Gosh, its been over a month since the last post. How remiss of us. The wet July weather has meant lots of evenings and weekends stuck inside, which has at least allowed us to get on with some new projects. The main one of which seems to have involved buying lots of secondhand Penguin books!
Inspired by the Selenium print I did for the Periodic Table Project (see earlier posts), I've started another camera based print, this time using the Twin Lens cameras of the 1950s and 60s as a starting point. Its a woodcut in four colours from two blocks. Or rather two sides of the same block, which I thought might make registering them at least a bit easier. Here are the 4 different backgrounds which were printed in dribs and drabs over the last couple of weeks.
And this weekend I've printed the first of the three 'detail' layers, starting off in light grey, to be followed by two darker shades of grey to fill in the rest of the camera and outline the various knobs and levers. There were about 40 in total (prints, not knobs and levers, no camera's that complicated, surely?) all inked and burnished by hand as usual. No mean feat with my small girlish arms!
There is also another little wood engraving on the go, this one of St Winifred's Well in Shropshire where we spent a wonderful week at the end of April. Here it is, relegated to the far corner of the dining room table (the only part of the room that gets any natural light). The magnifier was a chance purchase off ebay, weighs approximately 4 tons and doubles as a spectacular lighter-of-candles if the evening sun comes in at the right angle. Hopefully this block should be finished and printed, at least in proof-form, by the end of the week, so look out for updates, the next of which should appear in less than one month this time!
Currently listening to: Joanna Newsom, The Milk-Eyed Mender
