Tag Archives: sketching

Vernissage(s)

Posted on by
1

Well, it’s been an exciting last weekend here in Borås. I’ve been continuing my experiments in photopolymer printmaking and have been to two exhibition openings (as well as a couple forays into the forest).

Modhir Ahmed, http://www.modhir.com/web/index.html, arrived on Thursday night. He is an artist from Iraq who has lived in Sweden for over thirty years and has an international reputation for his printmaking. He was here to put up his exhibition ‘Lord of the Earth’ in the gallery at Ålgården, where he is also a member. Friday was very busy with lots of people toing and froing in preparation for the opening and at lunch time we were all treated to a beautiful meal of smoked salmon and potatoes in a dill sauce (I’ve become a vegaquarian whilst I’ve been staying here as fish is a large component of most meals). In the evening, following my run in the forest, I went to the opening or ‘vernissage’ as they call such things here.

Lots of people came and when we were finally able to close the gallery doors for the evening, we all had a meal together in the Red House (the artists’ house where I stay).

Today was another busy day. It started with a lifedrawing session in the gallery. Our model today was Sassa, who was very good humoured and challenged us with no poses longer than 4 minutes and most were 2! It is interesting how the models lead the sessions here at Ålgården. All the life drawing I’ve ever done before has been led by the group, another artist or a teacher and the model played a passive role. I like the fact that the model is in control here. After the drawing, Anna Maria gave Ute and I a lift to another opening at a small town called Dalsjöfors. We stopped off at her house to pick up her husband, Peter, and were shown around their wonderful studio (they are both artists) and garden. The exhibition opening was for Ålgården member, Kristina Thun http://www.kristinathun.se/ who has been working every day since I’ve been here making beautiful lithographs and photopolymer prints.

I think her work is really atmospheric and her printmaking techniques are fascinating. She often uses up to seven different layers of greyscale to create her lithographs.

After that it was time to return to the studio and meet Anna Mattsson who had kindly offered to show me some techniques using wax including how to make image transfers and also work into wax on paper. It was really good fun and, during tonight’s run in the forest, I began to get ideas of how I might use it in my own work.

On the photopolymer front, I am currently waiting for two acetates to dry. I’ve created a much smaller version of the watery monotype that I did the other day. It was a two stage monotype but this time I wasn’t printing it and will be using it as a stencil so I needed to make two acetates to place on top of one another to create the whole picture. I used water soluble relief ink and that takes a few days to dry so I am now waiting (impatiently) for the acetates to be ready to expose onto my photopolymer plate. Ida has asked me if I will wait until Monday to make the plates so that she can come in and photograph the process. I agreed and am now glad that I did because I know what I’m like and if I wasn’t waiting for her, my impatience would have got the better of me and I’d have tried to expose them when they were still a bit wet and probably got them stuck to the plate 🙂 I’m also making another graphite drawing for a photopolymer plate and, all being well, will expose that tomorrow. A lovely surprise today was that Björn found an old ‘raster’ (or aquatint dot screen, as I now know it is called in English) that he’d made some years ago and he gave it to me as a gift to take home so that it will be easier for me to get straight on with my photopolymer printmaking. He also suggested that I prepare a load of films in the litho studio so I can take those home too.

I’m feeling really positive about this residency and the effect that it will have on my future printmaking practise. I’ve got stacks of ideas but also a real desire to experiment and push the boundaries of what I have been doing. I will talk more about that in another post but I need to get to bed now! I’ll leave you with a picture of Lennart and Kristina at the preview.

and Ålgården’s resident black rabbit 🙂

Tall!

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been a good couple of days for a few reasons. The first being that we must have had at least 15 minutes of sunshine today 😉 I’m so grateful that for my first days in Borås we had lovely weather and I was able to get out and sketch a lot. I’ve been out drawing since but it has been a damp experience and I invariably get a wet backside from all the beautiful but very soggy moss. The smaller paths are now little rivers.

