Update on my lino cut prints.

I finished the second ex-libris lino-cut, the one on the right obviously since I already posted the first one. I have sent them off to the Museum in Serbia, and now I can get back to my painting again.

I am still working on fish.. mainly sea bream, but I am nearly reaching the end of my journey with them. I may just finish off the works in progress and move on to something else.

If the weather improves I am still hoping to get some landscapes painted en-plien-air, to re-work over the winter. However this is less and less likely due to the inclement weather we have been having. This last month was the wettest August yet. We have had between 150% (east) and 250% (west) of normal August rainfall this year. Hopefully we may get an indian summer and a dry warm September so I can get out and about.

My Ex-Libris print is ready for the impression stage.

I have two draft print runs from my lino cut Ex Libris

The first is a two colour printing entitled The written word.

The background is made up of the written word in 11 languages.

The second layer is a design based on prehistoric writings and designs on some of our neolithic monuments, with script and ecrit reinforced. I opted for these as they are from the two most widely used western languages, English and French.

The second draft includes a third colour impression of a stylised quill pen. This was my intended design, but I think it is far too busy to work. For this reason I will probably go with just the two impression piece.

I have been using standard watercolour paint for the printing rather than the block printing watercolour

as I wanted to control the colour better. However I had a little problem with the

printing process when dampening the watercolour paper prior to impressing the lino-cut. (note the blurring on the second picture) I have used dry card for the two colour impression which seems to have worked better as far as a sharpness goes, however the edges have not come out clean in this one. I will try a varied level of dampness on the watercolour paper before deciding which paper to use for the final prints. I will also rework another design to send off, along with this one. I am more relaxed now that at least one is finished, as the second is not neccesary, but optional.

Slow work...

I still need to work on my Ex-Libris prints. I am just not happy with them as they are. I hope they will be come together soon as I am leaving other work aside to carry on with them.

This is one reason why I haven't posted recently, as I am getting behind in my work. I hope to print the latest lino-cuts tommorrow, and hopefully I'll be happy with the effects. I will post photos when they are done. In the mean time, I'm off out this evening....lad's night out so I'll keep this short.

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Of fish....

I have been busy with a painting of sea bream over the last while. I am still not happy with it but I will continue with it though, because I know the painting will get there eventually. I had started with the Bream looking like bream (on a plate). Obviously this wasn't going to work since the fish do look different in water, and light reflects differently.

I then reworked them and at this stage I have over-painted the fish four times, each time altering the balance between the fish as they are, and how they need to be for the painting.






Top, Sea-bream, unfinished


middle, Sea-bream, finished study.


bottom, Goldfish fry in my pond.







And speaking of fish, the fry in the pond are coming on in leaps and bounds. Today the fish are spawning again for the fourth time that I know of. I have at least three stages of fry in the pond at the moment. You will see two or three different sized fist in this photo of them, and there are more tiny pin-fry evident to the eye (less than a quarter of an inch, .5 cm)

The older fry are almost an inch long now and are happily shoaling in the pond, and ignoring the adults presence so I assume they are now of a size that makes them safe from predation.

It has been a while since I last posted here on my blog. Mainly because I haven't really had much to say about my work. I am still working away, not really getting to grips with anything. I am at a cul-de-sac with my ExLibris ideas. My painting is not coming along as I wish either, mainly because my mind is more on the printwork than on the painting.

I spent the morning retrieving small goldfish fry from my pond and putting them in nursery tanks.... anything to avoid work. Now I am here typing a post on my blog. I have already cleaned and scraped the build-up of paint on my palette, reloaded it with fresh paint, added oil etc, it is ready to go.........

....but I am not.

My studio is in danger of getting a thorough spring clean at this stage........[shock-horror]

I think I may take the rest of the day off. I am likely to do little or nothing anyway. It is hot, heavy and thundery with regular heavy showers which doesn't help either. I will leave you with a photo of the latest finished work from the Maltese series. Oil on canvas, 90cm by 70 cm.

Another Ex-Libris invitation.

I have been invited to take part in another international exhibition of Ex Libris print. It is in Serbia again, but this time it is part of a museum collection rather than last years Biennale. Obviously they were enamoured by my work at the Biennale, although I didn't get awarded any of the prizes.

I will work on the design over the next few weeks, and then I can start cutting lino blocks by the end of the month.

Working with print is a nice change occasionally too, My painting has been going well, so I can afford to take a little break and work on the print. I had considered trying an etching, but to be honest I haven't really got the experience in the method to do it without a few practice pieces.
I will post the working sketches here, and the final prints.

I have been busy again. I have finished my commission works and now I am back working toward my show later this year. Yesterday we drove out to Howth, a fishing village in North Dublin and I picked a few fresh fish up at the market to continue painting them. I have forgotten to buy more canvas though, so the fish have had to go into the freezer. I'm hoping to get canvas tomorrow, if not Monday will have to do. I had to travel down to Limerick and back today, so that ruled out a visit to the art supplies shops.
I came home yesterday evening raring to go paint my fish..... like a child with a new toy, but alas I only have large canvases left in the studio, and they are just too big to paint little fish. I am looking forward to working from them next week though. It's nice to get stuck in to work that interests me,-- but it is also great to have the commission work coming in.

Some of the fish we bought have seen the grill instead of the studio, being fresh it was beautiful. I didn't even feel guilty about not painting it first.

yoyo weather systems...

1 week later and it's now back down to 9 degrees centigrade, a drop of up to 18 degrees from last week. It's accompanied by heavy rain and some flooding, just normal summer weather... :(

Work has been going well, but I have stopped with the dull cold wet conditions....I'd need to wear wellington boots to get down the garden at the moment....

Excitement in the fish pond.

Laying eggs in the weed

I have been working away for the last few days. However I have been sidetracked today though, my Goldfish in the pond have been spawning all day. They have laid a large amount of eggs amongst the weed and blanket weed around the edges.The eggs are about 1.5 mm in diameter, and hopefully in a week or so a fair proportion of them should hatch out.

Fish eggs.

I will have to try and net them out of the pond though. Gold fish are not adverse to eating little fish. I will try to remove a lot of them into a smaller tank, upstream of the main pond, and leave them there until they get a bit bigger.

None of the fry survived last year, I had three left at the beginning of winter but they have not appeared this year, so I assume they died in the cold weather. Either eaten or from lack of microscopic food. The fish spawned very late last year because of the cold summer (about September) so the fry were very small to overwinter.

The painting has been a little slow..

I am working on two commissions and they are proving a little difficult, mainly because I want to get back to my fish paintings. However the two commissions are needed fairly soon, so needs must.

I am waiting to hear back from the venue for my Maltese show, but I suppose they are busy with other things, but I would like to know if they want some more larger works than I have suggested. I'd like to firm up the date also, so I can book flights etc. for the opening.

In the meantime I'm going back out to enjoy this weekends sunshine, this is proving to be a scorcher, 24-25 degrees C. A big change from 10 or 11 last week.!!

This is a video of the fish charging around, the cock fish chasing the hens to start them spawning. Those at the edge resting are all spawned out.