Signal Studio - winding down

At the end of the seventh week in the studio, I finally finished my paintings. I was able to sign the larger one below a bit of scrim on the front, but for the smaller paintings I just signed the back as it would be impossible to paint my signature on the heavy texture which covered the canvas.

On the Monday of week 8, I used the last piece of grey paper on which I had been doing pastel drawings. Though I could have brought more of that paper in, I decided that it was a good time for me to refocus. Besides, all the pastels needed a spray of fixative - so I did this at the end of each day before I left.

I took down all my reference photos and pastel drawings and hung up the finished paintings (and the canvas on the right, which had not been painted!).

During the final three weeks I decided to stick to my routine of at least having three things that I would focus on daily. I continued doing a self-portrait in the morning and started a series of tiny watercolour pencil drawings. I had a small pad of Strathmore watercolour paper postcards.

I was thinking of doing a series of drawings where I would use an eraser to draw on a ground of graphite. However, the toothy Fabriano paper I was using did not allow for a solidly dark ground and made it impossible to erase back to white. Though I was happy with the final drawing of persimmons, I decided not to continue with a series at this time.

Instead, I decided my time would be better served by doing sketches for possible lino block prints -- a projected series for 2019. In order to get started, I taped several sheets of paper to each drawing board.

For the most part, I fitted two to-size drawings on each page. I realise that the more detail that is in the initial drawing, the more successful will be the final print. I am looking forward to continuing this work in the coming year.

Good Morning - more work on lino prints

In the past few weeks I have been making some headway on my small book project Good Morning/How Are You? As I mentioned in a previous post, this will be a series of very limited edition (10 each) multilingual handmade books. The concept is existential with images to be reflections of comfort, companionship and renewal.

The first three books in the series will be in English, Irish and Spanish. I had to redo one of the Irish lino blocks because I had miss-spelled the Irish for Good Morning - i.e., Maidin Mhaigh is correct.

I was happy with the new test print.

With my trusty bone folder, I scored the margins for all the pages that the lino block images/texts will be printed on. This took awhile, as the Strathmore paper is quite heavy.

I also set up a more careful registration system - I had just been eyeballing it on the test prints.

Printing without a press has its own satisfactions.

Conas atá tú? means "how are you?" in Irish.  

One of the images for the books is two mugs.

A teapot is the ultimate symbol of comfort for me.

I had a good day of printing today! Here some prints are drying on the living room floor.

Good Morning. How are you?

I've started work on a small, hand-made book project. Very simply, the books will be less than 10 pages , five of these pages being lino prints (two text, 3 images) and each book series in an edition of 10. Each series will be in a different language - starting with English, Irish and Spanish. The first & last prints in the book will be simple texts "Good Morning" and "How Are You?" The three other prints, separating the texts, will be simple images - a teapot, two mugs, a boiled egg. Existential breakfast. Here goes. Tools for printing.

Trusty wooden spoon technique rubbing the print into being.

The inked lino blocks after a series of test prints.

Lino-blocks and test prints.

I have decided the final books will be printed on heavy Strathmore paper and the cover will be corrugated cardboard. I will bind them simply, using the Japanese stab-binding technique, with a different coloured cotton thread for each language edition. Here are the test prints for the Strathmore paper. I have since been informed by trusty, Gaelgor (Irish-speaking) sources that I made spelling errors in the Irish text for "Good Morning" (should be "Maidgin Mhaigh") so I am cutting a new lino block today. But here are the Strathmore paper test prints drying.