Turner at the National Gallery

I visited the Joseph W.M. Turner exhibition in the National Gallery. Luckily I had taken my new reading glasses so I could examine the works.. Needing reading glasses still feels wierd, I have had them less than a week and I'm still coming to terms with needing to put them on while reading or looking at things closely. I have already started hanging them halfway down my nose and looking over the top of them and reading when looking downwards. I'm like an old fogey :D

Meanwhile back at my studio, it is in dire need of a spring clean... I nearly need to play hop-scotch in between the boxes bags and other bits over the floor going from one end to the other. I need to re-stack some paintings too. I am in a new broom mood though, I am going to take some of the works and dispose of them to reduce clutter. I am also considering a studio sale to sell off a number of others, I really don't have the space to store all I have, and many are too old to exhibit in a Gallery. I may hire somewhere to have a sale early in the spring, and sell off a few before updating my website as a lot of the works on it will be included in the clearout. More on this later.

My new cards...

I recieved my new business cards and some postcards today. They are double-sided glossy cards from vistaprint, and were due in December but they got lost somewhere in the ether.. Vistaprint had no problem resending them to me though, which is nice customer service. I'm not sure if the glossy double-side business cards will be any more effective than my last ones but they do look nice.

The print job on the back side is a little dark but the quality of the cards is excellent for the price.
The colour balance on the postcards and the front of the business cards is perfect.

Enought pre-varicating though, I must get back to finishing off an exhibition proposal... that is after all why I switched the computer on..

January can get very busy, particularly if you miss the first half through laziness.. ;)

Tests, and testing a new method in the near future..

I have booked an appointment with an optician for this afternoon. ( After a lot of prevarication.) At this stage I nearly need to get arm extensions to read fine print....

... I guess I need to sort out my eyesight before the fishing season. I need to be able to see the flies to tie on the cast. :D
It may help my reading too, but these days much of that is done on the laptop, which is at a distance that is comfortable to read. I seem to be having never-ending tests for this and that so far this year. Check-ups for this, tests for that, it's time you had this checked etc.. old age is catching up with me :D

I fully intended to start work on a new lino cut this morning. But again I am prevaricating and having booked the eye test in Tallaght while I am there for the afternoon anyway for other tests it just doesn't seem worth while getting started on something that I'll have to leave. I am still deciding what I want the lino-cut to be. I have one or two ideas, but I need to be sure that what I do is suitable on the scale I am going to work, which is quite small. I am doing this by creating small simple paintings in flat colours. These then will be pinned up and left for a few days, until I decide which are more interesting and if they can be improved or not.
When I paint, I can rework the pieces. When I cut into a sheet of lino, that is it. No reworks available. I intend to keep a record of the process here, as it will also help me to clarify the difference in the work practices involved in this media for myself. While I have comfortably worked in lino-cut printing with one colour, and in a four colour work using seperate blocks, this is the first time I will use the reduction method.

The reduction method was much used by Picasso can be used to produce multi colour prints from one block, making the lining up process much easier. Each colour is printed in turn on the entire edition of the print before more of the block is cut away before printing the next colour. This is repeated until the there is very little left of the original block. This method has its pitfalls and needs planning but is an exciting way of making colour prints. The main disadvantage is that you have to print the complete run of the prints as you work. I will keep this project to a run of about 12 prints, If it works well, I may invest in a printing press rather than printing by hand as I currently do.

11 days in to the year already...

It's nearly time I got back into the studio. It has been cold, damp and dark for the last while and I just haven't bothered to go into the studio at all. I went into the studio for a while yesterday, put the heating on and looked around at the tidying needing doing, picked up my watercolour gear, switched off the heating and came inside again. I did do a couple of small watercolour paintings in the house, just to get my hand in while enjoying the warmth and comfort. I don't know if I'm really ready to go back to work yet, I have the itch to paint but not the energy. I think I'm suffering from lack of sunlight.

I spent today shopping and visiting... anything other than work... even the dog was in danger of getting a walk, but time caught up on me so now I am typing with herself playing the look at me game. ...I'm here play with me....

....Ahh well there are worse things a body could be doing....