BUDGET WIND UP

An icon of Britain and probably the most famous timepiece in the world, Big Ben towers over that infinitely less reliable institution and seat of British Government, the Houses of Parliament. Famously regulated by the adding or taking away of pennies to its mechanism Big Ben is used all over the world as a symbol for marking the new year.

The British economy is likewise watched the world over and regulated by the adding and taking away of pennies. Once a year the press gets into a lather of speculation and the public into a stupor of indifference whilst those MPs not too inebriated to leave the duty free commons bar trundle into the chamber with all the exuberance of a gang of stockbrokers visiting a strip club.

The Budget is presented by the Chancellor of the day live on national television with all the gimmicks and showmanship he can muster. The MPs harrumph and guffaw appropriately, the heavyweights of the government squeeze in around him cosily and a jolly old time is had by all.

It is of course a total sham. The Chancellor is picked for his maleabilty capabilities and has as little knowledge of how the economy actually works as a sea cucumber does of quantum physics. The average MP doesn't know his GDP from his RPI and the whole thing is cobbled together from stolen school maths exam papers and whatever can be retrieved from the hard drives of rusty old Civil Service computers after the vice squad have finished with them.

The penny slapped on a pint of beer and the penny "slashed!" from the litre of petrol will make the next day's tabloid headlines and the obscure, barely mumbled "reform" of XYZ duty that will actually crap all over the average person's disposable income will not be discovered or unscrambled until the weekend Budget Special pull-outs. By which time England will have been thrashed at a sports event and some celebrity will have climbed out of a car with no knickers on, commending the budget to the dustbin.

The whole event is really just a chance for those who can be bothered, to watch their local MPs reacting in the glow of publicity radiating around the Chancellor; raising a querulous eyebrow, frowning speculatively, looking outraged and generally hamming it up whenever a camera comes in range. This is in stark contrast to everyday parliament "live" on television which consists usually of some obscure geriatric backbencher droning away interminably surrounded by a "doughnut" of wannabes, the remaining half a dozen MPs sleeping off last nights excesses on the plush green benches.

The Budget is like a cut-away window to the intricate inner workings of a stately grandfather clock - the glitter of wheels whirring away conveniently disguising the fact that the rest of the case is just a pretty empty box filled with a old rope and swinging lead.

Monet, Monet, Monet - its a rich man's world...

As the winter drags on and the coins freeze together in people's pockets, Ryepress is having to make some radical financial decisions! High street shops are having a pretty tough time of it and, galleries, being bottom of the food chain get the spiky end of the stick. Sitting huddled over the halogen heater in the studio it has been like a Kamikazi pilot's reunion supper - very few turn up!

So, not to be left behind in the dust and chip wrappers by John Lewis and all those big chains who enjoyed bumper christmas profits flogging sparkly touchscreen gizmos I have laid my paints, pencils and prints aside for a while and have been instead punching the pad and pushing pixels. The Ryepress website has been given a thorough going over and I have been exploring new ways to eke a living out of the ether. 

An interesting article on affiliate marketing from the Guardian caught my attention and I have joined several programmes namely Amazon Associates and Affiliate Window and have been experimenting with adding links etc to my various sites. The idea is you incorporate ads or links from your site to stuff they do or sell and if anyone buys anything you get a commission.

It may not make me rich quick but it might make me poor slow!

B*** me! its now nearly five years since I posted anything on this site! Well... dust off the cobwebs and the pigeon crap. I'm back! Since that last post I have done buckets load of new work including a load of Nudes  - (that'll wake a few of you up!) Starting with this one,,,,

Fallen Angel ....(Red)

It has been a while since I wrote anything but my partner has just started up a blog  and I thought it was about time I re-surected this one! My Information site about Printmaking is going great guns and the new gallery is ... hanging on so its about time I filed you all in!

Demi Moore and Demi Johns

Not to be confused with...

Ok so this is nothing to do with with Demi Moore,but what the hell! it makes a good blog title and has probably caught your attention! By the way I adore Demi Moore (she makes me want to Roger Moore - but I digress...)

