Each print suggests something of the rhythm and pattern, and music and movement found within Elgar’s landscape around Hereford; perhaps an orchard with its regimented rows of apple trees, the gently flowing hills, or his love of the river.

Salmon Fish: I particularly like this example, one of many small designs drawn up to size. It has used musical notation as basic design elements – the staves, semibreves, crescendos and diminuendos!  However, I soon got frustrated with the lack of colour available through my markers and had to learn how to apply colour in Photoshop - surprisingly satisfying to learn, after more than a few false starts.

The final version of the Salmon Fish - a screenprint done with Procion Inks.

The energy combined with an easy-going style in Hearld's prints really ispire me.


I'd love to know how to do these mono-prints. CAN'T be difficult! I like the energy, the disregard for literal interpritation, the limited colour palette ...

Spent the day trying to work on the web-site. I nearly gave up. But I'm in the blog through the web-site - something of an achievement. Had a change of heart yesterday with the tote bags that I'll be printing on. Watch this space!

Two frustrating weeks filled with time consuming fruitless excercises! I guess the learning curve was there. The early prints I did were all a wash-out, quite literally. I've been working with procion inks and fixative - the more fixative I add the less effective the final result is. The fabric needs washing at the beginning of the process, a couple of layers of print and washing at the end. It doesn't take long for time to get swallowed up.

It's Friday evening. I scanned in work today so that I can work on the web-site. That took a couple of days to plan and learn. Hope to get that finished by the end of the w/e and gain some ground here.

Should be ok - but I haven't got any more days to slip away all but unaccounted for.

But some of the stuff looks good - I'll try and get more prints up soon. Even that is time consuming!

This is an early attempt at finding out what a book would look like to communicate Elgar’s time in Hereford. I found it a very literal interpretation and felt restrained by the confines of a book – and so soon moved away to more abstract design. However, it had interesting elements and some that I took with me to later stages of the FMP.

Front Cover - to be! (Actually the inadvertant spill over from one of the inside pages.)

Each page has layers with move visual information which emerge as you flick through the book.

Wednesday - did some Life drawing - to help me get up to speed and to get into college.

Thursday we did some screen printing - excellent and inspirational. Tutorial on Friday was thought-provoking in a subtle way ... I think I need to get back to the basic brief but also find the bigger picture of where I am going. It's happening though.

Love the patterns (here are two of them), the gentle colours I'm coming up with, and the mis-register.

Mural

Hannah Nunn has a great selection of lamps. The collographs would show up well with this.

Also like Beatrice Coron's work - although there are more interesting examples. She does lots of cut-outs and manipulates paper and light. Makes me see that there's milage with the first idea I had.

FMP Easter Update

A bitty 2/3 weeks. Did some on-line research, and began to play with colour. But Reluctantly I had to give in to social demands - ie my lovely family. I enjoyed the enforced mental break ... but getting back into the creative flow is painful and hard work.

However I went to the Tinsmith's Gallery a couple of times to see Angie Lewin, Mark Herald and other artists - which was inspirational. I got to meet Angie Lewin who signed my book. She's lovely. We also met a letter press printer in Ledbury who generously allowed us to browse his shelves and trays of stuff. A working museum!

The John Piper exhibition in Cardiff was totally different; almost abrasive. I would love to incorporate some of his style into the fmp. And I managed a happy afternoon at Cardiff Library - it's spacious, light, modern and a well-stocked library where you can buy snacks and coffee, and settle at a table at the same time. Very pleasant!

fmp 2

The promise to do the blog every Friday didn't materialise. But I think it's a good idea - so I'll persevere.

