Studio News: Edition 3: 9 April 2020

Studio News: Edition 3: 9 April 2020

Cedric Morris

Welcome

The Northern Print team have been busy adjusting to working from home, catching up with tasks and planning for when we can re-open. We are waiting to hear what support our main funders Arts Council England will be giving to organisations like Northern Print and in the mean time we hope that this newsletter is useful.

We trust you are adjusting to a new way of spending time at home and finding ways to keep feeling creative – above all we hope you are staying home and staying safe.  There has been lots of advice about looking after our wellbeing during this time, though that’s sometimes easier said than done we hope that you are able to take time to find pleasure in the everyday things around you. This ‘mindful’ approach to life coupled with the spring light and lengthening days make ‘still life with eggs’ a fitting theme for this week’s newsletter. 

We have included images with links to other websites, films and further information which we hope you will enjoy exploring.

Extract from Tate about this painting:

The use of such vivid colours was in marked contrast to the subdued earthy palette that characterised so much British painting during the war.

Painted at Benton End, The Eggs was acquired by the cook Elizabeth David around 1953. Her books on Mediterranean food and cooking appeared in the post-war years as lavish publications, signifying the promise of better things and the return of civilised living after the indignities and deprivations of the war.

Cedric Morris

Cedric Morris, The Eggs, 1944 (Tate)

The slipware bowl in the painting is very similar to some of the pottery made in Ouseburn. Did you know that Northern Print’s building was once one of the many potteries in the valley? The bowl below has ‘Stepney Pottery - Newcastle upon Tyne’ inscribed on its base.

Stepney PotteryStepney Pottery 2

A selection of Still Life prints

Cornelia Parker   Patrick Caulfield

Left: Cornelia Parker, ‘Glass and Thistle’, 2018 Polymer photogravure etching.

Right: Patrick Caufield, ‘Oh Helen, I roam my room,’ screenprint, 1973

The two prints above are published by Cristea Roberts Gallery, London – the largest dealer for original prints in Europe. Their website has various interviews with artists and films. They also have two Instagram accounts active since the covid-29 shutdown. One featuring art in the home and another inviting artists to post their selected reading.

Paul Coldwell   Jonathan Ashworth

Left: Paul Coldwell, Still Life with Grape Stalks (Blue) Relief print from laser-cut woodblocks . Right: Jonathan Ashworth, ‘Yellow Daffodils’ Woodcut, £250 unframed from Northern Print

Remote Technical Support

We are keen to help you to develop new skills for either making or promoting your work during this shut down period. Helen and Alex are providing free technical support via email, telephone, facetime or zoom – you can book a session at the times below, please just email to book in – alexmcintosh@northernprint.org.uk or helen@northernprint.org.uk

We are focussing our technical support around processes that can be done with a printing press such as linocut, woodcut, monoprint and collagraph. Technical support is also offered in photoshop or using digital media to promote your work such as setting up an Instagram account.

If you have any other suggestions on things you’d like help with just let us know, we’re happy to help.

Helen date time
Thursday 16/04/20 10am, 12noon, 2pm, 4pm
Thursday 23/04/20 10am, 12noon, 2pm, 4pm

 

Alex date time
Tuesday 14/03/20 10am, 12noon, 2pm, 4pm
Tuesday 21/04/20 10am, 12noon, 2pm, 4pm

Printmakers Coffee Break

Next coffee break is Tuesday 14 April

Giorgio Morandi   William Scott

Left: Giorgio Morandi, ‘Still Life with Five Objects’, 1956, from the Estorick Collection. The Estorick Collection opened in 1992 in London and is a collection of Modern Italian Art with a changing programme of exhibitions. Right: Wiiliam Scott, ‘Still Life with White Mug’ 1962 from Kettles Yard, Cambridge. Kettle’s Yard was once the home of collector and Tate Curator Jim Ede which opened to the public, though of course currently closed you can explore the website and do a virtual visit here

For those of you who are missing a chat with other printmakers in Northern Print’s kitchen we have made 11am every Tuesday as Printmakers Coffee Break. It’s the time to settle in with coffee and using Zoom you can join in the conversation. If you need help setting up Zoom from your phone, tablet or computer why not book a technical support session.

