Curwen summer school

What a fun week at the Curwen, attending their summer school. Monday was spent on a drawing day with Chloe Cheese, starting with Chloe showing some of her lovely work and talking about her inspiration.

Chloe is the daughter of Bernard Cheese and Sheila Robinson, both artists who lived in, and were part of the Gt. Bardfield groups of artists.

Chloe asked us to do 5 minute sketches of an object with certain types of printing in mind. Lots of interesting things to draw!

My pencil sketches haven't photographed well as they were light lines. Then we spent longer on one object using colour as well, I chose a fabulous shaped piece of flint.

This was sketched and painted using Brusho powder paints. I hadn't painted for ages so it was fun. Later we went outside and sketched anything we liked. There are lots of interesting sculptures in the grounds, I took lots of photos.

I loved this one.... and this... Chilford has it's own vineyard.

On the 2nd day John Mills, sculptor, spent the morning with us sharing his prints and telling us how he became an artist, which was very interesting. A modest and extremely talented person.

We spent the afternoon on drypoint, working on acetate. I printed these jugs.



My welsh gaudy jug and a modern design...

This one has chine colle on.

They both need some sort of background printed round them.....I'm doing some open access days at the Curwen next week, goody!! 



Plan chest

At last after missing one I wanted, in July I managed to buy a lovely old plan chest on ebay. There were 43 bids in total, so a bit frantic!! My last second bid won it. I thought the delivery would take some time, but was surprised when the carriers wanted to deliver it on July 20th, 2 days before my final open studio weekend!! Not ideal as that week was already busy, but they came early in the morning, right on time. It looked pretty clean but decided it would be best to clean it well now, before I filled it!! It turned out to quite dirty, needing an all over wash twice, even the drawers inside and out. Then lots of beeswax polish and elbow grease.

Rather a large piece of furniture to have sitting in the middle of my studio, but I made space for it and it proved a useful place to display the necklaces I make.

It holds all my prints, paper, lino etc. which has meant the beds upstairs are no longer covered in prints!! I filled it quickly, now when I have a moment or two I will re organise it so I know exactly what's in each drawer!! Sadly I couldn't fit in a visit to Art in Action that week, I went last year for the first time and loved it.

Curwen exhibition

I am back online after weeks without my laptop, which sadly crashed completely, no hope of resurrection! So here I am on brand new laptop, getting used to it and catching up on everything. All because I have a wonderful IT guru, my son in law Mark who set up my new laptop and is always patient with his Mum in law!!

So much has happened in the last month. My printmaking course has ended and we held our end of course exhibition at the Curwen on July 12th. The day before was hectic,cleaning the floor!!! and setting up our boards.

 My boards are nearly ready.

On the Tuesday it was assessment time with Stanley Jones and Chloe Cheese, we each had half an hour with them to show and discuss our work. It was a very positive and helpful experience although slightly nerve wracking; eminent printmakers with years of experience looking at my prints!! At the end of the day we were presented with our cerificates; I passed The Advanced Printmakers Certificate with merit, that was exciting!

The evening exhibition was a big success, with lots of visitors.

including my grandson and daughter....

........of course, he really enjoyed all the prints..........an art lover in the making!!

Actually, he was more interested in crawling around, a new skill he had just discovered!!



Cambridge Open Studios

My first weekend was a success! Luckily my sister came to help me, so I could concentrate on chatting to people. I had some lovely visitors, interested in my work and wanting to know more about the various printmaking processes. I enjoy sharing my exciting journey with others; sales were good, the sun shone and the wine and elderflower cordial were enjoyed. The Sunday was quieter but it meant I could keep an eye on the Wimbledon final now and again. So, a very busy, exciting weekend.

My studio looked good and my work went down the hall and spread into the dining room as well.

Here are some of my cards that I sell, printed from my original work. My welsh gaudy jug....

....my aerial view......



and my spotty shoes. I'd like a pair like these!

Chaos reigns - Open Studio soon!

I love working in my studio, it's a lovely room that was a large dining room when I bought this house. In those days I made soft furnishings for clients and it was ideal for laying out the enormous curtains I was making. When I returned to teaching it reverted to being a dining room plus teaching prep. place. On my retirement - hooray!! I at last had time for my art so it became my studio, which soon seemed too small. I decided to make it bigger by using the store room behind it, which involved knocking down a wall! Here it is before the building work, this was my Open Studio Christmas 09.

The wall has been knocked down!! It was great to see the extra space I would have, with the window and the door to the garden. 

But what a mess! this was my 3rd phase of building work last year, all dovetailed round my open studio events by my builder Matt. It was all worth it!!

How big it looks with not much in!!

Fantastic to get my books organised.

So that's how my studio came into being. Back to a different sort of chaos!!

I even had help one morning from my grandson Barney, just 1 year old!

With Barney starting to crawl, it will be fun in my studio!!

Cambridge Open Studios happens over 4 weekends in July. I am opening for 3 weekends, the 1st one July 2nd and 3rd. I've tried to get ready early as I'm also preparing for my end of course exhibition in July. Another day at the Curwen tomorrow, week 8 which is a personal development day. I must sort out what I'm going to do. I'm so tired I nearly fell asleep watching the tennis earlier!!

Week 6 at the Curwen

This was another day on photo screenprinting. First a cup cake print from last week.

This is quite appropriate, as Sue Jones our tutor has nick named us the cake group - we do seem to need cake and sweets to keep our energy levels up!!

I played around with different colours:

I don't know what got in that photo!! I love screen printing, it's fast once all the preparation of the screen is done and it's great trying out different colour combinations. Another fun day!! Such fun that I sneaked in on an extra day at the weekend - Open Access and more photo screen.

This is my 'tea' image, drawn on truegrain like the cup cake print. I printed it in some great colours.

              I also printed some plain backgrounds on another screen to overprint next week. It was an interesting day with some stone lithography going on, which I'd never seen before. I find printmaking fascinating, with all the different processes that are involved.

Monoprinting day

On Saturday I went to White House Arts in Cambridge, http://www.whitehousearts.co.uk/ where various art and craft courses take place. My course was monoprinting with Valerie Armstrong. It was a fun day using Caligo inks, trying out different techniques such as transfer drawing, negative images, painterly prints and using masks and textures. Here are some of the results of a great day playing with colours and effects.

More birds.....

and more, smaller birds using paper stencils.

I  used stencils (just rectangles cut from paper) to create some monoprints loosely based on buildings.



I like the effect of layering different colours and textures - this one used some fine, lacy fabric, paper and overprinting - good fun! Another busy day printing. I should also mention the delicious soup made by Caroline. We sat out in her garden by the river in the sun having lunch; very pleasant.