The 2014 calendar is for sale!

Actually it has been for sale for some time, but it has just occurred to me that I have not actually put it on the blog, sorry! “A Medusa for All Seasons” 12 prints inspired by the passing of the months Price: £12 each or £9.50 each if you buy more than one calendar at a time I have also discounted postage (see below) so that shipping is free on a single calendar within the UK. Postage is charged in all other cases, but the booklet format of this calendar means it is exactly the same size as last year’s…

‘A Feast of Invention’ at Ilminster Arts Centre

I have a solo exhibition this month in Ilminster Arts Centre (Somerset, UK). I don’t imagine it will be just down the road for most people reading this blog, but if you are nearby, it’s the largest space I have had to fill for a couple of years, and it does look quite nice :-). And if you are still not convinced, visit on Sunday 11th between 3-5pm at the Exhibition Tea Party (see below) and you will get free tea and cake. Scientists have shown that free cake enhances the eater’s ability to appreciate artworks. If you miss the…

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…

Drypoint is the new Etching!

I have printed the ‘Medusa in the Bath’ picture – the February image for my calendar for next year – and I am feeling quite pleased with myself! I do enjoy Aluminium etching, but I have to admit it can sometimes be a bit of a crude technique for making a picture. I recall a little bit of copper etching I did, um, something more than 25 years ago now :-o, and I recall being able to get very fine detailed lines. This doesn’t seem to be so much the case with aluminium etching – maybe it is to do…

Medusa at Beltaine; Medusa at Bathtime

I have another etching for the 2014 calendar! Apologies for not getting round to posting the sketch for this one, which I have in fact been working on and off since Beltaine was suggested by Lily Wight. (thank you Lily! :-)) Beltaine seemed an excellent idea, and another mixing of legends / metaphors like the January picture. The scant research I did suggested the dancing around bonfires, the belief that on this night the ‘other’ world and its creatures was much closer to this world than usual, much nakedness and revelry, and of course, it suggested Celtic and Pagan deities,…

Two new Medusa etchings

Here, finally, are two more etchings for the 2014 calendar. These are prints from the plates I showed you a few days ago. Sorry, I made you wait a while, I’ve had guests staying and no time to post them! Here’s ‘Snakes in the Long Grass’ – the picture for July (or June). The dark tones are produced by etching, and then the highlights on the figure, grass and snakes are put in by burnishing the aluminium to make it smoother again.. And here is the Scarecrow Medusa. In this one the birds and twigs are etched, and the rest…

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…

Snakes in the long grass

Just a quick post, as I have another sketch for the 2014 Medusa calendar that I thought you might like to see. I have found it more difficult to get a grip on the late spring and summer months: May June and July. Perhaps the start and ending of things are more characterful. Even August was not a problem, because that is shading off into Autumn and fruitfulness (August has a plum tree if you haven’t seen it), but somewhere in the middle of the year I find the months a little indistinct. So, this is probably the sketch for…

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…