I made this solar plate from a drawing I did at the Australian Museum. At first I traced it onto architect’s drafting film, the way I did with these pomegranates. Unfortunately I over-worked it, which was so obvious because the original was much freer. I threw it away and instead did a photocopy onto acetate.

This has been inked up in black with a raw sienna beak, then masked across the bird while a blue colour roll was put on, then the blend was rolled over the top. It did start with a red crest, but didn’t really show by the time the print was made.

Two more collographs from my British Royals series, others of which can be seen  here and here. The one in the green dress is Mary Queen of Scots. She was pretty scary looking when I did the first proof. However, I then added some Matt Gel Medium to her face, with a little Burnt Sienna added. That meant that I could see her features & what they were likely to print. Previously I’d just used Gel or Impasto, which was a bit silly of me. Mary’s face, hair and hands were inked up in Raw Sienna, then  the dress in green and the chair and underskirt in blue.  I did a yellow colour roll and then a blend, of which I had the reddish- brown at the top. I then wiped back her face and hands.

Ann of Cleves was printed on a different day, with different colours on the rollers, but still a yellow for the first roll, then a blend with pinkish-red at the bottom. She has been inked up initially in Prussian Blue and Sanguine. ‘In the flesh’ the sanguine looks marvellous.

Printmaking is over for the year now. What a shame. I will miss it.

As I said, the photocopy situation is solved. A friend suggested we go to COFA Digital Print and Copy where their business is printing and they have properly maintained machines and a very helpful lady who actually understands what solar plates are. It was a breeze and a fraction of the cost of Officeworks. So I had some great new images to print on Sunday. There were NO issues making the plates. They exposed perfectly.

So now I’m the Bin Lady. I must say I think my bin images come out best. This top one is inked up a la poupee and has a very faint yellow colour roll.

The next one is not a bin, surprisingly but some pipe-things that were very bright yellow in real life. I did two versions of this with a colour roll with a blend. The other one is red at the front going to yellow at the back.  In both cases of course, the cool colour is receding.

Then next I have one of my favourite images – the bent bin. This bin actually is green, so I inked it up in green & the rest of the plate in burnt sienna. Then I did the colour roll on top with the blend echoing the green on the right.

The last one is these tube-things. Just inked up in black with a colour roll of red to yellow. These things were very red and rusty in real life, so next time I’ll ink them up in something with a lot of red in it.

The thing about solar plate etching is that the photocopying is so important.  Earlier in the year, when I did the course, I did the photocopying in the office. However when I looked at the acetate outside in the light, many of them were unusable, because the photocopier just wasn’t up to scratch.  This time I went to Officeworks. Mistake. You can’t do your own photocopying and you can’t stand over them to see if they have the right settings.

This was the first time I’d made solar plates at home by myself, so it was a bit scary. Luckily I read the instructions and got a clean piece of muslin out for if the plates stayed sticky in patches when I washed them.  Sure did – well two out of three. The bin at the top was less dark and it came out fine, but the others were not so good. However I like the wheels one, so I’ll make another plate of that one – do another acetate.

These were printed at the end of August and all that day we did viscosity printing, with stencils. The top one has had the centre part masked and a very light yellow colour roll, then a blend on a different roller. The ‘wheels’ has had all the background masked while the yellow roll was done. The bins at the bottom had the centre bin masked while a blue  colour roll was put on. This plate was made back in March and I’d previously inked it up a la poupee.

I was printing again on Sunday, and have the photocopying issue solved, and finding making the plates really easy. Decided I prefer to do a la poupee, even though it’s slower. All these images are from the Heritage Shipyard or ithe surrounding shipyards.

I always have a big pile of books (or two) beside my bed.  Inspired by this drawing, and again, in search of inspiration for the ‘journal challenge’ I drew some of my books. I was on a ‘B’ page of my altered book of dreams, so I left the original text about the meaning of a dream about books.

See the third book down – the biography of Patrick White written by David Marr?  Two nights ago I went to a this talk at COFA, and heard that David Marr keeps his piles of books in his lounge rather than his bedroom. It was a very interesting talk for many reasons. There was one philanthropist, one writer (David Marr) and one collector, speaking on the subject of ‘Why Art Matters’. I went along because David Marr was going to be there. Last year I heard him speak about the Henson case about which he has written a book. He is so intelligent, knowledgeable and witty.

Question time was particularly illuminating. A question was asked whether art for an upcoming art festival should be written about in ‘academic language’ or whether it should be in ‘plain language’ so that the punters could read it. It’s good to know that such esteemed and highly educated people as the speakers share my loathing of artspeak.

I’m not sure, but it’s possible that this talk may later be found on COFA Online

My drawing was done in a big rush with an Artline pen over Gesso, with Tombow pens for the colour, and watercolour crayons for the background.

Another journalling spread of chillies on black gesso. I’m not finished with this chilli theme. I’ll do some more small ones for studies and then a large painting. It’s far more vibrant in acrylics than the Conte crayons, and quicker too.  In using an altered book, I’m glueing pages together and removing some, so that it doesn’t get too thick when I gesso all the time. This means that the pages have a bit of a ripple sometimes, and that the gutter is very pronounced. This means it always has to be worked around in some way. This is why I have a border down the side of this page, otherwise my gutter would be down the centre of the centre pot.

I’m still not convinced about this ‘art journal’ business. I am just pressing on till the end of September in the hopes that I create some good habits that I’ll use in my sketchbook. My ‘main’ sketchbook is handmade from Stonehenge paper. Nearly all the pages have been prepped in some way – mostly by just sloshing on a wash of whatever is on my palette when I’m painting. So that is not new – I just want to write more, though without turning it into a diary, and to compose the page spreads with more thought.