Osmosis 2009 closed its doors today after a two week exhibition of works that responded to the landscape and culture of Bruny Island. This was a sort of intermission for me between completing my MFA and moving into life after university.

And so to the prints above!

Over the last few months I have been included in an exchange with students from the Warringah Printmakers in Sydney. The wonderful interactive qualities of the inetrnet have enabled me to meet Rosanna and we have enjoyed an ongoing email contact. So this is where we come back to the prints above.

The exchange has been themed by the seasons, and above are my four prints, summer, autumn, winter and spring, each 12 x 12cm. I didn’t plan the four prints as a set, so they may look a bit like someone has had a split personality problem? Anyway, the last print is an etching that I did while I was doing one of my gallery sitting sessions for the Osmosis exhibition, and is probably the first real print post university that has no purpose other than to exist because I felt like it.

A strange feeling really, and more questions than answers.

The little exchange print is done. I finished it with a gradient roll over a deeply etched plate which gives the horizontal marks that are embossed as well. It is 28 x 17.5cm and the edition is for the SSNW group exchange. It is a great group to be involved with if you enjoy a little chat about print and regular exchanges. This is my first print after university!

I also etched my fan plate again yesterday and printed it on BFK Rives 300gsm. This has been a favourite paper for a while, taking a lot of punishment! It has been interesting to print on 3 different papers and see the contrasts. Next I’ll work on the fan sticks, or at least where the fan sticks should be, supporting the fan leaf, and the area surrounding the fan. This will hopefully start to place the story into some context…. if all goes to plan! Starting a new project always brings up the doubt and insecurity, but this is the first plate, so it will be my ‘working out’ plate if it doesn’t come together.

Year of the Ox, Gentle Ox

Recently I did a print for the Baren ‘Year of the Ox’ exchange. My Gentle Ox is about to head off to destinations all over the world – 54 in total! In return 54 post card size prints will show up in my letterbox, which is a wonderful experience in itself.

I have a couple of prints left from the edition and I am going to sell them in my Etsy shop, Shellac.

i dreamed my little girl, lithograph, emboss, relief print, 2006

In 2006 I participated in an international print exchange. The Birth Exchange Project, organised by Patricia Hunsinger and Sylvia Taylor, embraced the theme of birth as an experience uniting women from around the world. The experience of birth, or of not experiencing birth, has been expressed in the collection of 30 prints using a wide range of printmaking techniques. Accompanying the prints are the artists stories behind the prints, which makes compelling reading. My contribution is the print above and the following few words…

i dreamed my little girl,
with soft red hair;
warm inside,
my baby number five

we weathered a pox
shared through our bondage,
leaving just one little scar; on
my baby number five

alone in our crowd
questioned and shunned
in the game of numbers,
my baby number five

yet in spite of it all,
she is: we are
a beautiful young woman
my baby number five.

The Birth Exchange Project was exhibited in Belfast in May 2007 at the Parragon Studio and there is an old post on my blog about it, as well as some photos from the opening night.

The collection is about to be exhibited again at the Handwerker Gallery at Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York State. Running from January 21 to February 16 it is a really fabulous collection of work to see if you happen to be in the area.

So these days I’m spending every waking hour and many that should be sleeping writing my paper, either in the head or on the computer. So when it is in the head time I can fiddle about with some less demanding prints! Above is one I did for a little exchange organised by Rosanna Jurisevic who runs short courses in printmaking at the Warringah printmakers in Sydney. I also hang about on the Inkteraction website now and then, and check out some of the fantastic printmakers work there. Another distraction is trying to remember to put applications in for the various residencies that come and go each year. Hill End is about due if your into remote inland locations. OK better get back to it!

Recently I had a sad tree story. The front of my house has quite a busy road and all the accompanying grime that comes from cars is rather disgusting, and no doubt very bad for our health. So I have grown a number of big native shrubs to filter the grime a bit, which has worked well, until now! My lovely eucalyptus suffered some damage a few years back in strong wind, and finally gave up the battle requiring a tree feller to come in and take it down. The base of the tree revealed a split and some rot which means it was lucky that it didn’t come down on the house!

Anyway, the absence of the tree meant that other large shrubs got the full force of the spring winds, which has led to more death and disaster in the front yard. I’ve started replanting, and all will be wonderful in a few of years again, but in the meantime I just had to say something about my lovely tree that gave us privacy and protection for so many years. The print above is an attempt at honouring its existence and is an exchange print so it will be travelling all over the world!

Thanks Mr Tree!

Sunset Breeze, 19 x 25.5cm, woodblock and lino cut

So the moment came to put the final layer on the woodblock print. It is a soft orange/yellow colour which ties the rest of the layers together and softens the whole print. It is basically as I had imagined it to be – which is nice for a change! I usually get quite sidetracked in the process and go off track. Not that that is a bad thing – I kind of like responding to the print as it happens rather than being rigid about the perceived outcome.

Now I just have to be patient and wait for it to be dry enough to pack up to send off for sorting in the Baren exchange.

The third layer on my print is a lino cut. I have had some encouragement from Lynette Weir for lino cutting and some great advice about sharp tools and types of lino. She has some very good information on her website and her photographs of the progressive lino cuts are quite a wonderful sight! Anyway, back to my attempt…

I decided to continue using the baren for the lino layer, despite the press giving a more even result. This is because I like the idea of using the baren for every layer in the print, which in itself gives a certain effect – a hand produced effect I guess. It is always tempting to aim for a result that is perfect in technical terms, but then it is also good to have a reminder that it is a hand worked print. So that is my justification! There are two more layers planned for this print, but the ink is quite dense on the lino layer, so I will have to leave it a couple of days before the next layer goes on.

The second layer went onto my Baren Forum exchange print this morning. The woodcut is in plywood that I have given a very light coat of shellac to make cleaning up the oil based ink easy and prevents colour contamination from the previous colours. It is a bit of a scary print as I haven’t actually done any test prints, it is all in the head, and there is exactly the number of prints I need for the exchange! No errors thanks!

Meanwhile the distraction has allowed my head to clear a bit and new ideas to surface or gather to resolve my masters work. Back to it tomorrow!

This is the first layer for the woodblock  print which is for the Baren Forum. I don’t go in a lot of the Baren exchanges because I don’t work in woodblock very often, yet, so I’m not hugely confident. The website has a lot of information on it to answer questions about working with carving, which is a great resource. One of the things that I love about working in woodblock or lino is that it is relief and I can use the baren to print with. I only have the very cheap palm leaf baren, but it works quite well. I find the relief print is so much faster to achieve, no lengthy wetting and wiping that you need to do for intaglio.

Anyway, I intend to print a few more layers on this one, so I will keep you posted! I have also been missing out on plenty of exhibitions around the place, so I am determined to head out and have a look in the next few weeks.