Waxed dry points




This dry point has a thin layer of melted wax applied. I'm not sure what led me to make the odd decision to do this. Two years ago I went through a phase of working on wood panels with mixed media and sealing everything behind a layer of beeswax, you then buff the surface to a high shine. The painting then looks like it has been captured in some kind of resin. I think I wanted the paper to go transparent here but it didn't quite work out like that. Hey ho. I'm going to have another try later in the week on a bigger print.

I've used regular parrafin wax which means the surface is beginning to crack. Beeswax is slightly more elastic and giving. There's a random fact for the day.

Of lost voices and printmaking



These are the prints taken from the dry point I was planning in this post. I didn't mean for them to be quite so detailed, it just seemed that once I had started with that needle I couldn't stop. Still, it was a worthwhile exercise I think. It hasn't been put in the artweeks show. I have hung a couple of more restrained efforts.

I've been meaning to post for weeks but I find that in stressful times (as they are at the moment for oh so many reasons) my articulacy fails me. I'm finding it a struggle to put even the most simple of sentences together. I wrote in my diary yesterday for the first time in 6 weeks and managed a paragraph. A concise whinge. None of this is to say I haven't been working on making pictures as I have. Loads. But it might just be images for a while at least until my voice returns.

In which the artist realises she may have bitten off more than she can chew.




I have been doodling in my sketchbook. Woods (business as usual). There's something so magical about them and they work so well as subject matter in printmaking. I don't want this to be a regular dry point print. I have plans for a bit of collage and some watercolour washes. This time I am using a proper zinc plate rather than plexi glass so the line should be that bit sharper. The doodle itself took about 5 days on and off, drawing in the evenings. On the zinc plate I managed a 2 inch square in about 3 hours. The tip of my index finger on my right hand is numb. I thought I had some terrible degenerative disease of the nervous system for about a week and then realised it's from where I have been clutching the engraving needle.

The Mill's annual artweeks exhibition is going up in 2 weeks time and I have spent so much time coordinating everyone else that I kind of forgot that I'm an artist too and also exhibiting. I have decided that I am going to carry on doodling and playing and if I have something to show at the end of it then great. If not, never mind.

Back again so soon?



There are days when I do nothing but answer the phone.
There are days when I spend hours riffling through enrolment forms, chasing up students who just don't want to fill in any more paperwork.
Then there are days when we have a new printing press delivered and I get to play all day!
This is my first attempt at a drypoint print.