Praeterita

  This video clip has audio of me giving a brief description of how this large painting evolved over time, and was finished quickly while glancing at a small oil sketch. What I couldn't say in 60 seconds: the painting began as a completely different image, possibly not even of a giant bird shape with hands reaching for it. The first version was painted in early 2019. Then I overpainted that one so much that the surface became too clogged with paint, so I ripped the canvas off the stretcher frame and stretched a new, blank piece of primed canvas. The next stage was a bird shape across the bottom of the canvas, and four arms+hands reaching for it. That version stayed more or less the same until a month ago. Why did I change it again? Because it looked too much like an outline drawing, something waiting to be filled in rather than looking as if it had been brought to a final stage with any authority. So, this is what I did: I took one of the small oil sketches I made at the start of 2...

I've returned to my studio a couple of times in the last few weeks (masked and wearing latex gloves whenever I am in the corridor of the studio building, or moving between building and car.) I took advantage of the new equipment I bought to setup my online classes to record a timelapse of me painting. The piece is a 5 feet x 4 feet canvas, brushing a texture layer of Prussian Blue over a ground of Naples Yellow. The video is a 60 second condensing of several hours of work. What interests me when I watch it is that I notice things that I'm only semi-conscious of during the painting process, such as how I vary the direction of the brush all the time, and the pressure, and the kinds of marks (linear vs. brushing), to create a lively surface.

Over the summer, I have been making oil paintings, etchings, and terracotta sculptures with a common theme: a pair of arms and hands reaching out to or holding a crow. The theme ultimately derives from the darker, industrial work I did a few years ago, based on memories of my coalminer-grandfather in England. That started with images of him as a boxer, or lying on the ground after being injured in an accident underground. Gradually, the image has become refined until I'm just using the arms. The crow just floated into the pictures, as it were. I've always loved crows, and I can picture them sitting in the trees in the village where I grew up, or on the top of the church, cawing up a storm. They are associated with sinister things, which still links to the idea of misfortune in my work. But I also just love their shape and colour. The etchings are slightly more detailed-looking than the paintings: And the clay sculptures are somewhere in between, technically: I...

A while ago, I undertook a task that I had been meaning to do for ages: organizing my etching studio to be more efficient. Previously, I haven't had enough surfaces in one area to be able to perform all the necessary tasks (plate preparation, etching, cleaning, inking, printing) without having trays spread out all round my studio. The first thing I did was to buy a new set of shelves. From top to bottom, this now has: My DIY hot box, and my DIY aquatint spray booth. The stripping bath (soda ash & hot water, and the airbrush & compressor. The brightener bath (vinegar & salt), the ferric tank, and a water tray. Tray storage area, and the filter bucket for the spray booth. Below the printing press, I finally have some blotter boards for flattening and drying prints: The narrow work table has a fresh coat of paint, a new shelf above it, and is now free to hold the paper soaking tray: The large work table has a thick sheet of glass, for adding and removing...

At the end of 2010, I began working on a set of 18" x 24" panels, that I posted about here regularly during the first few months of working on them. Gradually, I posted less and less, as I got stuck with them and worked on them less and less. But every six months or so since then, I have taken some of these panels out and worked a little more on them, to the extent that the first coat is now buried beneath many layers of stuff. Well, god help me, I pulled one of them out today, and worked on it for a day: If I can recall correctly, the media that I've used over three years are: acrylic paint, acrylic gels and medium, airbrush pigment, gesso, modelling paste, ink, and oil pastel. If I used a texture, or I drew a shape, what I had in mind were things to do with coal, and mining, just the same as the short film I just completed. Some of the abstract marks still derive ultimately from remembered shapes of machinery, pipes, and so on. For this latest foray, I took ou...

The last time I was here, before I went to England for a few weeks, I did some preparatory work  with acrylic pours and underpainting. I took some of those dried acrylic shapes and collaged them to printmaking paper, marked with the coal-circle shapes: The next stage with them is to draw into them with India ink and airbrush pigment, as I did with these two: The one on the right in that picture is the newest one (I've posted pictures of the one on the left before). It's 18" x 16", and it also has collaged bits of printmaking paper in addition to the collaged acrylic skins, because I wanted to cover up some stuff that went wrong, but I didn't want to throw away the entire picture. I'm starting to let go of the anxiety about these images not relating with absolute directness to the narrative-based work that I am also working on (and which I am exhibiting in a couple of weeks). I am  heartened, actually, by the Rashid Johnson show I saw at Chicago...

I'm about to head across the Atlantic to the UK for various art and writing-related activities, so the last time that I was in my studio, I completed one thing and started something that I could leave to dry until I get back in two weeks. The thing I completed was one of these: Acrylic and acrylic collage on printmaking paper. The collage is created by drawing the shapes onto a plastic sheet from a large dropper. Once they're dry, they can be peeled off the plastic and glued down onto another surface:

That's the problem: I can't. Leave a picture alone, that is. I may have spoiled at least one of the small and large studies that I posted about before, but as I always say to students, you have to go as far as you can and risk spoiling something, so you know when to rein it in the next time. For the top, smaller one, I used India ink and a fine nib to draw lots of spidery lines, before collaging some more poured acrylic shapes on top. For the bottom, larger picture, I drew freely with red airbrush pigment from the bottle, then went back in with a brush and the pen-nib again. This is where I may have gone too far. 