Have just purchased 5 ltrs of Dutch Mordant and in desperate need to decant it from its plastic bottle to something less corrode able I dug out a couple of traditional old glass Demi Johns . These are still available from home brewing suppliers on the internet although they are dying out. Holding a Gallon (the meaty UK version) This will at a pinch hold 5 litres - I added any surplus to my old supply to give it a bit of oomph.

I would NOT recommend using a rubber of cork bung in this as the will crumble away in a relatively short time. Glass decanter stoppers can be found at most junk shops - the decanter breaks easily and the stoppers are usually solid enough to take a few knocks - and pretty enough to be kept. A chip or too won't matter and wrapping the stopper in an old plastic carrier bag should insure it is airtight enough.

Ryepress Gallery and Etching studio

Ryepress has now opened in the centre of Hastings old town. Situated in the well known Retro shop in Hastings High street this new print studio and gallery joins a growing collection of galleries in what is fast becoming East Sussex’s newest centre for the arts.

With the eponymous Rye press now installed, the studio will soon be featuring periodic etching demonstrations, with a unique opportunity to see the process in action and buy Colin Bailey's limited edition prints of Hastings, Rye and the East Sussex coast straight from the press.

Colin will be holding printing demonstrations in the etching studio throughout the summer. Please watch this space for details.

The Ryepress Gallery and etching studio will be officially opening on 21st June and from then on will be open

THU - MON from 12.00 - 6.00

DO try this at home! 2nd Bite: ACID!

The scariest part of etching is undoubtedly the acid! Endless films featuring bubbling, steaming bottles and beakers brandished by babbling mad scientists has given acid a bad image. YES! it is dangerous and should definitely be handled with care, especially at the mixing stage. NEVER add water to acid to dilute it - it will heat rapidly, probably spit and possibly explode. ALWAYS dilute acid by adding it slowly to cold water and ALWAYS in a well ventilated room with running water at hand in case of spills.

Nitric acid, which when diluted 1 part acid to 7 parts water gives a perfectly adequate bath for either copper or zinc ( do not use for both as the fumes can be dangerous) is a fast working solution, ideal for beginners, classes and experimental work. It bites vigorously and aggressively and can quickly lose its potency. It also tends to undercut and move sideways making close fine lines and hatching difficult to bite deeply. It tires quickly and timing can be difficult.

Dutch Mordant is an ideal mixture for Copper and can be used for zinc. It bites evenly and slowly, straight down and is very controllable. It slowly turns a bright turquoise with successive use and this can be accurately used to gauge its age and therefore strength.

Ferric Chloride is used for copper. This bizarre solution is, I believe, more of a salt than an acid (I'm actually not too hot on the chemistry of all this!). Looking suspiciously like Worcester sauce it corrodes the plate, leaving a sediment which can impede its action on fine lines unless the plate is suspended upside down in the solution. It will stain anything it comes in contact with a rusty yellow and a few unnoticed spills can reduce anything metal to a crumbly biscuit texture in a frighteningly short time (I have lost a metal bath this way!)

Biting Times

This is the area where the experience bit kicks in. How long should you leave a plate in the acid? The only real way of finding out whether a plate has been properly bitten is actually to clean it off and print it! I have seen many students ruin days of elaborate drawing by removing the plates too early and discovering their etching is a mere spidery faint ghost of what they wanted, or too late and finding that the subtly rendered tones they were hoping for have merged into one muddy, turgid black mess. Overbiting a plate will not just simply make it darker; in some cases fine, close hatching will merge and the resulting open area will have no texture to hold the ink - resulting in pale dusty looking "bald" areas with hard black edges.

How quickly, and deeply the acid bites is a matrix of several different variables:

Age of the acid - Fresh acid will have a relatively aggressive initial phase. Older acid will have a more sustained but slower bite

Room temperature - Acid reacts quicker the warmer it is and in doing so will heat up even more. Allow anything up to 25% longer for cold acid.

