Printmaking

 Printmaking has always fascinated me, and like most people, I got my first taste of it at high school. Here I was introduced to lino prints and screen prints. Both are simple forms of printmaking, although I think screenprinting (with a paper template) is trickier as you have to make sure all pieces are connected with ‘bridges’ so they don’t just fall out.

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Elvis

Richard Grieco

Model in advertisement

 Keanu Reeves - all circa 1992

Over the years, lino printing was an easy way to make fabric prints – I did butterflies for my first kombi curtains - and made special greeting cards for friends and family.

I revisited printmaking seriously in 1999, when I studied for my Certificate III in Drawing, where I made this series based on scenes of my family home, called Corners and Floors. Newly renovated, our house now had floorboards to complement the VJ walls, which created a spacious feeling, as well as providing interesting design lines. Shortly after this, I did one of my sisters house, also newly renovated.

At the TAFE exhibtion, 1999

My sisters house

And now, over 20 years later, I return to lino printing again. In my journey towards abstraction, it has helped me find a way to explore my photos of kelp from my King Island Artist Residency in 2019. There were photos that were beautiful, but I couldn’t find a way to interpret them in textiles as I did others. So I printed some photos out in black and white, A2 size, taped them to my window, placed plain paper over the top, and traced them into simple black and white designs. This allowed for a lot of artistic licence as there were many greys, but I had to decide where the boundaries between black and white lay. I coloured the tracings in so I could tell the difference between positive and negative space, which can be confusing when it gets quite detailed. Then I carbon-traced them onto lino blocks, before beginning the cutting process, whilst referring to the coloured-in copy to make sure I was cutting the right bits out. It’s a very enjoyable, meditative process – scooping away at the lino with cutting tools. I love the smell, too.

Black and white original photo

Pencil tracing

Cutting in progress

Finished lino cut, ready to print/emboss.

I’m looking forward to exploring a few new print processes with them too, such as blind embossing, where no ink is used, they are just rolled through the press at a tight tension to create an embossed effect (although they will be negative). I also want to try chine colle, where fine paper, or other materials such as silk paper, gummy silk cocoons and cricula coccoons, or even dyed paj silk itself could be used to create a coloured and textured background under the print. It becomes bonded to the paper during the printing process, and with the help of some starch glue, becomes an integral part of the print.

Cricula silk cocoons

 This new phase could be quite fun, so stay tuned for the next installment!

 

Twelve Days in Tassie and 2,100 km's in a van

From the Tarkine Drive it was on towards Stanley – The Nut! We went up on the chairlift and I dragged Matt around the 2km summit walk, where we had amazing views, and saw a Paddymelon. 

Then we checked into the RV park, where they rang the pub for us but couldn’t get us in for dinner until 7:30. So we went to the pub for some well earned beers, and had a small pizza. We were chatting to a lovely guy there, who was recommending the seafood place down the road, so we decided we had enough room for some – I had the crumbed scallops and Matt had the 1/2 lobster mornay – dericious! We rolled down the hill and straight into the shower and bed.

The next morning I put the laundry on and went to Moby Dick’s to get a coffee, and walked along the beach on the other side of The Nut, came back and planned some of the days stops before making scrambled eggs. Next stop – Burnie, where we met Lyndal Thorne at the Makers Place for a coffee and checking out of the International paper exhibition and chat before checking out the paper/print prize at Burnie Regional Gallery – both great shows. 

This is the work of amazing leather sculptor Garry Greenwood, whose work you'll see more of when I get to the Queen Victoria Art Gallery at Launceston. This piece belongs to the Burnie Reginal Gallery - I was horrified to hear on the radio a few days later that all of Burnie's creative spaces would be closing down as part of a council decision. I feel lucky to have seen them.

We then headed to both galleries in Penguin, where I saw amazing kelp sculpture lights and wonderful paintings of lichen covered rocks – quite abstracted, so very inspiring. From here we navigated to Mole Creek, where we parked behind the pub and enjoyed a few drinks both in the bar and by the van, watching bunnehs, before a feast of scallops. Great pub and locals. Bedtime 8pm, full as googs!!

Saturday dawned cold and misty, with few bunnehs to be seen. With the morning cry of ‘chocks away!’ we set off for pretty Deloraine to go to the markets, where Matt nearly bought a guage. 

Onwards to Westbury to Pearn’s Steam World for Matt, next stop Launceston Gallery for me. After turning up at the Museum instead of the gallery – sorry Matt – I got to see the amazingly skilled creations of Gary Greenwood. Then we checked out a very disappointing maker’s expo before leaving Launceston for Georgetown. It was after booking a table for a seafood platter at Beauty Point that we realised it was actually on the other side of the water, so cancelled and ended up at the pub where I had some lovely garlic prawns. 

Next stop was Bridport, at a sprawling caravan park along the rocky shore. We walked to the pub and imbibed whisky and bourbon whilst engaging with the locals and watching the fog roll in by 4pm! We walked down the street to the Bridport Bunker, hoping for scallop gratin and duck mezze, but they were booked out, as per usual! Amazingly, we have found this a lot as we have travelled, even though it is off season. Disappointed, with Matt moaning about the walk for nothing we went to the other pub which was full of diners – much busier than the other – where we had crumbed scallops and duck spring rolls. Full of drink and food we made our way back to base with the aid of the torch as the fog was so thick. It created a really magical atmosphere for me, unused to it as I am.

 

Coffee was enjoyed just sitting by the lapping bay reading.We were off around 9 to look for breakfast – we had homemade pie and pastie at Scottsdale. Then it was a windy road (which I of course slept through) before a stop off at Pyengenah Dairy for a caramelised fig ice-cream – delicious. Onto St Helen’s where we picked up a pot of scallops and some garlic at the IGA before heading out to camp at Diana’s Basin, pulling up right beside the water which has many swans on it. We had a little walk out to the beach where I watched kelp moving in the water for a while. I had to change out of my skivvy in the afternoon – it was the warmest I’ve been! At camp we read, drank, prepared our fire and enjoyed the water. Fire lit, scallops on, visitors to the fire, a bit of tv – a nice night.

After coffee I munged into a scallop sandwich – it was so rich I felt a little sick! Drove up to Binalong Bay to try and do the cruise, which is no longer running on Mondays…. continued down to Bicheno sleeping half the way, where Matt had a beautifully presented bagel, with the smoked salmon done in a rose. 

Onto Coles Bay with some spectacular cliffs and on to Freycinet Park to visit Wineglass Bay. Unfortunately, the weather turned quite miserable and our views disappeared. Finding our final camp spot, we hooked up and bailed down to the pub – the only show in town – the fish and chippery is shut on Monday! It’s all pretty well timed – I am ready to go home and see the girls! In the morning on returning from the ablutions block, I managed to open the door to the wrong van - stunned, I froze as some poor man shouted 'hello? hello?', before I managed to get out that 'I'm sorry, I've chosen the wrong van'! Hilarity. Shoulda locked ya door, mate!

Here's what we did: