Life class portrait

Charcoal and chalk. This is well over life size. Not quite sure why we are doing such big pictures. What on earth do we do with them? I just end up storing them in a plan chest.

Life class started

It must be nearly Christmas, the art classes have all started. Quick charcoal drawings to get us back in the groove. 

Lots of making of things

I’ve made myself a printing press, using some kitchen worktop, an old bed frame and a hydraulic jack, as you do. It works remarkably well.

The last image shows a woodcut I have been working on at GPC. Interesting to do, but at the moment I still prefer linocut. The colour in the image is from a mini block.

And to carry on with my sketchbook making, I have lagged together a little bookbinding press, using some more of the bed frame which went into the printing press.

Haven’t used it in earnest yet. I need to get some decent paper first.

New printing class

I’ve started a relief printing class at the Gloucestershire Printmakers Cooperative in Thrupp, lead by Beth Jenkins. Got my hands on an Albion press for the first time. Very easy to use, because someone had already set it up. I was surprised by how little effort it took. I suspect the set up is anything but effortless. Produced a little, single block, multi colour print using a stencil and a new, too me, registration set up. A nice little print of a diving gannet, but I shan’t use it in my Poole birds series. It’s the wrong size.

Cormorant, second Poole bird

I’ve just finished my second bird of Poole Harbour. The cormorant is one of my favourites. Always swimming around me and often roosting over night on a perch near my boat. They always use red port channel markers. The green starboard markers have a pointed top. The red port ones are nice and flat.

I’m pleased generally with the result, but I actually liked the red layer stage the best. Must bear that in mind.