Area of metal exposed - An evenly distributed and elaborate drawing will bite quicker and more evenly than a drawing with heavily worked areas and large unexposed areas; the acid will also be "attracted" to the heavily worked areas in preference to individual lines or details.

How long the plate has been worked on - No-one works in a sterile environment and so the older exposed lines will have been in contact with the air for longer. They will have oxidised or have attracted grease from the air or hand. This will mean recently drawn areas will bite quicker and deeper. A solution of vinegar and salt carefully dabbed over the plate with a cotton wool ball will freshen the older lines somewhat.

A formula for achieving an set number of evenly spaced tones:
I used to have a spreadsheet which I am currently trying to resurrect which worked out the exact timings for an adjustable number of tones. I will make it available eventually! (I am presently trying to convert a spreadsheet on my old Psion3a to Excel.... aaargh!!)

In the meantime here is the timing I generally use. In principal it adopts the same mathematical progression as camera shutter speeds or f stops.

1a Initial sketch with simple tones ; SOFT GROUND, Dutch Mordant on Copper - 30 minutes and remove ground

2aSecondary drawing with shadows and more detailed mid tones : SOFT GROUND, Dutch Mordant on Copper - 1 hour and remove ground

Apply coating of hard ground, smoke and do not remove between bites.
HARD GROUND, Dutch Mordant on Copper working from darkest black downwards:

1b First Bite Black - 2 Hr (Total 4 Hr)
2b Then: Darker shadows - 1 hr (Total 2 Hr)
3b Shadows - 30 min (Total 1 Hr)
4b Mid - 15 min (Total 30 min)
5b Light - 8 min (Total 15 min)
6b Light 4 min (Total 8 min)
7b Lightest 4 min (Total 4 min)
8b White

Giving a total of 8 tones including White with a total of 4 Hours biting time
Each tone is double/half the time of the next
Hatching can be "interlaced" to create intermediate tones

Whilst the initial bite and lightest bites may seem extremely separated, remember that as you complete each succesive tone, more and more of the plate is exposed, effectively accelerating the action of the acid.

I always think of acid as working like a group of hungry kids being let loose on an empty sweet shop; swarming around the brightest and stickiest sweets available and devouring them ravernously until too full to move!

Online portfolios

I have been very busy lately maintaining a growing array of Online portfolios - all with their own idiosycratic ways of uploading images, editing and maintaining profiles and ranking systems. Most are free and offer a good opportunity for artists to display their work online and have a fairly stable web presence. Even for artists with their own websites such as myself these online portfolios are a great way of generating traffic and reaching an audience that one individual website cannot.

Of course its not just about taking. To get the most of these sites one has to put back in; commenting on other people's work, offering advice and putting in the time to contribute to the general community. One has to remember also that different nationalities have different ideas on what is constructive criticism - I have virtually lynched on Flickr for daring to suggest that a 10 from an American is about the same as a 6 from a Brit! and that a "WOW!!! Fabulous" from an American will translate as a "Not bad" from a Brit and just a "Well done" or "Nice One" from elsewhere!

Here is a list of the online portfoio site I have so far found: Each link links to my profile page (well I would, wouln't I!) But you can get an idea of the range of these sites that are around and the way in which I have varied my profile to fit the style and conditions of each.

Wet Canvas is good place to start I have posted several articles to their forums and have always been impressed by the response. They also have a relatively new Gallery site: Art Agent
My latest membership is to Voodoochilli which will let you upload 7 images to start with and then gives you upload credits for participation in the community - all graphically represented by a series of chillies!

Art Wanted is another new one for me, 3 images a month and a friendly, responsive and widespread membership.

Other sites well worth a visit are: Artist Online Artists Portfolio Artists.org Allintoart and the slightly girly pink Mini Gallery!

Any artist worth their salt will of course sooner or later come across Saatchi Online although to be honest they have now got so big I hardly ever get any visitors to my page - entering the Saatchi Showdown is a laugh but unlikely to make you famous!

I haven't included some of the local online gallery pages such as The Arts Forum or the 1066 gallery

A constantly updated list of this sites can be found on my website links page

ITCHY ABOUT SAATCHI

Lazy Madonna 2007

Pencil drawing

Well its been a while since I added anything to this blog - I have been busy, honest.

