From the top, the first block is printed in a deep purple, the second block is overprinted with primrose yellow and then a close-up of some of the crowd of passengers at the bottom. It’s looking fine at the moment but this is where it all went wrong last time….
I’ve decided to give the new London Bridge linocut a bit of a rest for now and I’m back to wrestling with the Liverpool Street Station one.
I remember that I was quite happy with it before Christmas but not anymore. So, I’m just doing a bit more cutting and some tiny colour adjustments. A little light tinkering should do the trick…..
I wonder if I’m suffering from some sort of delusional disorder?
I’ve finished cutting the block and taken the first proof of it. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this now.
I was thinking of an early morning scene, with those beautiful pale colours and pearly light but in that case, a dark chocolate brown was probably not the best start….
So this view is of London Bridge train station, currently being torn apart in the name of progress. Network Rail in their wisdom have decided to take this beautiful Victorian roof down and replace it with (and I quote directly here) “An eye catching roof-scape, made up of undulating canopies”. Oh dear.
And alas, you won’t be able to see this panorama again either, as the old footbridge between the platforms will be replaced by underground tunnels.
Anyway I’ve had the drawing for this linocut ready for a while now and thought I’d better get going with it as quick as possible – a last hurrah for poor London Bridge Station…..
This afternoon I’ve been getting to grips with the colour separations of my next linocut (it’s of my favourite station, London Bridge). I find it helpful to get the basic areas sorted out in advance, as I like to see an even distribution of colour over the whole print.
Of course what’s really exciting is what happens when the inks overlay one another – all sorts of unexpected colour combinations start appearing like magic. Using four colours will guarantee lots of surprises (and, let’s be honest here, the odd shock too).
Tomorrow I start the cutting….
Here we have a corner of the studio where old paintings go to die. I’m kidding – they’re just waiting for another session (of torture) on the easel…
This is day two of the Photo a Day Marathon and I’m wondering – surely I should be getting the weekend off?
But I guess that’s not quite in the spirit of the thing….
I’ve had an idea (yes, I know, make the most of it). I thought I might post a photo on my blog every day this month – of the studio, work in progress, the odd private view, etc. And as February is the shortest month, that would mean I’d only need to do 28 posts.
Actually, that’s quite a lot, put like that. Perhaps it should be more a case of posting every day until I get bored. So just the six posts then….
Yes, it’s that time of year again when I bang on about applying for membership of the RE, a.k.a the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers .
If you’re interested, you will need to fill out an application form and return it (with a cheque for £30) to Bankside Gallery, by Monday 4th February. Hand-in date for delivery of portfolios is Friday 15th February. (The porfolio should consist of eight prints, together with some supporting material, either a sketchbook or six drawings.) More details can be found here
And below is what I wrote last year about the best approach to putting a portfolio together, in case you missed it or, most likely, would really enjoy reading it all again:
1: Keep things simple. You only have one chance to impress and now is not the time to show how versatile you are. I know it’s tempting to put in examples of all the different aspects of your work but you only have one chance to impress. Random pieces that do not relate to the main body of work are pointless – try to keep the look fairly uniform.
2: Presentation. All applicants are expected to be professional and it’s very important that the work is presented to the highest standards. It goes without saying that all the work should be clean – no crooked mounts, no dirty or creased margins. If you don’t think your work is worth presenting properly, then there’s no reason to think anyone else will.
3: Supporting work. Make sure it is relevant – don’t put in life drawings to support urban scenes, as I once did. You want to reinforce the thinking behind the work and hopefully increase the appreciation of it. If you don’t use sketchbooks, then try to show examples of the process you’ve used to get from the initial idea to the finished piece.
4: CV. Make sure it’s up to date, relevant and preferably on one page – a good exhibiting history obviously helps but so does an interesting project, residency or commission.
5: Don’t get discouraged if you’re not successful – people sometimes get in on the first try but it’s much more usual to have several attempts. The panels who review the portfolios change all the time and what gets turned down one year may well be accepted the next.
And good luck to all those willing to give it a go – fingers crossed….
This past week or so I have been a prisoner in my own home (although to be fair, my long neglected painting is progressing)…
With only one operational arm, I am unable to drive to the studio, let alone use this…
Or even these…
Because this 70lb monster barrelled into me and knocked me flying off my feet on to some handy concrete…
Resulting in a bruise stretching from my elbow to my shoulder (and let’s not forget the cracked rib).
Sigh…
Following on from my blog post, Getting Your Work Out There, I’ve had a couple of questions regarding open submission exhibitions.
