Archive | December 2012

Printout at The Point, Doncaster

My monoprints are currently part of an exhibition called ‘Printout’ at The Point in Doncaster. Alongside three other artists, the exhibition looks more closely at some of the different print processes and how you get from the initial idea to the finished piece. Other types of printmaking included in the exhibition are linocuts, collagraphs and etching. The linocuts by Graham Firth are a particular favourite – the detail in them is amazing.

In the exhibition I included the glass I use for inking on (you can see it on the extreme left of the above image). It is a very messy and ‘covered in ink’ piece of glass but beautiful in it’s own right. I now use the clean side to ink on but have the pattern from previous leaves showing through as I work.

As part of the exhibition, I have done a couple of workshops at the Gallery – one with a group of adults and one Saturday drop-in workshop with children and their parents, where we created a big leafy tree as part of the exhibition. Here’s a close-up of some of the prints the children made.

December 21, 2012

Colshaw – The Return

Following on from last year’s art project in Colshaw, myself and fellow artist Richard Dawson were asked by Cheshire East Council and Lime Art to return to the estate to run another project with the same group. Last year’s project focused on creating artwork for part of a concrete wall on the edge of the park. As the wall is (very) long and fairly unattractive, we decided it would be good to continue with this theme and create more artwork for the same wall.

Despite numerous and repeated predictions that the original artwork would get vandalised, only one part got burnt (a letter ‘S’ that was wrapped in varnished string) which was quite an achievement. As part of the second project, we were also asked to replace this ‘S’.

We worked for several evenings with the group of young people to come up with ideas and concepts for what the artwork could be. Then, during the October half-term we worked for three days to produce the work, which involved creating designs, large-scale drawing, using the fret saw to cut the shapes, sanding, painting and adding final detailing. Each group member produced a large scale ‘character’ that they drew, cut out of plywood and painted. We then took them away to varnish (the horrible, toxic, smelly bit) and brought them back to install on a freezing cold Saturday with the help of Steve from local housing association, Riverside.

As ever it was a pleasure to work with this group of young people from Colshaw. Their energy, enthusiasm and interest in the project made it an incredibly satisfying and rewarding project to work on. Yes, the group require a fair amount of discipline and control and it is hard work but the kids from this estate are some of the best I have ever worked with and I would choose to work with them again in an instant.

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December 20, 2012

Waste Creative – an award-winning success!

Waste Creative, the recycling project run by Woodend Artists and funded by Recycle for Greater Manchester has come to the end of it’s first phase. The project consisted of a series of workshops based around using rubbish creatively and culminated in the production of an information pack and DVD about recycling. The project also included a visit to the Materials Recovery Facility in Manchester, composting workshops and choosing some local recycling champions.

The project was launched at New Charter’s head offices in Ashton-under-Lyne where we had an exhibition of all the artwork created, gave out the completed packs and had a film premiere with the animations the group created. All the groups and their parents were invited to the launch along with the press and the funders.

A week later the project won the ‘Love where you live’ award from national organisation and environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy.

Below are some images of the artwork created during the project…