Recently I decided to give the Saatchi online "Showdown" another crack. I had all but abandoned entering anything again after I became disillusioned with the rather bizarre voting patterns that seemed to plague its early days. On entering Saatchi showdown into Google after one particularly surreal round I discovered what probably is the root of the problem:

Endless "vote for me" posts on Facebook, Myspace, blogs, forums etc. It had become more a contest of internet networking and compuer trickery than about whose art was more popular! To be cynical about this, Saatchi has done little to stop people multiple voting, voting down rivals or using proxy servers - and their site has grown exponentially as a result.

Not to be outdone I plugged away at my friends, their friends, family, neighbours and complete strangers in checkout lines with the result that people now cross the street to avoid me.

Several months on and in the relentless quest for site traffic I plunged back in with a small (rather cheeky) figure study I did last year and which I felt might just rattle a few saatchi cages.

Well it came 14th in the previously selected favourites list which leads me to believe that being selected as a favourite probably carries more weight than the rather silly 1-10 voting system.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Quay Question

Quay Question (provisional title)

(In Progress)

20" x 30" Oil on Board

The first of a series of 8 paintings based on patterns of erosion on rocks at the foot of the cliffs at Rock-a-Nore near Hastings.

These paintings will be the beginning of a new body of work; exploring and developing my earlier coastal theme of objects by the coast breaking down through the action of the elements
In these I am "zooming in" on each object to the very blueprint of its construction and destruction, exploring the minute and inconsequential worlds that hide unnoticed within the much larger and more recognisable forms that we see as rocks, fishing boats or groynes, discovering individual continents, islands, and oceans that make up a patch of faded and chipped paint, the canyons and ravines in a splintered piece of wood and the faint maps of ancient coastlines etched by erosion on the exposed face of a rock.

Notes on painting technique
As well as painting with a brush I often make extensive use of sponges, and rags to apply thin washes of oil paint which are then rubbed away or ground into the surface of the painting. Slowly thicker layers of paint are added, accidental marks are not only tolerated but actively nurtured and finally thin glazes of almost transparent primary colours are layered over each other.

DO try this at home!

Plate with Hard Ground (smoked) and finished print

Watchbell Street, Rye

Etching by Colin Bailey

When I first joined an etching class at Working Mens College in Camden way back when it seemed pretty obvious that was not something you'd do at home; draws full of bizarre medieval devices, bottles of evil smelling liquid and walls covered with yellowing uncompleted prints. All this dominated by a huge press that felt as if it had been there long before anyone had thought of putting a building around it.

The class was in the basement down a long dark corridor and entering it felt at times like being the member of a secret sect of alchemists. I was one of the few people to take my plate home with me; carefully wrapped up in tissue. I would turn up the next week, having done all the drawing and spend most of the class stopping out the scuffs and marks that invariably had sneaked in during its transportation. Eventually I managed to smuggle home a small bottle of acid and before long was using the valuable 2 hours a week of the class solely for the precious business of printing.

I ended up teaching the class and have always tried to find modern alternatives that retain the spirit of traditional methods but can be done in the average home. Here are the technoques I now employ, with a few ideas you might not see anywhere else.

Firstly, If you havent't already got it I would highly reccomend you get a copy of:

THE ART OF ETCHING

E.S LUMSDEN

Dover Publications

ISBN-13: 978-0486200491

This was my bible in the beginning - some of the Does and Don't can be stretched a tad!

Preparing the plate
I use 16 gauge copper plate (1/16th inch) from Intaglio printmaker which comes in 500mm x 1000mm sheets polished on one side and covered with a plastic protective sheet. This I cut up (very carefully!) by scoring into it over 50 times with a heavy craft knife and then snapping it away. This may sound a little brutal but I have not had a lot of luck with guillotined plates - however sharp the blade there nearly always seems to be a slight bending or compression of the metal which is almost impossible to straighten and which causes the prints to fade away at that edge. Most of us don’t have a heavy duty guillotine lying around the house and trusting this to others can result in scratches and plates that vary in size and are not perfectly square. I have experimented with three plate colour etchings in the past and this can make the plates difficult to register.