Mon 26th March: Having decided my work was too much 'creating a picture' rather than illustrating - I decided to research ways of introducing a suggestion of Elgar, rather than literal interpritation. Also because I like Retro - I looked up Lucienne Day's work. In the afternoon, re-worked a collograph. It's much better. All round, a productive day.
Tue: Morning - tried to finish my book. I've decided not to follow this route, and so needed to round off what I'd started. I didn't enjoy doing it, I felt I was wasting time and was quite despondent. Afternoon: Xavier Pick, a war reportager spoke to us. Very interesting as he had spent time 'at the front' despite his values being otherwise. I found his work surprisingly literal - and was confused as I felt that I'd been discouraged from following this kind of illustration.
Wed: Popped in on the off-chance to see Steve (cereamics) - he said it was fine to call in. Decided to work with my dried flowers which were at the media centre as I wanted a more intergrated approach than sticking on transfers. (Later I realised sticking on transfers is the best option available at the moment.) So did the initial web building with Christine (which was excellent), picked up the dried flowers and spent the afternoon in ceramics.
Thursday: The best day - Karoline Rerrie came in. She was amazingly generous, not only with the freebies, but with her information. Really helpful - and great to chat with her in the afternoon with the other 3rd years.
Fri: Did another page of Lucienne Day inspired patterns, if you can call it that as I've now done at least 6 pages and have moved on. Had a tutorial with Becky. She confirmed my decision to move away from the book and into more abstract design. Went to private opening and met Angie Lewin in the evening - what a lovely lady!
Mon 2nd April: Discovered I've lost my work book. It's not at college or at home. :-(

fmp

I have researched two projects, and visited two museums: Big Pit nr Abergavenny, and Elgar's museum nr Malvern. I'd like to do them both. After talking to my tutor last week, I am going to run with the least favourite, Elgar, in the context of Hereford. I would like to finish this b4 easter, at least the bulk. 

Fri 16th: Planned out a gift book to include Elgar quotes and Hereford influences.

Mon: Collograph prints of swallows w/Roger. Results are ok - but uninspired, I feel. 

Tues: Cut-out tree, took me all day. Ordered paper

Wed: Cut-out Bridge and torn-paper b/g.

Thurs: Group tutorial. Tutors liked the torn paper b/g which flummoxed me! Photograms of hedgerows in pm

Fri: I'll try to fill out the blog on Fri. Although I've worked hard, I am very unsure of the results, I think a little tame? I just hope I'm getting rid of the dross now. The constant rhythm of elated enthusiasm mixed with an unconfident deflated attitude is hard to work with.

Add caption

roger duvoisin "literalness and realism are to the illustrator what the cage is to the bird'

Charles Keeping

john burningham

roger duvoisin

Brian Wildsmith

John Birningham

john burningham

roger duvoisin "freshness, force and interest can be lost when precision and detail are brought in."

Brian Wildsmith

Belated up-date

Neil put a vid. clip onto facebook highlighting the need to set aside time to enable the creative flow. And honestly – it takes more than a day to get into your stride on big projects. I know if I put the dissertation down for a few days (actually my 1^st attempt which I tackled thoroughly)  – it takes at least a day to make sense of the strands, and that’s before making decent headway. I wish I could be more proactive and change the situation – but I can’t see how. It’s something Kim and I have already chatted about. I work on a Monday afternoon, and my weekends and evenings are almost totally sabotaged by family – but I don’t have any totally free days until the end of term. And that’s an issue.

B/w House, side-on, Hereford

Public Library

I think I've assimilated Quentin Blake's style - oops. Still looking to discover my style.

Becky, jo and someone - I'd like to photoshop pattern into these figures

Development of Bloody Chamber

I tried Lino cuts and collographs. although to some extent they worked for the other stories, I wanted to capture a more sinister immediate tone - and so, in exasperation, almost accidently worked this image of the heroine and the marquis, which led to a set of three strong images in quick succession. I was delighted!

 I looked at variations for the background, including using the score for the opera of which the Marquis was so infatuated by. btw, it took a long time to get the writing right.

 

These were the second and third ideas - so many strong images here dripping with violence, anger and broken dreams. I would run with the torn splattered music, if I could find suitable juxaposition to work with in the other two stories. Haven't found them yet.

  Sorry about the layout - maybe I'll get better at it!

This was challenging because The story is Angela Carter's attempt at humour. It runs at a very different pace to the other two stories and is about a cynical view of life according to a cat - who, incidentally is in nearly every paragraph, so I felt a liberty at not including his picture.

The quote is:

I like the contrast of the two figures; the clean untouched lines of the first, and the smelly domineering feel of the second.

There were lots of images and thoughts which preceded this final image. Although I like it, in itself I am not 100% about it. I'm not sure if its because it doesn't flow with the other two - or it hasn't as much weight. I'm trying to work it out and bring it up to the level of the other two. I'm not sure.

... the pious trot to church ...

Somehow I feel like a Rocket. All that energy and support in getting lift-off and finally exhilarated at the reality of leaving earth. The ties cut ... the freedom ... but not so sure about the trajectory and the whole thing is liable to crash once the fuel runs out! Anything could happen!