Yesterday I got up very early to go and visit a 700 year old pine tree with Lennart. It was quite a long way away (thus the early start) but the forest nearby made the trip doubly worthwhile.

After spending some time getting to know the lovely old tree, we then crossed the busy road and had a walk in an ancient forest full of 300 year old pines and 200 year old spruce trees. The forest was dripping with water and we were wading through some deep puddles but it was eerily quiet and still despite the sea of traffic noise from the road behind us and the lichens hanging from the trees were amazing.

On returning to Ålgården, we had some lunch and then I tried to do some artwork. Unfortunately, the studios are really busy at the moment due to the impending open studios exhibition and I find the constant coming and going distracting. I talked to Christina about it today and she feels the same. She’s preparing for an exhibition and trying to make some new work but has been frustrated that she can’t get absorbed into what she is doing. I combatted the feeling today by holing up in my bedroom and working on a drypoint at the desk listening to the radio. It was lovely and I got a lot done. I often go to the studio in the evenings and work late as it is so peaceful. The residency has been really interesting for many reasons and one is that it has given me insights into what conditions I need for working and about the nature of creativity. I’ve found my way of dealing with times when I feel restless and frustrated. Getting out for a walk or run in the forest brings everything back into focus and I come back feeling full of creative energy and ideas. I then need peace and solitude to work out designs but once they are done, I can enjoy making plates and printing in company. When I look back to college days, I spent my most productive times at home between 8pm & 2am and got far less done in the studio between 9am and 6pm and nowadays in England I am always alone so I don’t really have the same dilemma. However, the downside of working alone all the time is that you don’t have the creative input of other people, you aren’t able to bounce ideas about or be inspired by other artists’ work and it can get quite lonely in the winter. At home I am quite fortunate in that I have good friends to ring or visit, many of whom are artists too, and the internet has been a real asset for all of us that that work alone but need a bit of contact now and again! I do wish there was somewhere like Ålgården in North Yorkshire, it would be really fantastic!

For my last week or so here, I intend to make the most of the facilities and print but I also want to soak up as much of the creative spirit here as I can, exchange thoughts and ideas with the other artists whenever possible and really get the atmosphere of the forests under my skin. I hope I can then draw on it all when I am back at home.

The drypoint that I’ve just printed is inspired by one of the old pine trees in the forest. It is made using drypoint plastic and a single drypoint tool. The first print was too pale. This one still needs some adjustments but the beauty of drypoint is that you don’t need to seal the plates and you can proof it and then make changes if you need to.

The word for this kind of tree (it’s a Scot Pine) in Swedish is Tall! How brilliant is that?

As a footnote, I had my first Swedish ‘conversation’ today. I went for a run and stopped to watch a pair of goldcrests. I was stood peering intently up a pine tree when two men came past with their dogs. They said hello and something indecipherable to me and I said ‘Hej…fagel…kungfagel’ to which they both said ‘ahh’ nodded and one made a gesture with his thumb and forefinger to indicate something very small. I was so pleased that I quickly said ‘Hej da’ and ran away before they said anything else that I couldn’t understand. 🙂 So, I now need to see a dormouse or a bear because I know the words for those!

Up and Down and Up Again!

Posted on by
6

I haven’t posted here for a few days for a couple reasons. One being that I’ve been quite busy but the other is that I’ve been on a bit of a mental rollercoaster! After a lovely day out with Lennart on Thursday, I came into the studio on Friday morning feeling tired but determined to create that elusive masterpiece that I had convinced myself I had to make 🙂 Unfortunately I also had a rather large backlog of emails to answer, exhibitions details to sort out and general admin for my printmaking back home that I couldn’t put off any longer without risk of losing some valuable opportunities (seven exhibitions coming up in autumn!). That put me in a bad frame of mind. I decided the best thing to do would be to spend the morning getting on top of all of that. This I did, but in the process I became aware of how I’ll be returning into the thick of things. Then I thought I really must get on with some of the slowly germinating seeds of inspiration that I’ve been having here. The thing about being an artist is that you can’t do that. You can’t just pluck a great print from thin air. As the day disappeared, and I was asked a couple times by artists in the studio if I was actually going to do something other than stare at a piece of cardboard, I realised that when I’m trying to draw blood from a stone, I find it even harder when there are people watching so I gave up and went for a run!

