At the beginning of December I spent a weekend making monoprints at B.I.P. in Kemptown, under the expert tutelage of Andrew Purches. The course was a revelation to me, as I’ve never had much time for monoprints until now. I used my own photos of Berlin as a starting point. We were working on aluminium plates (the backs of second-hand industrial litho plates) and using oil-based litho inks. I found that often the second printing of the plate (after drawing into it a bit after the first printing) worked best.

Above is my mono print based on an image of the Palast der Republic in Berlin being dismantled.
Below is a side view of a building in Sophienstrasse, Berlin.

A friend of mine, Giles Thacker, invited me to make a piece of artwork for ‘Tower of Dreams’, a project that he has been working on for White Night in Brighton. White Night is a festival of nighttime events all around Brighton, which took place this weekend (when the clocks went back).

Giles is part of Shared Space and Light, who work with video mapping – projecting still and moving images onto architecture with amazing results.

My contribution was to make an image which could be projected onto the Pepperpot (photo above), a folly-like tower situated at the edge of Queens Park in Brighton.

Below are photos of my two attempts – the first treehouse didn’t really fit well with the architecture of the Pepperpot, but the second one worked much better. It was meant to be a treehouse again, but turned into a watchtower!

Shared Space and Light

Friends of the Pepperpot

The show was called ‘Memory of a Hope’ and came from an idea by artist Matthew Houlding, whose work is concerned, amongst other things, with architecture and the idea of Utopia. The title was taken from a text by Henri Lefebvre: “Ideology collapses and vanishes, utopianism atrophies, but something great is left behind: the memory of a hope”.

The gallery invited its regular artists to nominate two other artists to take part in the show and I was really delighted to be put forward by Samantha Donnelly. It was a pleasure to be showing alongside some impressive artists and work, in such a great gallery.

Ceri Hand Gallery

For the Home project, Jonathan asked 50 artists and illustrators to provide new images for an already existing die-cut template. The form of the template was a tall house with chimneys, and the brief was ‘home’.

Below are photos of the painting I made for one side of the die-cut template, and a close-up photo of some of the resulting constructions, on display at Quay Arts.

The participating artists will each get an edition of all 50 works, and some additional copies of their own works. I will post an image of my finished work when I receive it.

I have finished making my model of the Baumhaus an der Mauer, the treehouse at the Berlin Wall in Kreuzberg. Last week I made the first painting from it – although I was working on primed MDF and the paint didn’t sit well on the surface.

I’m sure I will make further paintings from this model, either in conjunction with other elements or on its own.

They are beautiful. My prints are on the cover sleeve, and also printed on the vinyl record itself, very cool!

Alan Outram, who is The Woodcraft Folk, got in touch last year after seeing my paintings at the Harris Museum in Preston. We discovered that we had mutual friends in common, and a few months ago he asked me if he could use some of my prints for his next record’s artwork.

The music is even better than the artwork – here are some links so you can hear for yourself!
Quiet, Birds Have Ears
At Home With Howls

I have been working on some woodcuts for a display of artists’ Christmas cards at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. The exhibition has been put together by Simon Martin, Head of Curatorial Services, and he asked me to design and make a background for the display, which is being presented in the gallery’s Print Room.

The exhibition comprises over 200 cards, from the 1930′s to the present day, so I needed to produce something that would be suitable as a backdrop to a very diverse range of images. In the end I think it worked out okay – I made a lot more prints than I needed, but I always figured this would happen.

Simon and I installed the exhibition last Monday (8th November) and it will be open until 9th January 2011.

Many thanks to my partner Allan who helped install the work and transport it to Chichester from Brighton.

Above: Part of the display, including some cards made and sent by Osbert Lancaster.

Above: These are 3-d cards made by the artist Ron King.

Pallant House Gallery
Pallant House Gallery
9 North Pallant
Chichester
PO19 1TJ

I signed up for the course in order to get back into using the process and to brush up on my skills. I learned a great deal from Hebe Vernon Morris, the excellent teacher – it was a fantastic week. The working atmosphere in BIP is really good, I’d like to go back and do some more courses there, although I am also excited about getting my press working again and using the process in my studio.

I managed to get a four-colour print finished during the course – I was working from a photo of the ‘Baumhaus an der mauer’ – the tree-house at the Berlin Wall, which I photographed in 2007 and 2009.

The tree-house at the Wall, in Kreuzberg, Berlin

My prints drying at BIP

The Globe printing press which I printed my litho prints on

Bip-Art