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.