Light and Dark, Sun and Moon

Winter Solstice: Sun and Winter Solstice: Moon
Wax, collage, feathers and stitch 2018

For several years now I've taken part in Surface Gallery's excellent 'International Postcard Exhibition.' I really like this project as it's a great way to start a new year; it's manageable, affordable and a great way to test out new ideas and get them out into the world. Technically I ended the year with this project as I made my postcards last month but the exhibition is this month so I'm going to let myself off.

Winter Solstice: Sun
Wax, collage, feathers and stitch 2018

As I've been experimenting with wax and collage recently I decided that I would use the postcard show as an opportunity to create a couple of small pieces exploring this technique. I've also become very interested in using the sun and the moon in my work over the last year or so (continuing my interest in dichotomies) and again thought this would be an ideal opportunity to experiment a little with these ideas.

Winter Solstice: Moon
Wax, collage, feathers and stitch 2018

I made a pair of postcards, they're designed to work together but I think they also work apart from each other. I made them on the solstice, being inspired by the idea of the turning point of the year and how even in our 'advanced' technology saturated lives the cycle of light and dark is still so important to us.

Winter Solstice: Sun (Detail)
Wax, collage, feathers and stitch 2018

Winter Solstice: Sun (Detail)
Wax, collage, feathers and stitch 2018

Winter Solstice: Sun and Winter Solstice: Moon
Wax, collage, feathers and stitch 2018

One postcard is entitled Winter Solstice: Sun and the other Winter Solstice: Moon, representing the dark and the light, night and day. I love the way cloud can diffuse the light of the celestial bodies, creating an ethereal effect and I wanted to try and capture this in my pieces. I used metallic paper and layers of tissue paper, all held together with wax. I tore rather than cut the paper to try and capture that hazy quality. It's been partially successful and I think it's an idea worth pursuing. I incorporated feathers in my pieces to represent us and the importance of our relationship to the light and the cycle of the seasons and of night and day.

Winter Solstice: Moon (Detail)
Wax, collage, feathers and stitch 2018

Winter Solstice: Moon (Detail)
Wax, collage, feathers and stitch 2018

Winter Solstice: Moon (Detail)
Wax, collage, feathers and stitch 2018

Although theses postcards haven't come out exactly as I'd hoped it's given me a start on some ideas I've been wanting to explore for a while and I hope that over the course of this year I will be developing this work further. In the meantime, if you're in Nottingham do go and look at the show and see the amazing diversity and skill of all the artists who've submitted their work.

Playing with Printing

Lino Print Bird

I've been having a bit of a play around with making some prints this week. I was given a small bit of lino to test so, obviously, I did a small bird. The lino was the easy cut stuff which is meant to be easier to cut (clue is in the name) although I'm not convinced it is. The downside to it is that you can't draw on it in pencil, so you need to be fairly confident about what you're doing and unlike 'normal' lino it doesn't have a hessian backing so is quite flexible, which is OK until you start working into it a lot. Because of this I kept it quite simple, not gouging too much out as I didn't want to go right through it.

Having made my lino cut I made a few prints on different types of paper, just using black acrylic paint as I didn't have any printing ink. I was quite pleased with how the prints turned out, I think they're quite charming in a naive sort of way. I wanted to keep the prints together but I didn't really want to do a big design sheet so after experimenting with a few ideas I mounted them all on sheets of dark blue textured paper and sewed them together to make a little book, I think this finishes them off nicely and makes them feel a bit more special than just a group of individual prints.

Book of prints and lino cut

One of the prints on an old envelope

Second print, using up ink from the previous print

I also had a go at making a really simple printing plate by using a ball point pen to draw on a piece of cardboard. This plate obviously breaks down quite quickly but I got a few prints from it and today I stitched into one of them. The stitching just finishes it off and takes it from being a simple print to a piece of work. I've been working as a support worker for Prism Arts recently, supporting a series of printing workshops which is what inspired me to start playing around and I can see it's something I could really improve and develop as part of my work. Also, it's really fun!

Cardboard plate and prints

Print embellished with stitch

Detail of stitching

In preparation for the first of my life drawing sessions on Thursday I've been trying to do a bit of drawing every day. Yesterday I had my Eden Mencap Society art group in Penrith and I wanted to do wax resist with them so I did this blackbird drawing as an example, killing two birds with one stone as it were. We were given a load of black paint over summer so for the past few sessions we've been doing a lot of monochromatic work, they've produced some lovely work which you will soon be able to see over on my website (www.delicatestitches.co.uk)

Wax and paint drawing