‘Press On’ at The Courthouse Gallery, 14th May – 25th June 2016

I have just dropped off some etchings at the rather fine Courthouse Gallery in Somerton, where I am taking part in an exhibition with the group of artists that I used to work alongside at Dove Studios. I don’t make etchings currently… I’m not saying I never will again, but I don’t have time at the moment, so now is your chance to see some previous works, alongside a lovely selection from 5 other talented artists. Come and meet the artists on Friday 13th May 5 – 7pm, everyone welcome. Opening times for the rest of the exhibition: Tuesday –…

The final calendar pictures, and about time too!

I do apologize for not getting round to showing you the last of the Glastonbury Tor pictures yet! First, I wanted these with a little colour, and then on a whim I started a new blog, and although it was not meant to be time-consuming, everything consumes time… So, here are the final pictures for the 2015 calendar, ’12 Views of the Tor’: ‘The View’ is mostly etching, and ‘The Decoy’ is mostly drypoint. ‘The View’ is an afternoon-tea sort of print, but an Angel’s eye view… Angels of course sit around on clouds and drink tea all the time,…

Drunk in charge of a Broomstick

…or ‘The Home-brew’ on Glastonbury Tor This is another for the 2015 calendar of course. I wanted a couple of views of the Tor that were less than obvious. This one is so obscure you would probably never recognize it as connected with the Tor at all, but it is in fact the very top of the tower on the Tor – the remains of St Michael’s Church. Or at least that was the idea. Despite numerous photos my brain refused to believe the actual shape of the crenelations, and without reference to any actual evidence I corrected my sketch…

Hydrophobia… printed

And the final image for next year’s calendar is complete! I think it came out ok in the end despite misgivings that I had thrown too many techniques at this particular plate: The snakes are more like cartoon snakes in this one than in any of the others, but it seemed appropriate! So that’s the calendar for 2014 – A Medusa For All Seasons. If you want to look back at the work in progress this link should show you all the calendar posts: https://nancyfarmer.wordpress.com/tag/calendar-2014/ There will of course be much more work to do before this becomes a calendar,…

Hydrophobia: the last Medusa

Don’t worry, this is not the last Medusa, merely the last in the series that will complete my 2014 calendar. That said, perhaps I could ask the delectable Wendy Marani to carry on the series for me, or do you think, perhaps, she might run out of ideas if I stopped too? So, back to real art, finally! The last of my calendar paintings to be completed is actually a summer month. It was going to be June, but in view of the beach, and not wanting too many reclining nudes one after another, I may make Snakes in the…

The waiting game…

Two more plates for the Medusa calendar, ‘finished’ and ready to print. Now, I enjoy etching, really I do, it appeals to my little techy brain, and although I usually paint pictures nowadays, a BA in jewellery and an MA in metals conservation in my past do suggest that I have something of an affinity for metals… But here’s the annoying thing: I have done all this work and I have no idea if the actual pictures that I will get to print on Tuesday will be any good at all. That’s the drawback with etching – you get to…

Medusa comes out of the shadows!

I was quite pleased with my first experiment in drypoint… If you haven’t seen the previous post, I had an etching plate that just wasn’t… exciting, but in which I was trying to retain a large extent of the line drawing aspect of it, and was unwilling to etch more tone onto it. So I took it home and attacked it with a pointy tool instead… all over, but especially in the background. Here is one of the first prints taken from it before pointy tool attack: Medusa, at a sort of masquerade / cocktail party affair, and they are all…

If all else fails, attack with pointy tool!

This is in the way of a progress report. I rather feared this was going to happen: I made some prints from my recent Medusa etching plate – the drinks party one, for December – and I’m a bit underwhelmed by them. Humph. Knew it. In trying to preserve the original line drawing I have a print that is kind of… boring. Lacking both in the ‘drawing’ quality of a proper line drawing or any real lights and darks to bring it out of itself. It’s possible that this particular composition might be better as a painting, but, this being…

Mixing Metaphors

And on to the next month in my 2014 Medusa Calendar! I thought I would tackle January with the help of the Romans… The month of January is of course named after the Roman god Janus. Janus is the god of beginnings, transitions, and – aparently – doorways… which probably count as transitions in any case. He is generally shown with two faces – onle looking to the future and one to the past. This seemed to be a more substantial idea than Medusa in the snow or something, a nice bit of metaphor and symbolism to start the year…