More

More circles, more cutting. So hard to get anywhere at all in ten minute bursts days and days apart. Never getting to the feeling of loosing myself in what I'm doing, time is ticking not melting away like it sometimes can when things are good. Instead, getting stuck at worry, questions, doubts, is this right am I wasting the small bit of time I have, change it it. 

Anyway, just a note to myself; maybe don't worry so much. This is the way now. More circles.

Circles

This summer I had the opportunity to try cutting and printing Japanese wood block with my friend Jonathan (who makes very lovely prints indeed). Some circles...

Different to any print process I've used before, the wooden block is soaked with water and water-based ink is applied. Paper is laid over the top and pressure applied by hand with a baren. The ink is absorbed by the paper and this gives the resulting prints a vibrant quality which I love. I normally have such trouble with colour (with it looking murky or flat or clashing or just not how I want it) but on the thin Japanese paper the bright saturated colours look good to me. Although saying that...

A few weeks later I made some mono prints inspired by the previous circles. Paper stencils with grids of circles cut out. Two shades of grey because all the colours looked wrong. I'm interested in how the circles overlap and create new shapes as the ink builds up, the patterns left by the previous stencil. That's the beauty of the oil based inks to me, the transparency of a really thin layer, how the tone changes as the layers build up.

And I've been teaching George to draw circles. Round and round. He's getting it, less zigzag more curve (although zigzags are good too!) Mostly leads to ten verses of 'wheels on the bus' though... :)