Moving on with work on ‘Incidence’ has been the preparation and printing of stencils, making screens and printing the foreground.

8 trees each with 5 layers = 40 pulls + 2 flights of stairs. Must be mad.

All going to plan until I find some of the trees branches are on the wrong side. Catastrophe – two layers will  have to be redone.

Wanted to blame someone else but it was me – so I blame tiredness – 6am starts and 13 hour sessions on the PC preparing the stencils ended in my flipping vertically some of the trees to get as many in as small an area as possible to save on printing costs instead of just rotating them. I don’t think I will make this mistake again as it has put me way behind schedule and means I have to pay for another open access session and screen emulsions.

tree stencils

Apart from this set back I am quite pleased with the way it is coming together.

This is the fun bit – seeing the transformation as each new layer is added.

‘Incidence’ in progress

Harking back to my visit to Edinburgh to see Simone Pereira-Hind’s MFA show I was very taken with the work by William Mokrynski.

His project ‘Nylon Chrysalis’ explores scaffolding as a symbol of rejuvenation and as a synthetic architectural cocoon concealing a mystery within.

Simone and I both felt his work had a connection to Alex Hartley’s work with the use of 3D construction onto a photographic image.

The work had the quality of an alien spaceship landing, with flashing lights and moving parts. bringing the extraordinary if not the extra terrestrial to the high street.

I was also able to pop into the Fruitmarket Gallery to see Tony Swain’s latest work.

Painting dreamlike landscapes on newspaper he is interested in the throwaway nature of the newspaper, he also uses it as a starting point for his images.

I found it worked well without my glasses on, letting the imagery dissolve into romantic vistas rather than facing up to the raw nature of the paint marks.

The images had a wonderful fragility barely held together and likely to collapse at any moment.

There was also a good show on at the Edinburgh City Art Centre – A Parliament of Lines

I was interested to see Andrew Mackenzie’s work

which has similar themes to the work of a big favourite of mine Reginald S Aloysius 

in the use of abstract line over landscape, the limited palette and the references to history, nature and man’s intervention.

Friday 15th June saw the opening of the 5th annual summer exhibition at Ochre Print Studios.

The evening had a fun atmosphere, music wine and lots of sales too including the sale of my work ‘Lapse’

Sublimation print on layered organza and polyester. People were fascinated by the 3D effect the organza layer gives to the image.

I had lots of compliments about my work which is always a real buzz.

It was great that Morgan Doyle one of the guest artists seen here in the stripy jacket, came along  to discuss his work and support the studio.

He has a very refreshing attitude to printing and is a very entertaining speaker as well as making wonderful evocative work that draws you in to a world almost recognisable but ungraspable.