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.

 

lockdown life

Springtime in suburbia..... I once made a book about it.

Endless days of sunshine in April.

Unusual. Enjoyable. Surreal.

For last time we had weather like this in April I was studyimg at Central St Martins for a PG cert in photography.

This time I am locked down. Day after day. Week after week.

My other half (OH) and I confined to quarters, together in a way that we have not been together for many years.

Normally OH is travelling for work, and I am travelling for photography or to visit family in Canada, or both.

I am not going to go into details of the pandemic..... you know about that.

I am going to share some good things that have come out of this time instead.

Firstly, we have gone mad in the garden. Ripping up lawn to plant vegetables.

Digging for sanity.


The kitchen floor a mass of dodgy looking seedlings.

Secondly, OH has tidied 20 years worth of papers from his study.

You have no idea how happy that makes me.

OH has also become bread maker and soup maker extraordinaire. When I enquired of his plans for today he advised that he was going to be 'very busy'. He has bread and soup to make, and dinner to cook.

I will have to amuse myself writing, and watching my seedlings grow.

messages in the woods

The house is a lot cleaner than it ever has been.  The only items in my once busy diary are a daily instruction for which room to clean today ( somehow I can only make myself do housework if it is in my diary).

Later today my phone will beep to remind me to put the garden waste bin out for collection. Who would have dreamed that we could all be so excited by a waste and recycling collection. Some of our neighbours have had boxes out for days......

Secrets of a lockdown life revealed.....

recycling

There are no secrets when the recycling doesn't get collected.

And duck for a dog?

Then there is the simple pleasure of  'drying socks on the garden table'..... so much time saved by just throwing them all down in the sunshine.

It would be fair to say that we have had our moments.....

but we have overcome these with vigorous amounts of walking and cycling. OH disappears off on his bicycle while I walk to the woods, or dance in my front room gymnasium.

Youtube exercise videos have kept me sane. My favourite is a short burst of total exhaustion with Train like a ballerina.

Here is my gymn.

But what of creativity I hear you ask.

It has been a time of feeling unsettled and that has impacted on my making.

So I have been incredibly grateful to join a zoom painting class with Nick Archer of @artclassesinrye

I find it a welcome distraction and a way to connect with friends at Rye Creative Centre.

I have never painted with acrylics, and it is a love / hate relationship, but I have so enjoyed learning about colour, how to mix colours, and the discipline of not being satisfied with a colour that isn't right.

I started painting a piece of white paper on a white background.

It turns out to be all about greys and shadows, and I got so frustrated with it in the end that I painted it all over in black with a view to starting again.

I have rediscovered how much I hate getting charcoal all over everything, and how it is hard to know when 'enough is enough'. 

Next week we are looking at mark making. A chance to go a bit wild....



After watching the Royal Academy film "Painting the modern garden; Monet to Matisse" I am raring to go.

This documentary is an absolute delight, and I now see the pond in my local woods as akin to Monet's waterlily garden; a bit of an obsession. Monet became obsessed with the reflections in the water, just as I do.

pavement selfie

Every day I walk, and mostly I go to the woods.

There have been some lovely surprises...

another good thing that has come from this time.

When the sun shines, the spring leaves are vibrant and fresh.

the stream

But to capture the wild garlic requires softer light.

wild garlic, hawkwood

And the highlight of this week has been the rain; so welcome after all those endless dry sunny days. 

The woodland refreshed, and watery ripples on the pond.

rain drops on the pond

pond reflections

rain

 So we have settled into a fairly content routine.


And I am beginning to be able to get back my creative mojo.

Here is one from the pond, inspired by Monet.

Rain dance 7 © Caroline Fraser 2020