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| cutting the design straight to plate © Teresa Newham |
#HertsOpenStudios 2017 is nearly finished - Sue and I will be open this Saturday 30th September (see side panel for details), and the event ends completely on Sunday. We've already had lots of visitors and are looking forward to welcoming more on our final day. The Open Studios brochure clearly states that demonstrations will be done at Wensley Arts - so here's a peek at what I've been doing so far!
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| printing up the design in plain green © Teresa Newham |
People like to see printmaking in action, so I decided to make an olive branch print on an offcut of softcut lino. Ignoring the design I'd drafted in my sketchbook, I made the cut straight onto the plate, allowing for the reversing out of the image. This year I've been doing some actual printing while our studio is open; space is limited but the design was small and I was quite pleased with the first results:
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| the design in green - and in silver © Teresa Newham |
At this stage I had no idea which way up the print was meant to be, but one of our visitors reckoned portrait, so who am I to argue? I cut some out some of the leaves from the plate, printed over some of the silver prints in rich olive green, and also inked this second cut onto plain white paper - all while meeting and greeting our guests. Note the essential tools of the trade: ink, rollers, palette knife and that ever-present cup of tea . . .
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| getting a little more complicated . . . © Teresa Newham |
At this point quite a few different sets of prints were littering the house - usually they dry in the studio, but it's full of exhibits. Visitors passed the ones I was working on drying in the living room as they came through to our studio in the dining room beyond; by now I had cut some more of the lino away and was overprinting in a darker shade of green:
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| . . .and even more so! © Teresa Newham |
I've ended up with four versions of the olive: two shades of green on white, two shades of green on silver, one green on white and one green on silver - in addition to the plain green and plain silver ones (which now look very plain indeed). And I have another demo up my sleeve for Saturday . . . Sue and I would love to see you if you can make it!
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| a variety of results © Teresa Newham |
These look really delicate and lovely. My favourite is the dark green I think.
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