I made a final decision on that acrylic painting with dried acrylic shapes. The final arrangement was different, though. First, I spent time moving the shapes around on the painting until the right pattern just presented itself. The blue circle was a placeholder for the shapes, while I temporarily removed each one to apply the PVA glue: After applying the PVA glue, I carefully placed the dried acrylic shapes back on the picture, put some wax paper over them, and pressed firmly. The following picture shows me gluing one of the larger shapes: Et voila: the final painting (24" x 30"):

When I have to give my quick description of my work to someone new, I say: " I make art based on personal narrative, mainly of being the son of a soldier in an English mining town." Sometimes that work is directly narrative, but sometimes the images take me in a more abstract direction. Today I went back to some works on paper that I did at the end of last year, and tried matching them with some poured acrylic shapes that I also made at the same time: Of the three, I think I like the first arrangement best. But I'll wait until I return to the studio, after sleeping on it, before I glue the dried acrylic shape down on the paper.

So I haven't been to my studio in a month, and have probably spent only three full days there in the last six weeks, what with finishing off the public art project, and ending the semester of teaching at Columbia College. After such a long absence, I got down to work straight away, and after several hours, the result was this: That's right: absolutely nothing of any worth at all. I try not to get too despondent about the bad days any more. It's good to be back in the studio again, and to get the bad stuff out of the way so that something better can arrive.

Medium: acrylic paint on printmaking paper. Medium: acrylic paint and airbrush pigment on printmaking paper.

I'm arranging all the acrylic collage shapes into one giant mega-collage, and thinking next about gluing them onto a panel or canvas (click the image to see larger version):   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

I'm wrestling with lots of different things from the last five years, trying to tie them all together in one common idea. My difficulty is that there's a lot of different pieces in different media. I'm thinking of this: And this: And this: And this: Not to mention this: I'm trusting that putting them together and taking them out of storage in the studio, just like putting them side by side on this blog, will help me see the path here.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

I'm sorting all the dried shapes that I created from acrylic paint and gels over the last few months, to form squiggly collages:   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

I spent a productive and enjoyable few hours inking and printing those a-LOO-minnum plates that I worked on during my last studio day. The final print looked like this: The carborundum areas and the drypoint marks printed equally well with a blue-black mixture of etching ink. As I said before, I had to divide the image across 12 plates, and print them 2 at a time. The total size is 16" x 18". When the paper dries, I'll trim the individual pages and glue them together. Here is a little album I made of the whole process:   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

I don't have access to my giant Dickerson printing press at the moment -- only my tabletop press, which prints maximum 10" x 14" plates. But I wanted to make some bigger mixed media prints. The solution? Line up twelve a-loo-min-um tiles, and paint freely across all of them: Medium: Z-acryl etching ground and carborundum. The word in the top right is 'Writhe", because that's what the drawing reminded me of (drawn in reverse of course so that it will print the correct way round). I will ink and print each plate separately, then glue or stitch the twelve prints together to make one larger print.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

I have been testing some non-toxic printmaking techniques, using a mixture of collagraph, drypoint, and other things to produce prints that look like etchings, without having to use resists that contain toxic chemicals, and without even immersing the plate in etchant. The following print was made on a thin, very cheap piece of aluminium flashing tile (cost: less than a dollar). It's sort of a random and jokey image, but it serves the purpose: A - Dark aquatint style area created by pouring Z-acryl acrylic-based hard ground with carborundum grit in it. B - Where the Z-Acryl is thin and without carbordundum, it creates an area of relief that can be wiped clean. C - But you can also scratch or incise marks into the thin hard ground, and these marks will catch ink and print almost like etched lines. D - Drypoint. E - Chine colle. I cleaned the plate and took a second print from it, which is also good to know: it means that although the flashing tile is t...

Getting back into the swing of things after a long absence. So, preparing some canvases: And making some collagraphs using Z-acryl hard ground mixed with carborundum, poured and painted onto aluminium (or a-LOO-min-um) flashing tiles: Leaning against the wall are some thick pieces of matboard which, when primed with matte medium, can be used for collagraphs as well.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

After teaching on Wednesday morning, and still feeling the effects of some jet lag from the London trip, I went to my studio for a short while. I took a proof print from that collagraph plate I made a few weeks ago, using carborundum mixed with Z-Acryl non-toxic hard ground. It was great to set things up to do some real printmaking again: After inking the plate and wiping it with tarlatan/scrim, it was time to use Q-tips, the printmaker's friend: The proof print as a little spotty, where I had slightly over-wiped the plate. But the actual collagraph surface was really strong, held a lot of ink (inked a la poupee), and could easily be cleaned and inked many times before it starts to break down. It could also probably be diluted even further with water, in order to create lighter marks: Pictures taken with my rubbish cell-phone camera.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader