Storm Clouds and Underpaintings

Back in the studio from my trip to Cornwall and the amazing smell of the oil painting is filling the air. The pallet is loaded, the easel is set up and my head is full of ideas of big landscapes with sweeping atmospheres.

Paints on the pallet

I have had a clear up and found a selection of small canvases to get my initial ideas down, then from there I will work up to some very large canvases that I bought earlier in the year.

Small canvases at the ready

As painting is a bit more of a free flowing experience for me, compared to the printing, it doesn't take long to work out where I am going with this. The romantic atmospheric sweeping landscape is starting to breathe life and every brush stroke is melting into the next.

Under painting working out colours and composition

I now have a series of exciting paintings to work on ready for the 2018 Arts Trail. I don't know how many will have a splash of red but this one seems to be working.

Cornish Inspiration

September turned out to be a reflective month due to a leaky water mains and a total computer melt down, so art work was put on hold and major house jobs suddenly became a priority. Having spent the past few weeks doing DIY I finally got down to the studio and reorganised my space ready to work on new paintings.
As luck would have it a family trip to Cornwall has been the perfect inspiration for some big landscapes.

View from Pendennis Castle

With photos and sketches to hand I have spent the morning working on underpaintings and new compositions.

Puffin prints are also staring at me from the corner, and working out the best way to tackle collagraph ideas is next on my jobs list. Monday morning is going to be all about art with no distractions....hopefully!

Beaks, Feet and Stencils

Carving away at the beaks and feet didn't take too long so it's been quickly onto the next layer giving those beaks that distinctive bright orange.

Carving out the beaks

Bright orange was mixed using vermilion, yellow ochre and a small amount of extender.

Bright orange

Stencils had to be recut and positioned individually but with a little tweaking they did their job.

Inked up and ready to go

The stencils lasted well enough for ten prints before having to be replaced.

Stencils in action

The next step was to do a fiddley bit of carving on the feet and then pull the next 20 prints.

Deep red for shadows

Vermilion red and a touch of didn't dilemma form the shadows on the feet and bring out some of the textures.

Feet just waiting for some rocks

The feet do look a little fuzzy but this will get tightened up as the next layers go on.

Detail of feet

Next will be a series of Grey's casting shadow and making textures on the feathers and rock.

Experiments into Textiles

There is a storm ragging across the South Coast of England today so it's been a great opportunity to mess around with some printing ideas and try out a bit of textile printing. As I enjoy sewing in my spare time it seemed the obvious thing to try, so inspired by some textile artists and patterns I had seen on the internet I cut some scraps of lino and mounted them on blocks. With some remnants of cotton I set to work using some textile printing ink.

Lino printing blocks

This pattern was inspired by the print maker Jane Walker, who makes bold shapes and patterns in her still life prints. I like the organic shapes and thought it was one of the more successful patterns as I can link it with the art work I make about natural objects.

I had just enough fabric to sew it into a purse with co-ordinated black lining which really enhanced the printed fabric.

Small hand printed purse

As I could only print with black textile ink I decided to have a quick go and printing onto paper in a range of different colours just to see what it would look like. If I decide to print these onto textiles I think I will be  a lot more choosy about my colour combinations as these colours didn't really do it for me but the process was interesting 

Mock up of peg bag

I made a quick mock up of a peg bag and started to think about the possibility of making fabric storage bags and buckets in the future....possible designs for my Etsy Shop in the future?

A variety of colours and patterns

Orange Beaks

The orange layer of beaks and feet have now been pulled. The orange was an equal mix of yellow, yellow ochre, extender and a touch of vermilion to warm the whole thing up.

A touch of orange

More stencils had to be cut which took a little time but once I was organised I was up and running. 20 puffins prints were soon hanging up drying in the studio.

Lino inked up and stencils cut

The extender made the beaks much more tacky than I expected.there was a fine line between too much ink and no ink at all, but as a lot of it will be covered by a dark orange I think the overall effect should work quite well.

Close up of orange beaks

I recently fitted my studio with day light bulbs, which is wonderful while you are working, but it is causing havoc while trying to photograph my work so the colours are a little off and yes that is my shadow in the right hand corner. It's becoming mildly irritating as no matter where I stand I am always casting a shadow across the work but you can get an idea of how far the print is progressing.

Very grey puffins

Next step will be to cut yet more stencils for a darker orange then onto the rest of the birds. Everything is looking very unbalanced but as the final ink layer will be black I know the whole thing will pull together in the end.

Feet and Beaks

Having spent the evening cutting out stencils, which I thought were pretty accurate, I found I had to cut them out again as somewhere in the distant past I must have slightly changed the composition from the original drawing. I salvaged it by cutting the paper up and strategically placing it over the lino which seemed  to do the job.

Stencils being re-cut

So on with the yellow ink. I went for a pure Dairylide Yellow and extender which will form the basis of the feet and most importantly the beaks.

Inking up with yellow

The yellow looks quite alarming against the pale blue and grey but hardly any of this will show by the time all the other layers are over the top. One thing I have learn't about this process is to not get swayed or diverted by weird things that go on in the middle of the print. As a painter I would never make this decision so there is a certain amount of trust (or nashing of teeth) in the printing process itself.

Yellow against the blue

Next step will be to print shades of orange so more stencils and more shocking colour combinations, but this will make the distinctive beaks that give puffins so much character.

For those of you who have visited my Etsy shop, you will have seen my last Puffin print, 'First Catch', which is a small dry point print, hand coloured to show off their distinctive beaks.

'First Catch', Dry Point Etching

Etsy Shop Now Open

For the past few weeks I have been distracted by opening my Etsy Shop which has meant that the Puffins print has been on hold. I then spent a week trying to make a decision on whether to put it in the blend layer that I had originally planned. Other distractions have crept in as well with the arrival of new printing blankets so I could get on with some collagraphs.....maybe.....just as long as I don't get distracted by something else.

Planning my next move in the studio

After pacing up and down and wringing my hands a lot, I finally made a decision to not do the blend as I thought it might kill the delicate blue and take away from the puffins themselves. 

Removing the background

So instead I cut out the background and printed a very pale grey that will now form the basis for the rest of the print.

Showing a touch of grey

Now I've made that decision I can see the next few steps forward so hopefully everything will be a little more straight forward.

In the mean time visit my shop; www.etsy.com/uk/shop/YsobelBanfieldDesign
I have stocked it with a selection of small prints, original art works and hand printed cards