'Dad' Lino Print

Today is Father's Day in the UK and I am wishing my amazing dad a very happy day! 

For his gift this year I made a small portrait of him in lino. Here are some photos of the making of the print and the final artwork. 

It is currently somewhere between Melbourne and Scotland and not with him yet....whoops! But soon to be with him hopefully!

x

Mum & Dad circa 1970s

I love this photo of my parents taken sometime in the 70s. For their Christmas present this year I turned it into a wee lino and was lucky enough to be able to give it to them in person, in Scotland! 

'Curly Fish' Printing

Today I got a chance to print a small edition of my 'Curly Fish' lino. I used a pale grey/blue ink, and am rather happy with it!

It will be for sale on my Etsy store soon!

Pigeon Gillian 

x

Inking up...

I always use a sheet of paper to help me centre the image...

It's always a nice surprise when you make your first print. I'm loving this grey colour...

This is the paper that I used for this print. It's super lovely and a traditional Japanese relief printing paper...

My drying rack....I love it!

Only Boring People Get Bored Print For Sale!

I am excited to share that my limited edition print 'Only Boring People Get Bored (Dark Grey)' is now for sale on my Etsy Store here.

These words were spoken to me when I was a child. I was often exclaiming “I’m bored!”, and to my annoyance at the time, I would get this response from parents, family and teachers! Nowadays, I am constantly keeping busy with projects and perhaps these words made a difference after all! This print took me about 3 years to finish, from start end. It was one of those projects that I would pick up when I had a spare half an hour in-between other projects – so it actually prevented me from becoming bored many times!

This is a limited edition of 12 prints in dark grey ink. Each print has the edition number (ie 1/12), the title and my signature.

Paper size is approximately 35 x 50cm, and the printed image is approximately 30 x 30cm.

Spring Flower Print For Sale!

My limited edition print, 'Spring Flower' is now for sale on my Etsy Store here. This single print evolved from a series of ink drawings that I made of fresh flowers. I had gone on a walk that morning and picked some beautiful wild spring flowers from our neighborhood and took them home to draw. I made about 5 observation drawings in about half an hour as my daughter was napping and I had a very small window of time! I love that the quick, gestural qualities of the ink drawing have remained in the lino cut. I think ink drawings translate really beautifully into a lino print; with each medium offering different and unique properties.

This is a limited edition of 11 prints in dark grey ink. Each print has the edition number (ie 1/11), the title and my signature.

Paper size is approximately 25 x 70cm (very long and skinny!), and the printed image is approximately 17.5 x 45cm.

Garden Heart Print All Framed Up!

I got the chance to help a friend frame up one of my prints today in an IKEA Ribba frame. How nice does it look in a black frame!

My Etsy Shop is Open

Hello everyone, 

My Etsy store is open! Whoop whoop! Yes, I am just a wee bit excited and I am feeling a bit proud of myself and super excited to be putting my artworks out in the world!

To celebrate the opening of my Etsy store there is 15% off all prints until midnight, 5th April 2016, Just enter the promo code: HELLOPIGEON15 at the checkout.

www.etsy.com/au/shop/PigeonGillian

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

VISITING DEBORAH KLEIN IN HER STUDIO

A few weeks ago, I organised a school excursion for my Year 11 Studio Arts class to visit the studio of artist Deborah Klein in Ballarat.  What a fabulous morning it was!  Deborah was incredibly generous and welcoming, and shared so much information about her artistic practice and ideas.  The students had brought along their own visual diaries and were able to get some individual time with Deborah, talking through their ideas for their lino project.  Everyone on the excursion felt enthusiastic and inspired after leaving the studio

Thank you Deborah and also to your lovely husband, Shane Jones for making us feel so welcome and for the lovely cake!

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!)