More Sugar lifting!

Two plate sugarlift etching, testing my skills at registration!

In my quest to move away from drypoints, as you know I have been experimenting with sugar lift aquatints.  Here are a few of the tests and experiments.  The bugs got a little more creative inspired by a recent visit to the reserve collection in the Zoology Museum in Cambridge.  What a treat that was!  We also visited the Tate Print Collection on Wednesday and got to see some beauties close up.  I just loved this early Hockney print, which I believe is his first etching… puts me to shame!  Below are some photos from last week.

Abstraction from a landscape painting in sugarlift aquatint
Dragonfly Abstraction – 1.50 x 2 approx.

Flower Mantis sugarlift –  1.50 x 2 approx.

David Hockney – Myself and my heroes. Better image to be found with Tate link

Back to painting…

Hello everyone…
 

Wicken Fen Autumn ii 12 x 12 Oil/Linen

Barry and I are finally back at my Dad’s in Lincolnshire after a couple of weeks travelling around.  I have managed to get back into painting and I have just finished the above oil, which I started earlier this year!

We spent some time in London, visiting friends, going to exhibitions and visiting one of my daughters, then onto Somerset to visit the other one and popping in to see a good friend in  Gloucestershire.  I thought I would share some photos (difficult to choose, so many good ones) and information from our trip.  At Tate Britain I finally got to see a Vija Celmins exhibit, which was worth the wait!  I have been studying her for my essay and was desperate to see some of her work in reality.  As John Berger wrote in The Shape of the Pocket,

“You have to see them. Words can’t get round them. And reproduction sends them back to where they came from”

How right he is, they are truly exquisite.  She also curated a little exhibit of Turner’s watercolours and prints.

We also went to see The Mechanical Hand Exhibit which was fascinating.  25 years of printing at The Paupers Press.  Not as much pure etching as I had hoped for, but some really wonderful work, a lot of lithographs, but I think my favourite was Christopher Le Brun’s etchings and Grayson Perry’s Map of Nowhere, which is fantastic and very humourous, if you are fortunate enough to be able to see it close up.

Grayson Perry Map of Nowhere  – Heliogravure

Below are a few images from our travels…

Holly (my eldest) and I walking around the Cadbury Castle iron age hill fort.
Me painting just down the road from my Father’s house.

I love buttercups and they are everywhere at the moment!
On the way up to Cadbury Castle hill
Our walk with Annie
On our way home with Annie