Transition

I've been working on this little print over the last few weeks, for another blog that I am part of, Art Club. My submission is posted here, but below is some more detailed photos about the making of the artwork.

The theme for Art Club was 'Transition' and I chose to look at the transition between night and day/day and night. I love these times of days when the sky becomes bigger and more magical somehow!

Hope you like the print!

Gillian

WIGGLE YOUR BIG TOE LINO, QUINTEN TARANTINO THEMED ARTWORK

Hi everyone, 

For this month's Art Club theme which was Quinten Tarantino, I wanted to make something that addressed Tarantino's foot fetish.  Have you ever noticed how many shots of feet there are in his films?  No?  Well there are!  I quite like drawing feet too, so I did some ink drawings of a few different feet to start this project.  I feel he has a particular affinity for Uma Thurman's feet, which I decided to feature in my print, from the film Kill Bill.

This artwork was a little experiment in moving away from the size number 1 lino cutting tool - and venturing out into cutting tool number 5 - a slightly bigger and chunkier tool.  I tried it and I'm not sure I really like it....but at least I tried it! (I know this sounds incredibly pedantic!)

Hope you like, Gillian 

The original ink drawing, which I transferred onto the lino surface using eucalyptus oil and the print press...

Uma Thurman's wonderful feet from the scene in the film...

Carving the lino block...

The cutting tools...

The scene from the film.  I love this little bit of the film...

WINTER DAVE PRINT

Hello everyone!

Yesterday I made my 'Winter' submission for Art Club, which is a portrait of Dave - a lovely friend in Melbourne who is the uncle of even more lovely friends.  I think Dave is a terrific human being and for a while I have been wanting to make an artwork using his face.  I originally took some photos of Dave way back in 2011 and finally decided to use these photos for this month's theme.

  The artwork is a lino print/cut, measuring 30 x 30cm.  I started the process by playing around in Photoshop and manipulating the image to have lots of dark shadows.  Dave is also wearing a wooly jumper which I also added in Photoshop.

I also attended a workshop at the Silk Cut factory in Highett yesterday, which was ran by the wonderful printmaker, Heather Shimmen.  Heather makes lovely layered prints with incredible detail, and was incredibly generous and sharing with ideas and tips for novice printmakers like me.  She introduced the class to working on a gesso surface on the lino surface - which I hadn't tried before.  Some of the marks on Dave's print are due to the gesso paint brush marks - which I think work really well with this image.  

Hope you like (I'm a bit chuffed with how it turned out)! 

Gillian x

Cutting the block...

The original photo of Dave....taken way back in 2012! (Yes, it takes me a while to get to working on projects, but I eventually get there!)

'GARDEN DRESS'

Hello everyone, here is my submission for this month's theme for Art Club which was 'Garden'.  It is a little lino print titled 'Garden Dress'.  I just finished it yesterday after a little day using the press at school.  I was led by the idea that our bodies are like gardens and can grow and mend in such an amazing way.  And particularly female bodies - as we can grow babies! When I was researching  found an image of Adele in an amazing red Valentino dress which led me to making the initial ink drawing which I've included a photo of below.

Hope you like it!

Gillian x

Repetition/Beardie Men with Wooly Jumpers

Hello,
 

I finally got around to finishing up this month's (cough, last month's) art work for Art Club which was, 'Repetition'. 

 

I was back in Scotland in July last year and came across a curious little book all about traditional knitting patterns, see here.  In the book were some pretty groovy looking guys that were modelling the jumpers. I loved their cool haircuts and the facial hair combos, as well as the beautiful patterns of the jumpers.  I took some photos of the book during my visit for use at a later date, and ta-dah, I found a use!

I started this project way before Christmas by doing some ink drawings using brushes, and being quite free.  I loved the marks made with the ink and the quality of the line.  After playing around with a few different faces, I settled on this fella to make into a lino print.  I originally began drawing his face onto the lino via the tracing paper method (in reverse etc), but soon realised that the lovely quality of the ink was lost.  I then had a brainwave - why didn't I just draw with ink directly onto the lino surface!  I wasn't sure if it would dry and not smudge, but it worked beautifully.  It was such an obvious technique that I was annoyed for not having thought of this much, much sooner!  I think I have found something that will really work for me.  I love both drawing and printmaking, but so often feel that the 'stiffness' of lino can work at odds with the drawings.  If I were really clever, I could carve into the lino without drawing any lines on there directly, but I am simply not brave enough and I also know that I distracted very easily!  Alas, I found something exciting!  I also like the idea of taking blocks of lino out and about on drawing excursions then carving back at home.

 

'Repetition' can describe the repetition of the patterns on the jumpers, or the very repetitive act of lino carving and printing.

I am pretty happy with this chap and plan to do some more lino cuts based on other ink drawings that I made.  I like the idea of having a series of these beardie men in cool jumpers!

 I hope you like it!

 

Printing...