The good thing about running is that it can be very meditative and that, combined with the peace of the forest, put me in a more positive mood. I determined that tomorrow would be another day and went to bed!

On Saturday there was a life drawing class in the gallery and I was looking forward to it but had woken with a migraine in the night so I was a bit groggy from medication. However, it was a really good thing to do. It was very difficult. The poses were short, mostly two or three minutes, with a seven, eight and a ten minute pose thrown in. I’m such a slow worker! I was just beginning to loosen up and really gain an understanding of how to tackle the quick sketches and the two hour session was over! Mind you, it really stood me in good stead for later in the day. I also met some great people including an artist who is 98 and arrived by taxi using a scheme which I believe is called ‘Fair Share’ and provides free transport for elderly people presumably because they have done their fair share for society and are due some returns. It strikes me as an excellent idea. She and her friend were not only very talented artists but really interested in discussing my prints and the other work on show in the gallery and they have recommended some exhibitions for me to visit.

After the class, Lennart arrived to take me to the opening of his friend Gunnar Bergh’s exhibition at Flamenska.

My head was still pounding and I felt a little antisocial but Gunnar’s paintings are best described as gentle and full of expression so it was a lovely environment. Once we returned to Ålgården, I was determined to get up into the forest and try and rediscover the feel of being there. I’d been staring so long at all of my photographs that I felt divorced from the atmosphere that you can only feel when you are actually in a place. The six mile hike was very wet but it was so peaceful there and I even managed to do one sketch in a rare break from the rain. I also stopped to listen to the birds and was totally amazed to see the tree that I was stood next to come to life. There were countless small birds flitting about in it. Blue tits, great tits and the best of all, a goldcrest! It came right up to me and put its head on one side looking. I tried not to breath in case I scared it away.

It was a bit of a slow plod back home and despite the lovely time in the woods, I found myself feeling despondent and having a crisis of confidence in what I am doing here. I felt that everything I did was not very good and that I was almost half way through my residency and what had I achieved? Yes…I know! I can laugh about it today. The problem is that migraines can actually effect your whole well-being including your emotions and depression is often a side effect of an attack. I’ve battled with them for years and am happy to say that they are less frequent and less severe than they were due to my healthier and happier lifestyle but when I get them…I sometimes lose all sense of reality.

So, Sunday I woke in the night feeling really sick and ill and had to reach for more tablets. Fortunately the morning brought a reprieve and by lunchtime I was feeling perkier. I had lunch with Christina and Lennart and the always cheery Kristina popped in and out. I spent a few hours holed up in my room sketching a ideas and then I headed out for a long run (slow and steady and with my camera) and explored some new territory.

I made it to Fjällsjön lake first.

It was very wet underfoot and many of the paths were small streams. The forest is full of fungi and there were little wooden houses dotted about in some areas. Very Hansel and Gretel! I got to another swimming lake, Kyperedssjön, which looks lovely except the water is soooo black. It’s a bit spooky! Besides which, I was already cold and wet and there was nobody about so I chickened out of jumping in.

The run was just what I needed to put everything back into perspective and to shake off the last remnants of my migraine. I got back feeling refreshed and positive again. I’m actually sat in the studio surrounded by the detritus of plate making 🙂 I talked to Lennart about creativity today and we discussed how you can’t force things, you have to let them unfold and reveal themselves to you naturally and you don’t know when or where that will be, you just have to have faith that it will happen! He told me that I must be gentle with myself. I wish I could remember precisely how he said it but it made a lot of sense. I’ve remembered why I’m here and what it is all about. I have a sketchbook full of drawings, monoprints and even a fully formed collagraph. There is a wealth of inspiration there and the seeds of a lot of imagery. I’m going to relax and enjoy myself again. After all, I’ve got over two weeks left!