So why should you enter this type of show in the first place? A few reasons:
1. If you’re successful, it will expand your exhibiting history and may even prove to be a step towards an invitation to exhibit elsewhere.
2. It provides an opportunity for lesser known artists to hang alongside international names – always a bit of a thrill, unless you happen to be squashed between a couple of other nobodies….
3. There are often awards and prizes on offer so if you’re lucky enough to win one of those, that too looks good on your CV.
4. And if one of the selectors is the owner/director of a gallery you’d love to show at…. well, it’s a longshot but you never know.
And some reasons why you shouldn’t?
1. The cost of entering can be high – the RA fees at £50 for two pictures is not cheap. Also if you don’t live within easy reach of London, where the majority of these shows are held, then the cost of transport can be prohibitive. And once you get in, if you don’t sell your work, you’ll still be out of pocket as you won’t recoup your costs.
2. A CV with nothing on it but open submission shows is not too impressive – you need to get some variety – and there may come a point in your career where you should stop entering any but the most prestigious ones…
3. It certainly gets your work in front of some important people but obviously if they don’t select it (i.e. they don’t like it) then they aren’t likely to remember it (unless it’s so bad it’s been burned into their retinas).
4. And be aware that almost none of these exhibitions is entirely open submission – the percentage of invited artists varies but can considerably reduce the number of non-invited works hung. You have to research the numbers (not always easy to find but they’re out there) and decide for yourself whether it’s worth it or not.
Here are a few open submission shows that I’ve always liked (obviously the first on the list is the most well-known and in my opinion, the best):
RA Summer Exhibition.
This is the UK’s largest open exhibition and it attracts huge numbers of visitors. Over 1000 works are exhibited from an entry of over 10,000 (although when you consider that there are 80 Royal Academicians and 41 Seniors, all of whom are entitled to exhibit 6 works each, well, you do the maths….)
There’s always lots of national press coverage (not always positive, I have to admit, but you can’t have everything.) Even I was featured in the Sunday Express one year – although I made the mistake of mentioning my three children and the whole article made me look like a 1950’s housewife, squeezing in the Art between boiling potatoes and washing nappies….
One of the most popular and prolific printmakers I know has enjoyed a conspicuous lack of success at the Summer Show. Finally he got in with a fantastic etching, sold out the edition (of 150 gulp!) in a few weeks, the RA used his image for one of their cards and has not got a look in ever since…
And another colleague got in on her first try while still at art college – unfortunately it took her another seventeen years before she repeated the feat…
As for me, the year before last I had no luck at all, last year I got both in, and this year I’m fully expecting another rejection. It’s nothing personal…
So, yes, the RA is a bit of a lottery but if you don’t try at all, then you definitely won’t get in. And if you do, it’s great fun.
Bite
This is the artist’s print show which the Mall Galleries host every year. It used to be called Originals, and long before that, the National Print Exhibition.
There are lots of prizes and a catalogue. It costs £12 per entry, with a maximum of 6 entries, though only 3 will be hung. This might sound odd but a friend of mine, fed up with rejections every year, decided to load her car up with six of her extremely large abstract woodcuts and enter them all. She only got one in (perhaps she wore them down) but she was delighted.
All my printmaking friends, almost without exception, have exhibited at this one over the years – I think it’s the biggest national open submission exhibition solely for prints.
The Discerning Eye
The majority of the exhibits here are paintings, I’d say, but there are always a good range of artist’s prints too. Only around half of the exhibited works are from the open submission however – the rest are invited by the selectors. Again it has lots of prizes.
On the other hand, the selectors are always high-powered art world people – each selector has their own display and I think it results in an interesting collection of work. Your work could get chosen by the likes of Albert Irvin (2012) or Eileen Cooper and Brian Sewell (2011).
And you never know, you might get to meet them if they turn up at the PV but be brave – you will have to introduce yourself….
Mini Print Exhibition
This is run by the Printmakers Council (PMC) and is a biennial, touring show. There’s a full colour catalogue which is sent free to all exhibitors.
It costs £22 to enter three works but you can deliver them unframed as the organisers will frame the selected work themselves. That’s got to be a bonus for artists outside the South East.
Be aware that your print and ten copies have to be available for the exhibition for up to two years and it has to be truly tiny, 8 x 10cm, but then it isn’t called the Mini-Print for nothing…..
I guess the moral is don’t enter an open exhibition unless you’re confident that success will potentially advance your career in some way – you just need to be selective and to cultivate the hide of a rhino…..