 

Lino detail...

 

I made a few drawings using black ink....

The original ink drawing of the one I took into lino...

 

Original source photographs from the book (with Gracie hovering around)...

POCKET MURDERER - ART CLUB SUMBISSION

Hi everyone.  As you know, this month's Art Club theme was 'Device Vice'.  I have to be honest - I struggled to think of what to do this month.  Somehow I got onto the idea of Axe Murderers - the device being an 'axe' and the vice being 'murder'.  A long shot I know, however, this idea lead me to find out about Henry Lee Moore who was an American serial killer in the early 20th century.  He was rather viscious with an axe, and killed his very own mother and grandmother, along with an entire family.  You can read more about him here.  Out of all of the axe murderers that I could find online, Henry Lee Moore had the most interesting face and hair!  This recent interest in axe murders combined with another recent urge to try painting a 'pocket friend' on stones lead me to making a pocket murderer.  My submission this month is a very miniature artwork.....hope you like!

RECENT ETCHINGS

In March I have been attending an etching night course at the Australian Print Workshop in Melbourne as part of a follow up session from an earlier 3 day workshop that I attending in January this year.  The course has really consolidated my understanding of copper etching and I also trialled aquatint for the first time.  One really nice thing about participating in the two courses is that I can really appreciate etching in greater depth now because I can understand some of the processes.  

I am hoping to lead some copper etching in senior art classes at work and hopefully I can play around a bit more myself.  

Oh,  and I also invested in some 'Oriental Blue' printing ink for the last week of class - I love it, well and truly!  That's why all of these prints are in blue.  It is a lovely shade of blue.

This etching is titled 'Melbourne' and the original drawing was created when I was on a school excursion recently at  Skydeck in Melbourne.  

This etching is the same image that I trialled in lino earlier this month for a lino print as part of Art Club, see here for the post.  I was curious to compare the two different printmaking techniques and how they would work with each image.  After trialling both techniques I have decided that I like both etching and lino printmaking but for different reasons.

This was the artwork in lino....

I later applied an aquatint on top of the original copper etching.  I like this image, but it is really just a trial to see how aquatinting worked.  I would like to play around with it some more I think....

PICTISH WOMAN BY GILLIAN NIX

This is another Art Club submission of mine from more recently.  The theme was 'body'....

I came across this image in a book at work a few weeks ago.  The book was titled 'The Decorated Body' by Robert Brain which immediately caught my eye because of this month's theme, Body.  

I found the image above with the following information:

"A romanticised sixteenth-centuary view of a tattooed Pictish woman, by Theodore de Bry after John White.  According to Julius Caesar the ancient Britons were tattooed with animal patterns, and it is possible that the word 'Briton' is derived from a Breton word meaning 'painted in various colours".

  How very interesting!  Apparently, Pictish women were valued much differently compared to today.  They were the royal heirs, they fought in battles and the most interesting of all is that it was common for female Picts to have their bodies fully tattooed.  I love the idea of women being completely decorated with animal patterns and floral tattoos which immediately gave me some visual ideas for this month's project.

This month I have been running some life drawing classes for senior students at work.  A few times when I wasn't too busy helping students, I was able to do a few quick sketches of the life models.  This particular pose I rather liked, and chose to develop the drawing for this idea. This is a relief lino print.  (I'm sure that you are fully aware of my slightly obsessive relationship to lino - I love it!) 

I had a few difficulties when I was printing this lino.  The irregular shape and fine lines gave me many headaches, but I got some prints that I am reasonably happy with.  Hope you like it!

Gillian 

Here is the carved piece of lino...

The original life drawing sketches...

COLLABORATION FACES BY CHRIS & GILLIAN NIX

I'm back blogging a little as I kind of forgot to post these here earlier.  This submission was part of the 'ART CLUB/AROUND THE KITCHEN TABLE' project, for the month which was 'Collaboration', and I created the collaboration with my lovely husband, Chris!

Hope you like them....

We got the idea for this project after seeing some online images from an exhibition called 'The Rituals', including the work of Melbourne based artist/designer Beci Orpin.  

We completely ripped off their idea of each artist having to make an image centred around the eyes.  We began our process by finding a head template (see below) and we both came up with a design for our own 'face'.  

Chris's face is a development of one of his characters - he has tonnes of them doodled in sketchbooks and on scrap bits of paper.  I'm a little bit obsessed with patterns at the moment, and this particular pattern is one from a mug that I have at home, and is an 'Octopus' pattern someone told me once.  I don't know for sure, but I like it.

Inking up...

We used a different print press than normal.  This one is a bit like a spongey sandwich toaster and you squeeze the lino and paper together for an even print.

"SQEEEEZE!"

The magic reveal...

"SQUEEEZE.....!"

I wasn't very happy with the alignment, ha ha!

We tried a few different colour variations...

All the prints lined up and drying...

Our favourite print...

The original templates that we used to create our faces...