Michael: Quiet around here

It's been quiet around here later. We've all been so busy.

One of my photographs has just appeared in the National Trust guide to White Horse Hill. Here's the cover (not my photo):

My photo's inside.

It's in the middle, at the bottom. Their caption is "Sheep on the ramparts" (of Uffington Castle). Here's the original:



What's everyone else been up to?

Michael: Ashdown Forest 14

While I try to work out what to next with the linocut that's in progress, here's another of the small paintings from the Ashdown Forest series.



7 October, 2.45pm. Autumn sun on dry bracken, fire gold.
Acrylic on canvas, 15 x 15 cm.

Michael: Ashdown Forest 13

Another of the small paintings from the Ashdown Forest landscape series.



10 December, 3pm. Winter's afternoon quickly turns to evening.
Acrylic on canvas, 15 x 15 cm.

Michael: Ashdown Forest, summer days

27 July, 3pm. Long hot summer days stretch beyond the horizon. Another of the small paintings from the current Ashdown Forest exhibition.



Acrylic on canvas, 15 x 15cm.

Michael: Solarplate etching, Ashdown Forest

Another experiment with what can be done with solarplate (photopolymer) etching. This time, I started with a photograph of one of my recent paintings of the Ashdown Forest landscape...



...converted it to black and white, and then etched it on the solarplate.



I like this. The solarplate has picked up all the brushwork and even the weave of the canvas. (Click the picture for a bigger version.) These are much clearer in this etching than they are in the original painting, where the colour grabs the attention. The result has got the quality of a traditional, pure aquatint plate.

I printed the plate again in dark blue.



I like this. I like this a lot.

Michael: Ashdown Forest 10

3 April, 11am. In the distance, yes, the first sight of gorse.

Acrylic on canvas, 15 x 15cm.

Michael: Ashdown Forest 9

Start of a new series of the Ashdown Forest landscapes. I'm trying to push harder to the boundary between naturalism and abstraction. This series is on smaller size of canvas, to see how much information can be packed into the smaller space.



9 January, 1.15pm. Searching for colour in the depths of winter, and finding it everywhere.
Acrylic on canvas, 15 x 15 cm.

Michael: Ashdown Forest - High horizon

A hard climb to the high horizon.



Acrylic on canvas, 25 x 25 cm.

Michael: Late summer rain

Late summer rain threatens to spoil the afternoon.



Acrylic on canvas, 25 x 25 cm.

Michael: Ashdown Forest — Last of the sun

The last of the sun going down over the hills catches the edge of the bracken.



Last of the sun. Acrylic on canvas, 25 x 25 cm.

Michael: Ashdown Forest 4

Dusk comes early to the forest hills as autumn draws on.



Acrylic on canvas, 25 x 25 cm.

Michael: Ashdown Forest 3

A sunny afternoon in early Spring cut short by storm clouds moving northwards from the English Channel and across the downs.



Acrylic on canvas, 25 x 25 cm.

Michael: Ashdown Forest 2

Another painting for the Ashdown Forest exhibition. Dark clouds at the end of a late autumn day. Sheets of red bracken stretch up to the horizon.



Acrylic on canvas, 25 x 25 cm.

Michael: Ashdown Forest landscape

Our exhibition at the Ashdown Forest Centre opens soon. Next week. It's about time that I got on and did some work for it. Here's the first of my paintings.



29 July, 2pm. Acrylic on canvas, 25 x 25 cm.

For more information about the exhibition, click here.

Michael: Another collagraph landscape

Another collagraphed landscape, and I'm at last getting somewhere that I want to be.


Approx A4.

Except it isn't really collagraph: there wasn't any sticking. It's printed from strips of foamboard, which has two useful features: the smooth surface makes it easier to print flat even colours; and when you bend it, it creases, breaking up the surface and creating unpredictable textures.

Michael: More collagraph landscape

This is another landscape, made from string and card and tape and paper, printed in white and black inks onto brown kraft paper, and then the sun stencilled on.


Approx A4.

Perhaps collagraph is starting make sense now.

Michael: Collagraph landscape

Still fighting to get collagraph to "work". I managed to stick enough paper and string and card and foil and even leaves to a couple of backing boards to make a landscape.

I experimented with printing the first board in white ink onto coloured paper, the second board in black, and then stencilling a circle for the sun.



It's difficult to get enough ink onto the uneven surface of the collagraph plate; you can see how the density increases with successive prints, but it's possible to have some control over this with careful burnishing.







All: Collagraph on paper, A5.

Richard - Work in progress

With our Ashdown Forest exhibition just confirmed to open the week before Easter, its time to buckle down and finish some pictures. At the moment I'm working on another group of four. Nearly there ...

Sheri - Ashdown

Here are my latest two Ashdown paintings - driven a little more to abstraction with each one.

Lynn - 2nd Devon painting - early stages

A way to go with this one as well...

I also mentioned on Tuesday about the small, postcard sized ultra quick studies we did in class. It was a usefull exercise, though obviously much easier to keep things simple when so small (as opposed to A1 full size paintings).

Just a few, we did about 20..