Friday 23 March 2012

My print for Spike Printmakers exhibition - CHROMA

This week I've made way too many excuses to get out side into the sunshine - the dogs need a walk, the weeds need attention! . . . . and haven't been in the Print Shed as much as I should. But, yesterday afternoon and today I've knuckled down.

This soft cut lino is Fantastic. It cuts like a dream and takes pencil marks readily. It's more vinyl than Lino but who's worrying about that.

This means writing the text goes much more smoothly that usual. And as for cutting it - knife and butter spring to mind.
Does smudge a bit though.
1st proof. 

I took a proof as soon as I'd cut the main outlines, just to check how it reads.
Cutting and proofing. 

A requirement of the exhibition is that it's a single colour print, and the paper size is 38 x 28cm. 
I'm looking forward to a morning of paper buying tomorrow, so I can finish this in time to deliver to Spike Print Studio by Thursday next week.

Monday 12 March 2012

Build and Bake at River Cottage

Wasn't yesterday fabulous? Warm sunshine and blue, blue skies - lunch in the garden at Mum and Dad's - spring has finally sprung.

That was in stark contrast to last weekend when down in Devon an extremely lazy wind blew straight through us at River Cottage, where finally, Mr B received his Christmas present. A workshop day at River Cottage, building a clay oven and baking bread.

We drove down late Saturday afternoon (under grey skies), woke early Sunday morning (raining cats and dogs!) not an auspicious start. Arrived at River Cottage HQ cold, wet, but really quite excited and looking forward to our day.

Obviously it's a little disappointing not to be in the Barn and using the commercial kitchen, which burnt down recently, but the effort that everyone at River Cottage has made to get things up and running and to look after visitors couldn't be bettered. We had an Ab Fab day!

We started off in the 'field kitchen' which was surprisingly warm and well equipped.
After coffee and a little pep talk we started making our bread, all the while listening to the rain hit the roof, sounding not unlike the smattering of pebbles flung against a door.
As soon as there was a break in the weather we shot outside to nip down the hill to dig up a bit of clay! . . .
. . . returning back up the hill to make the former for our oven.
Mixing clay and sand to to cover the former.
Having a little warm up in the yurt, 
while waiting for our pizzas to cook in the mobile clay oven.
Returning to the kitchen to attend to the bread.
Back outside, and now the wind has blown away the rain it's a gorgeous sunny (if blustery and very cold) afternoon.
. . . . 15 minutes later, shooting back inside to see how well our loaves are doing. Needless to say we're all pretty impressed!
Back outside again . . . to make a door for the clay oven.
And, at that point I snuck back inside to warm up, take a quick peek at Neil prepping lunch, and find a cosy corner to check out the books.
Table set for a late lunch.
At the end of our day we're each sent home with a River Cottage handbook, and the knowledge of how to build our own clay oven - just have to allocate a space in the garden to build it.
While I wait for Mr B to construct our oven, I've been making use of my kitchen, ta-dah!





Monday 5 March 2012

An Inventory Of Al-Mutanabbi Street

I finished my part in this project last December and it really was an exciting project to be a part of.

Now the Centre for Fine Print Research, UWE, Bristol, have created a page for the Inventory Of Al-Mutanabbi Street project. It explains the artists' book project and also hosts a gallery showing fifty of the artists' books that have been received so far. Just click on the gallery 1 link at the top of the page and once in the gallery you can click onto individual book images to see more views and read the artist statement for that book.

Throughout 2012 the remaining book works will be sent to CFPR and in total there will be 260 extraordinary individual artists books.

There is also an exhibition at the Westminster Reference Library running from the 1st to the 17th March, An Inventory for Al-Mutanabbi Street: Artists' Books Exhibition and Film Nights.