Before removing the plastic coating I lay each plate face (covered side) down on several sheets of newspaper in a well ventilated room or not too windy garden. This none polished surface is then given an even and thorough covering of an acetone based car spray paint. (I used to get mine from a firm in Kings Cross that sold it to Taxi drivers - be careful not to get a none acetone paint as it will come off in the acid. ) That done, I roughly bevel the edges of the plate to a 45° angle using a coarse file. This is optional but I then find it much easier to roll the plate - with less chance of the roller catching the edge. When the print is finally ready to edition I finish off this bevelling with fine sandpaper and polish it up with the back of a spoon which gives a sharp clean edge to the prints.

After removing the plastic coating I clean the adhesive residue off with white spirit and check for scratches. If the plate has tarnished I polish it with Brasso.

Before laying the ground on I degrease the plate. Traditionally this would have been ammonia and chalk but in a domestic situation washing powder works as a substitute (be careful of the particularly gritty ones!). Cream cleaners such as Jif (Now unfortunately renamed Cif!) used to be perfect as they contained ammonia but in our health and safety conscious times this has been changed and they just don’t work as well.

For heating the plate I use an ordinary domestic cooker (Gas is better, but with a bit of practice an electric ring is just as good. Manoeuvre the plate with a metal spatula so it is heated evenly and place it on a flat smooth heat resistant surface (this will get ground on it so check it can be cleaned with white spirit!)

Hard Ground
If you have used the roller recently and it has been kept wrapped in a plastic bag you will probably have enough ground already on the roller. Otherwise draw on the hot plate with the ball of hard ground - about enough to sign your initials 1 inch high is usually enough for medium size plate. The ball should skid across the plate without dragging. Roll the ground until it is even and the plate looks as though it has been coated with golden syrup (thicker than this and it will chip or make finer lines bite unevenly. You may well need to re-heat and re-roll the plate several times. Use the roller in a swooping motion in one direction to pick up the ground, and backwards and forwards to load more ground on to the plate. As the ground cools it will become sticky and hard to keep even. When reheating the plate be careful to remove it just as the ground starts smoking as further heating will cause the ground to scorch and become porous to the acid.

Obviously having a ground the colour of Golden syrup an a copper plate is not going to be that easy to draw on! The ground will be a matt non reflective finish when cooled and the copper will be shiny but I would advise smoking the plate.

Smoking the plate
This involves clamping the plate on one edge with a pair of swan necked adjustable pliers (protect the surface of the plate with a small piece of folded card) and holding it above your head with the grounded surface facing down. This should be done before the plate has cooled entirely. Gently smoke the ground with a burning bundle of tapers (about 10 bound spirally from the bottom with masking tape) so that the carbon softens the wax and is absorbed into it. Start further away from the plate and as the ground starts appearing shiny brush the tip of the flame (about an inch above the visible flame) across the plate in a systematic pattern. This will take a bit of practice but the plate should cool to a uniform semi mat finish. I harden the wax at this point by running it under a cold tap. Any powdery carbon on the surface can be gently rubbed away with an orange polishing duster. Examine carefully for any specks of copper showing through as THESE WILL BE BITTEN!

The surface can now be drawn on using a variety of instruments. I have used an old dart with a pencil screwed into the barrel and presently use a sewing needle threaded through a propelling pencil instead of leads!

I will be adding more about different grounds, acid times and printing tips later!
Colin Bailey
Ryepress

A lot going on out there!

Wooah! What a day... I set out last week to explore the internet, my place in it and scout out the unknown territories beyond my own website with a hazy notion of preparing the ground for my new paintings. Here I am with a blog and on the word of a friend I have just registered with Wet Canvas and am plunging into various forums!

I'm getting an idea now of what blogs, forums and all that stuff is all about - learnt a few tricks and hopefully have shared a bit a bit of information with others.

Haven't managed to do much painting today mind you!

