for the green peacock edition, then moved on to make a smaller edition of blue peacocks will there was still enough of the block to print. For this blue edition, I made a prussian blue and mostly scarlet blend to hopefully add the same level of dimension that I had in the green edition. It is hard to see here, but the red really pops over the under layer of blue. Using the Prussian blue in the blend helped me keep a good contrast to the background, which was the opposite effect to the green peacock edition.

After completing my 2 years in commercial printing, I moved to Gloucester in the UK to study full-time Graphic Design. I have had a love of letterforms for most of my life, mostly down to a family friend who is a calligrapher and stone cutter and through growing up in the leading area of the Arts & Crafts Movement. Alex O’Sullivan is more than just any calligrapher; he is a 2nd generation calligrapher. This means he stems from the father of modern calligraphy, Edward Johnson. Johnson taught Eric Gill the famous typeface designer and sculptor, who then taught Alex O’Sullivan. Alex lived and worked in his studio near our home. We spent many of our summer evenings in the Sullivan’s typical English/Irish cottage garden with him and his wife sharing wine with my parents. For me it was a magical place filled with the smells of drying petals and the sounds of the spring running through the flowers and tree lined banks. I loved the curios within the studio at the end of the garden, all ...

I have divided the prints up so that I have two different editions. The first set I printed up with a translucent mix of yellow. Just clear enough to show a small amount of the blue underneath to create a green. I am hoping to get the feel of the irridescent look of the feathers on a real peacock. Here is the yellow (it looks less green then on the photo). After I rolled out the ink, I dabbe areas that I wanted to show threw clearer. I paid attention to the neck and eye in particular. Here are the results. The green layer 7 is shown in the centre, the blue layer 6 is to the right for comparison.