THIRD DAY
Spent the morning cutting paper to size, taping the photostencil window to the right size, setting up registrations – then I began to print grey backgrounds, large and small. The light cartridge paper stuck, but the heavy canaletto paper worked well. Now I have 7 large and 14 small backgrounds to print on next Monday.
Began to draft out some of the things I want to print: names of vegetable seeds. Who named a climbing French bean 'District Nurse' or a pea as 'Gravedigger' ? How were those names handed down? Who wrote them down?
SECOND DAY
More layers added to the bird prints, more browns too. The thrush looks rather angry. Some on paper but also printed the pair of yellowhammer and thrush outlines onto thin canvas. The plan to is cut them out, sew them together using thorn stitch and stuff them with allotment leaves, dead stems or sheep wool – people grazed their sheep on Tenantry Down before the allotments were laid out.
DAY 2
Made my first prints today using a screen-printing technique I hadn’t used before.
I wanted to do a quick mental re-cap of my thoughts & ideas about the work we’d made on the allotment. So working directly onto the screen, first I made lists of “Allotment Words” and “More Allotment Words” – a sort of brain-storming session, printing the lists from the screen with transparent printing medium. Then, still working directly onto the screen with water soluble crayons and pencils, I began to try to transform my thoughts into quick & spontaneous drawings – a new way of working for me. Predictably, the process of printing began to get the creative juices flowing. Now I’m making plans for tomorrow.
FIRST DAY
This morning I felt apprehensive as I packed my bag for the First Day – we are two Artists in Residence again – this time in Fine Art Printmaking at the University of Brighton.
However I walked home with a smile. I enjoyed today. I printed 3 layers of 'the missing birds'. There are few birds on the allotment. I am looking for them.
Day 1 of our residency at the University of Brighton
The start of an exciting month when we will be working in the printmaking workshops at the university!
We spent most of the day today with Ray Dennis who re-introduced us to screen printing. Roz had developed some drawings of birds which she wanted to print, so we slowly but surely went through the process of making up a photographic stencil and printing from it. By the end of the day it all seemed familiar again – despite the fact that it is nearly five years since I last made a screenprint!
I’m interested in pursuing ideas from the allotment about “Finding one’s place” & want to continue to explore ideas about mapping, measuring & marking territory. I marked a boundary around myself and my locker. Tomorrow I’ll start printing.