We will be looking out for your decorated eggs at coffee time next week!

Do you have decorated egg you have treasured for years or perhaps you have a decorated egg tradition in your family you’d like to share? We’re hoping for cyanotype eggs, painted eggs, embroidered eggs, engraved eggs – beautiful eggs galore! Judy Rudoe, Curator at The British Museum is doing an A-Z of Europe’s decorated eggs traditions on twitter for you to enjoy.

Anna Wilkinson

Image: Cumbrian pace egg by Anna Wilkinson

Anna and Rebecca are both from Cumbria and have grown up with pace eggs – dyed with onion skins and flowers. It’s a really simple process and unwrapping the egg has the same magical moment of surprise as peeling back the paper on a print. Instructions here.

Alice Pattullo

Alice Pattullo, ‘The Pace Egg Play’ – read about the I traditions in this image here

Collaborative Collagraph

The conversation at this week’s coffee break turned to the idea of making a collaborative collagraph. The idea is to choose a famous artwork and divide this into a grid. Anyone wishing to take part would then interpret their given square in the grid into a collagraph. Once we can all return to Northern Print the collagraph blocks will be assembled and printed together to create one large collagraph print.

You need not have made a collagraph before and the process and materials are really simple. You will need some cardboard (such as a cereal packet) some glue and some textured materials you can use to create the printing surface.

The big question is – which famous artwork should we choose? Suggestions so far have included:

Georges Seurat - A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

LS Lowry – Going to Work

Andy Warhol – Marilyn Diptych

Dame Laura Knight - Charivari

If you would like to propose a famous artwork for this let us know – voting takes places next week!

Digital studio visits and demonstrations

We’d like to give a big thank you to Bridget Jones who hosted our first virtual studio visit today with 19 studio members and staff joining in. 

If you have any suggestions of artist’s studios you would like to visit or if you would like to host please let us know? You don’t have to have a studio – we are happy to visit kitchen tables and spare rooms too!

Staying connected

We will be sending out this weekly newsletter and using our social media accounts and website to keep in touch. We are happy to share your news and act as a conduit for those of you who may wish to set up smaller groups for digital conversations, skills sharing of virtual socialising. We have also set up a Facebook group for studio users and you can find the link here.

The idea behind the group is that it gives all members a chance to share their own work and chat amongst yourselves, mainly about printmaking/art/Northern Print/the creative process. It is currently an open group so the content can be seen by the general public and the group is open to all printmakers, irrespective of whether people are current Northern Print members or not. As social media can be unpredictable sometimes, we’re seeing how this goes and can always change the settings to private further down the line if we think it is necessary to do so.

Generally we are hoping that it will be a friendly online hangout and that our involvement will be minimal. All we need is one brave soul to take the plunge and make the first post!

To join, simply press the button under the banner to send a request to join (including agreeing to the group rules) and we will approve your request.

Sharing your work online #printmakerspost

If you have images of work in progress, finished work or perhaps sketchbooks or ideas you would like to share we are doing this via social media (Instagram; Facebook and Twitter) using the hashtag #printmakerspost. For those of you who would prefer to email images and short text, we can share this as part of our weekly newsletter or put it online for you if you wish, just let us know? Just email to enquiry@northernprint.org.uk

You can post on social media at any time but we thought it might be good if we tried to post new work on Fridays to round off the week.

Take a look at some of the images that have been posted so far with #printmakerspost

Louise PallisterAnja Percival

Ian Gale    Donald Wilkinson

Images clockwise from top left: Louise Pallister has been creating monoprints on a machine usually used for die cutting called the Xcut; Anja Percival posted a new plate that she’s been busy working on; Donald Wilkinson posted his monoprint ‘Galloway Shoreline’; Ian Gale has been preparing photographic images ready for making solar plates when we return to the studio.

If you have any suggestions or would like to contribute to future editions of Studio News please get in touch via enquiry@northernprint.org.uk. We’d love to hear from you!

 

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