lock down life.... part three.... playing at printmaking

We have survived more than 100 days.

OH ( my other half) and I. Together, like never before.

Day after day.

Meal after meal. Walk after walk. Episode after episode of Breaking Bad.

Waking when the birds wake us.

Sleeping when the day has been worked through, minute after minute, hour after hour.

We are still here. Still friends. 

Easing out of lockdown carefully.

OH itching to fly south to see sun and the Mediterranean. Cold beer and a pool.

Me itching to fly to Vancouver to see my children, but unwilling after all this time to spend two whole weeks in enforced isolation in a hotel room before being reunited. Not to mention travel insurance issues.

We have explored Kent.

Taken long walks in the countryside.

strawberry farm, kent

Seen apple and cherry orchards and soft fruit growing in huge greenhouses.

Who knew that strawberries no longer grow in the ground?

strawberrry farm

We found quiet corners away from the perambulating suburban crowds.

a quiet corner of Kent

And last week even found a pub selling real ale, to be consumed on a grassy field across the road.

Things are looking up.





So what has been achieved, artistically, in the last 4 weeks of lockdown?


Mostly very little, with a couple of forays into monoprint and chine colle.

 monoprinting in the garden

With the encouragement of Nick Archer's on-line art classes I tried making monoprints using oil paint, a roller, an acetate sheet and some A4 paper.


Paint is rolled onto acetate or glass, then marked by drawing in the paint, masking it with paper, or pressing on the reverse of the A4 paper once it is placed over the inky acetate sheet.

Messy, unpredictable and mostly fun.

I soon had a large number of inky prints around me , and nowhere sensible to dry them.

It started to rain. The wind was blowing them around the garden.

So they ended up on the floor of my home studio.

Filling it completely.

monoprints drying on the floor

These being oil paint, they take a good week to dry.

More time than I could tolerate really. I had wanted to chop them up immediately and make little books with them.



I ended up with just a couple that I really liked.

The one below I called 'pointless'.

Because that was how I was feeling.

'pointless' monoprint

I would like to make a series of 'pointless' prints.

That really appeals to me now that I have given up work and am locked down, doing nothing of great use.


The following week's lesson was monoprint with chine colle.

Chine colle is a form of collage where fine paper is bonded to a print during the pressure process. In traditional printing the pressure of the print creates a seamless transition. For the purpose of this class, and in the absence of a press, we were to use glue and hand pressure.


Here is an example of a print with red tissue chine colle

I wanted to add some sea creatures and fossils to my prints.

I sourced some public domain images from the Harvard University, Ernst Mayr library archives

I printed these on thin paper and cut out some shapes, along with some birds from my own archive.

monoprint with chine colle

Mostly the fossil shapes disappeared into the ink, as in the image above.

The birds were a bit more successful when their wings didn't tear off as I tried to apply the glue.


I need a lot more practice, and a real printing press (of course....).



So I tried simple landscapes. Masking areas of the paper with torn newspaper.

just a monoprint

Later I cheated by adding a bird digitally.

monoprint with bird

Next I tried two crows chosen from my photographs from India. Crows seem to be everywhere that I go.

I dropped them into a scene as if landing on rocks.

the landing | monoprint

I was happier with this one, so printed it onto Kozo paper, mounted it onto a board, and coated it with beeswax.

The wax coat is a risky process involving  melted wax and a hotplate in an upstairs bedroom. I was VERY careful.

melting beeswax for wax encaustic overlay

baking tray waxing station

The final product is now waiting for a frame.

the landing | a waxed print

Lastly I went a bit experimental in Photoshop with another print.

This time I layered it digitally and added some colour.

It is no longer a real monoprint.

But as I am now 'an artist', I have decided that I can create work in the way that works best for me.

And if others enjoy it, then I won't feel quite so 'pointless'.

And that will be a good thing.

the dive | a layered monoprint

Lock down life - part 2

rain dance 5 | © Caroline fraser 2020

So, we reach week 10 of lockdown, and this weekend, for the first time, I have been into a shop. 

I won't say that I enjoyed it.

I found it intensely depressing; the fear of getting too close to real people, the not being able to touch, the worry about paying using a touch screen. 

OH ( my other half) has been doing all the shopping for the last 10 weeks.

For which I thank him.  But there are drawbacks......

Here are some pros and cons of having all my shopping done by OH....

•  the house is full of meat. ( By house I mean the fridge and the freezer). There are black puddings from Stornaway in every drawer of the freezer, and a supply of sausages sufficient for a large garden party, except that we are not allowerd one of those any time soon).

• There are secret foods that I am not told about, and don't realise they are there until I see the packaging in the bin ( strawberries and smoked salmon for example ). I am told that I 'only have to look in the fridge'. But I can't see past all the meat.....

•  there are 10 tins of tinned tomoatoes in the not very large larder cupboard. No wonder I can't see what else is in there.

• I am given 2 minutes to decide what ingredients I require for the meals that I am cooking for the next few days. I have never had to plan meals ahead with such precision.

rain dance 2 | © Caroline fraser 2020

As you can see, I am not easy to please.

But then nor is OH. My attempts to introduce a one night a week vegetarian night have not gone well.

I wouldn't mind, but given that OH eats meat at all three meals every day, then you might think that one veggy meal was going to be tolerated. Not so. 

I have resorted to using fish as a vegetarian option.....

Life is full of compromises.... 

 I choose my own breakfast and lunch from the non meat options available ( muesli, porrige, bread, cheese, salad).

You get the picture.

And the pros?

• I get to make new images during the time that I would have been queieng at the supermarket.

• I can do my meditation Youtube video without interruption half way through from OH  asking me  'do you want to watch Boris on TV '.   To which the answer, of course, is NO.

While OH is shopping I fiddle around on the computer trying to create new images from my local walks and from old images from my travels.

I am experimenting with layering of photos and paintings. 

Some work better than others.

Here is a Scandi style window from Finland. 

playing with layers and warp tool in Photoshop

And here is a tree from Lofoten with some starlings from Wales.

playing with photographic layers

I seem to return to trees time after time.



These dead branches from Vancouver.

towards the sky | © Caroline fraser 2020

And these graceful fallen branches from a woodland in Kent.

tree dance | © Caroline Fraser 2020

But it is the images from my local pond that please me most.

I have found the shapes of the leaves reflected in the water to be an endless source of work over the past 10 years.

Raindrops falling just add to the fun. 

The ripples create an added dimension. 

rain dance 14 | © Caroline fraser 2020

But we have had no rain since I took these photos on 28th April. 

Hopefully some will come again soon, and I can extend the series a little further.

Light and water, light on water. Water falling on water . I don't have to go far to find a place to capture my favourite subject matter.

Here is a video made beside my local stream, a few yards away from the pond. 

A place of peace.