3rd/ 4th February 2016 - RESCUING A DISAPPEARING IMAGE!

I have been working on a new stone to add greater depths of tone to the stone below.

The idea was to take the prints from the stone above and print on them again the image from the stone below.
The difficulty though will be in registering the prints accurately on the new stone!

Here's the second stone showing areas of increased tone in the alcove area of the image and on the walls behind the 2 columns.The stone was etched lightly the week before after it had been drawn. I etched it again using a variety of acid strengths (Atzol on dark areas, 50%  diluteed strength atzol on the mid tone areas and home made GA solution on the lightest areas ). The stone was rolled up with non drying ink and left to rest overnight.
However when the stone was revisited the next day the image was really pale and some of the detail originally drawn had been lost!

Serena (my tutor) had suggested taking proofs using litho ink initially. A couple of proofs were taken but things were still looking really pale ...I added some extender to try and thicken up the ink but that did n't improve things much either!
 After consulting Serena she suggested printing with some Charbonnel Velour Noir ink which is notoriously difficult to handle as it picks up every grease mark on the stone (including the ones that you dont want!) - (however any extraneous unwanted marks can be treated later with acid to remove them).
The ink does though give beautiful velvety texture and is useful in picking up any faint marks that are not behaving (like those on my stone). It was frequently used by Braque so I am in good company!

A turpsy rag smeared with the ink was wiped briskly over the stone.

The gum was washed off and a mixed combination of velvet noir and litho ink was rolled on the stone using a glazed roller. The image was still slow to appear so the stone was chalked and gummed and a thin layer of asphthaltum placed.

12 proofs were taken - rolled up slowly with velour noir- the first few were quite pale so the percentage of  velour noir ink was increased so by the time I got to the last few prints there was hardly any litho ink used and it was practically 100% velour noir.
The stone was then chalked and re inked using slow deliberate rolling. A thin layer of GA was then gently dabbed on with a sponge and then dried. Here's the gummed up stone showing a vast improvement in visible image and tone density than when we first started!

The marks produced were interesting as they were not exactly like the ones drawn. The stone was left to rest and we will proof it and register it next week.

25th/ 27th and 28th January 2016 - Mail Art Project with Leicester University MA Curation Students

Myself, Nina (my fellow litho fellow!) Sumiko Eadon and Theo Miller ( two other artists who are also residents at LPW) spent an interesting 3 days collaborating with 20 MA Art Museum and Gallery students from Leicester University. Five students were each assigned an artist and their brief was to select a print that each artist had made and consider a means of disseminating it as a mail art project. After a short and interesting lecture by Dr Isobel Whitelegg  about the mail art movement we were divided into our groups to discuss how each artists' work might best be curated and disseminated. I had a very interesting and multinational group with 3 students originating from China another from Chile and another from Switzerland.

                                           
                                                           My group of students

I showed the students several examples of my work, (all lithographs focusing on Brutalist architecture - specifically Park Hill the Grade II * listed Sheffield council estate). The group then aimed to find fellow artists or institutions that might have a possible shared interest in my concerns with the idea of sending them a print through the post which might facilitate future dialogue or collaboration.
Here is the print they selected:

We were limited to the number of people that we could send the prints to as I only had 6 proofs of this print- so  3 arists and 3 institutions were chosen. The students came up with some text to accompany the print - a short statement and bio about myself and an email account that the recipients could respond to the work if they felt so inclined.

Our next issue was to design an envelope to send the print in and we came up with the following design:

I stuck the prints on a square of mountboard to give them some support and also blind embossed  a piece of plastic I had found which replicated the banisters of the balconies at Park Hill to give the envelope some interest.

                                    Plastic used to blind emboss a decorative border



 A brown luggage tag was added to seal the envelope and it was stamped 'Original Lithograph' using letter press and an LPW stamp.
Here is the finished product:

                   
                              Finished product with blind embossed decorative strip and tag


The envelope was then placed in a brown envelope and posted - we will await any response with interest!