February

Here is the box I made, at last, and delivered to the British Library this month for their copy of 'Places'. The first boxed book is in the Buckinghamshire County Museum's collection. It was made to find out 'can artists ever work together?', part of 'artist's forum' at the Museum's exhibition in 2007 'Clear Skies and Dark Clouds', about different artists working together in the county between the wars.

We made each page with a print and a quote. Jean Mould Hart made this linocut with remembered episodes hanging in the landscape on a washing line. Heather Hunter's lino blocks were repeated to make the box. Christine Lock's page included a quote by Clare Leighton and a page that she cut out minutes before the book launch. This added to the exhilarating experience of making a new book together in such a short time. My place of inspiration is summed-up in the tiny wood-engraving of a tree I can see from my studio. 

Our answer to the question posed by the exhibition was 'yes' I think, although the geographically close artists in the exhibition only worked together very occasionally if at all. 

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.