New Paintings: Rockdog's puppies!

I have been working pretty solidly since Christmas on a new set of paintings. So far there are 7 on the go! I find that I work best when I "leapfrog" from painting to painting using the pallete that has evolved from one as the basis for the next and using the time while each painting session dries to bring the least developed painting up to speed. I never quite know when to finish - I always tell people painting in oil is a matter of 5 steps forward 1 step back; when the ratio starts getting even or inverse I call it a day.

These painting are the sucessors to a painting I did just over a year ago entitled ROCKDOG

This came from a month of taking hundreds of photos of the rock formations at the foot of the cliffs at Rockanore in Hastings and focused on the patterns and marks of erosion.

I have been back several times and charted this erosion and the fascinating micro landscapes in creates.

So what is exactly is a Limited edition print?

Limited Edition Prints
The terms Limited edition print, original print and reproduction print are often confusing Artists have always sought to find a wider audience for their work and in the days before modern media made art accessible to almost anyone this meant prints.
Many artists developed various printmaking techniques to produce multiple images of their work, separate and often stylistically quite different from their unique art. The quantity of images produced was at the mercy of the practical constraints of the media used, and the price reflected that. The development of photography and the technology to reproduce images accurately and in almost unlimited quantities posed a dilemma. Printmaking as a means of expression for the artist became separate from printing - the much broader means of producing multiple images from a variety of sources in almost unlimited quantities.

Artists now had two choices:

1 Reproduction prints
Have an original piece of artwork photographed and reproduced in limitless quantities by printers, ensuring a much wider audience but lowering the perceived value, or produce limited edition re-production prints; Limit the amount printed to a specified amount and sign and number each print each print accordingly.

2 Original prints
Work directly in the traditional printmaking media as before, exploring the strengths and weaknesses of each printmaking medium separately from any other one-off medium and then limiting the edition as above.
Recent technology now means the boundaries have become blurred. Artists now have access to computers and can print their own giclée prints. The term printmaker generally refers to an artist producing prints by traditional “hand pulled” methods; is an artist producing digital work entirely on a PC and then printing it out on a giclee printer producing an original print and can he or she be called a printmaker? By the criteria above I would argue yes - but there are many etchers, lithographers and screen-printers that would disagree with me!

Numbering of prints and Artists Proofs
Limited edition prints are traditionally signed and numbered in pencil with the edition number on the bottom left, the title in the middle and signature on the right. It is generally accepted that the printmaker can mark A/P (Artists Proof) on up to ten per cent of the edition So an edition of 100 would have numbers 1/100 - 100/100 and an extra ten marked A/P.

For information on process and techniques please see the pages on Ryepress:
What is an Etching?
What is a Giclée print?

Seacandy jewellery website for Collette

SEACANDY - Handmade gemstone silver and gemstone jewellery with a coastal twist by Collette Murphy

I Have spent most of the weekend working on Collette's website; photographing and updating the backlog of pieces she had made over the last few weeks. In doing so I've managed to squeeze a few of the tricks I've learnt on Ryepress (well hopefully the ones that work!)

Collette:
When I moved from London to the South Coast a few years ago I rediscovered the gem shop my parents used to take me to on seaside visits. This reawakened my fascination with gemstones and became the starting point for a new collection of jewellery designs, inspired by the sea and the constantly changing shoreline.

The designs are usually made in silver with precious or semi precious gemstones and seashells - although sometimes I find ceramic, glass or vintage beads which I just can’t resist incorporating into the pieces. I try to indicate on each page exactly which stones have been used - if they are glass instead of gemstones I will point this out. I also indicate the type of metal which has been used, although this is usually silver.

NEW ST PANCRAS STATION PRINTS
I have made a decision that will probably shock the purists! With the opening of St Pancras as an international station and the forthcoming opening of the Midland hotel , I have decided to reissue my Kings Cross etchings as limited edition giclée prints and greetings cards. In doing so I have taken the opportunity to "digitally re-master" the images ever so slightly and remove some of the more annoying scratches and foul biting that has irked me for years.