Happy New Year

These unsuitable princesses are work in progress for 'Printess and the p', a new artist's book for publication in the autumn. 

Books for 2013

Two new versions of books are ready to be looked at by vistors either here at my studio from February or at BABE Bristol Artists Book Event at the Arnolfini on the 20th and 21st of April. 

Inks

In these trials with similar pages for my next book it was hard to tell, even from close up, which was printed with safe wash inks and which with traditional oil-based inks, but they just don't handle in the same way. The greatest disadvantage with the safe wash inks when making books is that if the paper is too wet, colour seeps through to the other side. 

The safe wash inks are wonderfully bright. In 'Drawing lines' for the Big Draw this year, Leonie and I drew and printed with local schools. The results, 'Dreams inside our heads' and 'Lines beneath our feet' were hosted by Brothers Hair Salon in this most central spot in a town whose council is in the process of drawing new lines on the map. Bright colours were needed for the work to show up in a shadowy lane. 

The new colours glowed but could also be subtle enough for chine colle and layers of embossing to work. I sometimes make collagraphs with young people using Rowney/Daler watercolour inks, but the colours are not lightfast. 

Several workshops later, I know these oil-based inks are better for first time printers, with easy washing up and consistent results. Work continues on 'Printess' (or the invention of printing in one sleepless night) however with the traditional inks that took hundreds of years to perfect. 

PLAN at EXHIBIT

Leonie's current show Plan comes down this Saturday (18th August) after a successful run at the excellent Exhibit Gallery on the site of the Golden Lane Estate (a postwar modernist architectural wonder close to the Barbican centre).

'Presenting works from her large-scale ‘The Envisageable Cities’ series together for the first time, alongside new works created exclusively for the exhibition, Leonie’s beguiling, intricate and fastidiously detailed works on paper continue to dissect and examine the constructed world, and how it shapes us.'

On Saturday 21st July a drop-in drawing workshop on the Golden Lane estate was run by Leonie in conjunction with the show. 

Exhibit Gallery, 20 Goswell Road, EC1M 7AA

See Joyzine's review of PLAN

Art & Sport

Art or sport? Sometimes it feels like the same thing according to the stamp-printed notes in this Oxfam Bookshop window. 

'Catching movement' was the title of a Big Draw celebration of drawing held last October with young people from Lord William's School and John Hampden School. They made drawings from observation (one was an accomplished gymnast) that became cut-out Olympic figures, to be inked and printed together on an etching press. 

The prints have been photographed to make a concertina book, and are still showing in the window of Topsport, 14 Buttermarket, Thame until after the Paralympics. 

The 'Big Draw' starts again in October (www.campaignfordrawing.org) 

'Representing Nothing' at The Agency Gallery

Leonie's busy summer continues with an exciting group exhibition that likens minimalism to subtraction. Her new prints are featured amongst works by Sovay Berriman, Rebecca Birch, Are Blytt, Appau Junior Boakye-Yiadom, Jefford Horrigan and Stefanos Tsivopoulos. The exhibition opens this Friday 8th June and runs until 28th July at South London's The Agency 

Leonie will be showing new prints from her 'Playing with Matches' series.

Preparations continue for the Bow Arts Open weekend (29th June - 1st July) in her SE1 studio in Bermondsey and for the forthcoming solo show in Exhibit Gallery (opens 4th July) on the Golden Lane Estate near the Barbican centre. 

The summer started with Leonie exhibiting this drawing about mazes in a No Way group show.

Minute

Thanks to 'we love your books' I have been playing with food again for this year's minute theme. The best natural colours and strongest printing shapes are from the best and freshest fruit and vegetables - the things that are really good for you. Hence the title 'from minute to almost immortal' is for a small book about growth. 

Books2Eat ABC

This book was designed to be updated whenever we celebrate Books2Eat on April 1st. A while ago it ceased to be a free event but is now having a revival in its earlier form via Facebook.

On April 1st this year, Heather Hunter, Jo Hinchliffe and I practised on paper printing with food and water-based inks. The image above shows a new addition to the first page 'A piece of broccoli.'

Watch this space for edible versions next year!

We were inspired by finding Books2Eat ABC in the Abcdedarium collection on this beautiful site from the Marriott Library in Utah.

Collections

This print, 'Again towards the sun', is now at Collinge and Clark's bookshop on Leigh Street (a short walk from the British Library).

'Nothing but my footprints', another print in this series, was chosen for permanent display at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Hospital in Oxford. As they are part collagraph, part etching, I have to call them 'not necessarily identical in every way'.

What also made me really happy, is that Mount Holyoke College Library, Massachusetts now has all my books in their collection.

I was delighted to see this amazing post with great photos recording the book's arrival at the library:

A Day in the Life of Archives & Special Collections: New Acquisitions Arrive!

Bookfair

p's & q's invite you to see artists' books surrounding a historic printing press at The Science Museum for the Watercolour and Works on Paper Fair next week.

For a last minute preview invitation or free entry ticket please email christine.tacq@talk21.com

Hatbox

These books (see also March 2011), created for now as 'one of a kind', just keep evolving. The larger version has extra folding. The series is inspired by the way objects in a museum tell a different story each time they are rearranged.

Poetry

These pages will start my next book. The plan is to end it with the poem by Emily Dickinson, which starts "Hope is the thing with feathers." (It was also the answer to my entry for the Thame Arts and Literature postcard trail...see September 2011)