flora in triptych 2

Flora in Triptych 2 is now finally listed.

I printed this small edition of etchings in April before I went to NY and love the deep richness of those dirty reds. It's a tiny edition of 5 only as with all the messing around involved in inking up and laying three 10x10cm plates exactly on the printing bed, not to mention getting a good print (which means me not bumping that paper before I run it through the press) I would need to be printing for an aeon to have any more. I have a few others from this run that are quite quirky (plates positioned differently) and may list those separately at some point.

What have you been printing?

triptychs and the like

Flora in Triptych - drypoint etching

Flora - close up

Flora - close up

Succulent blossom in dirty blue - drypoint etching

Fragments - drypoint etching

I've been printing! These are recent drypoint etchings I picked up from the studio this morning. They've been there drying under the boards for about 2 weeks. The first one, the triptych, took a lot of painstaking registration work to get those 3 panels inked up and sitting just right. But something in me really enjoyed the challenge. So much so that I have another flora based triptych in the planning stages and if all goes well I'll be printing later this week. Stay tuned!

studio thoughts

2 plate etching

succulent blossom in sepia

etching press

APW studio

my work area - blood bath!

studio buddy's work area

drying rack

I've made my first use of the Australian Print Workshop's (APW) beautiful print studio. What a fun day! For me it was mostly about process and practice, and getting a better feel for the intaglio experience. As a relief printer and screen printer, intaglio is opening up a whole new, delicious world for me in printmaking. At the moment I'm just producing drypoint etchings. I have not worked up the courage to go near the acid bath and do anything that tricky.

Working in a communal print studio like APW's is a pretty wonderful experience. There was a collective buzz about the place as people went about their printing business, but also plenty of conversation and friendly advice for me when I asked questions. Mid morning an art tour group came through and watched us work. While that was a bit nerve-wracking it was also really good to talk to people who wanted to know more about printmaking.

One woman in the tour group asked me if working in a communal print studio had any benefits to working alone. Without a doubt I said yes. For example, yesterday I worked next to a monoprinter. I haven't done mono prints since high school, so for me to work next to my studio buddy all day was a wonderful way to revisit that process. And boy could she produce fantastic Goya-esque monoprints! There were other etching artists working there too so I was able to bug them with questions throughout the day about materials and process. And I got to see their prints together with mine on the drying boards. It was a lot of fun to see what concepts people are working with and how they resolve into prints.

One special treat I had was to work with an ancient etching press [pic 3 above] all day. What a beauty that old lady is! She's hard work to pull a print through but in many ways working like that is also very satisfying.

As you can see by the prints I made above I'm still working with botanical images, specifically succulent flowers. I'm a bit obsessed with the process and evolution of life at the moment and botanicals is the way I want to communicate the ideas I have about this. So there will be more to come!

etching class with Bridget Farmer

some of the work I made at Bridget's studio

Fruiting Habit

The lovely Daylesford sky

After spending 2 days in Bridget Farmer's gorgeous print studio near Daylesford I feel very inspired and energised.
Bridget taught me the ins and outs of drypoint etching and I seriously think I've found a new printmaking addiction. Bridget's work alone is inspiring enough. Take a look at this gallery of some of her gorgeous bird etchings. Oooh la la! Aren't they just divine?

Bridget's originally from Northern Ireland but has lived in Australia for a few years now. Her current home is the gorgeous bushland near Daylesford which is where you'll also find her peaceful printmaking studio. And I can vouch that Bridget knows her birds! Her studio has several enormous windows looking onto the bush and while we chatted over lunch and cups of tea she regularly pointed out various little feathered beauties as they perched in tree branches nearby. I was impressed. My own bird naming knowledge doesn't extend much beyond knowing what galahs, lorikeets, cockatoos and the occasional magpie look like.

And the printmaking! What fun! Working in the etching medium allowed me to unleash my passion for linear forms, something that is quite hard to portray through relief printing, like woodblock or lino. So based on my botanical sketches I printed up a storm of various botanical inspired etchings and got to experiment with colour and shading under Bridget's support and guidance. I can't speak highly enough of the soft and gentle approach Bridget has towards teaching what she knows about etching. It was a really magical couple of days for me.

The good news is Bridget's running classes. So you too can learn about various kinds of etching processes in the peace and quiet of Bridget's lovely bushland studio.

figuratively speaking

I'm a huge fan of Tasmanian printmaker Madeleine Goodwolf and so I'm quite excited that her work will be part of a group exhibition in Melbourne from the end of this week called Printing Figuratively at Port Jackson Press in Collingwood. This is one of her etchings titled the turning of winter. Gorgeous! Now if I could just get over this hideous cold/flu I caught a few days so I'm well enough to attend the opening on Thursday night I will be one happy woman.

insect madness

I just have to share one of my birthday gifts with you. This little etching by the talented Mike Southern of Printman (his etsy shop) is titled 'enter the dragonfly.....my favourite bee movie' and is just soooooooo sweet! There is so much fine detail in this little print. I'm also the proud owner of another of Mike's prints: Dragonfly. Which is just perfect really because it feeds my dragonfly and insect obsession and will look wonderful when framed and hanging in the new house. Speaking of dragonflies, we saw so many of those delightful little creatures over the weekend at the Grampians National Park. I've never seen so many of them before. And for the wildlife record we also saw one echidna (shy little things that they are), 2 emus, many many wallabies, and heard billions of cicadas. I'm not kidding: one woman we saw bushwalking had earplugs in because the cicadas were so deafening!

wild things

Over the Ridge. Drypoint etching by Robyn Rayner.

I just love the prints of Robyn Rayner, a Melbourne printmaker who documents in her work the ordinary weeds and wild surroundings of the western suburbs, as well as the wider landscapes of rural Victoria. Her work is full of the delicate lines and plants and things growing from the earth amongst shadows and clouds and the landscape of south-eastern Australia. I am a proud owner of one her prints, Shady, a group of 16 small prints together. It kind of looks a bit like this one


Neck of the Woods, but the one I have has more trees and weedy things, so generally more lines in it, which I like very much. I also love the colours she uses: soft greys, washed out blues, and pale earthy colours. And I've just found a few more of her prints here at the Framers Gallery website including the one I have, Shady, so I've decided to include it here for you to enjoy:

Shady, Etching by Robyn Rayner.