Categories
Category: Monoprint
Maggi Hambling was the artist and printmaker chosen for my Parallel Project.
Life Unleashed: Movement in the Art of Maggi Hambling
considers the different techniques she uses to communicate movement in her drawing, painting and printmaking and some of the learnings for my own printmaking practice.
Other notes and video links
Overview of her work
for British Museum ‘Touch’ exhibition 2016
“The border-line between what is tragic and what is comic interests me…They are a pathetic human way of trying to come to terms with the fact of our own death, the fact of other peoples’ deaths, the fact of the horror we see on the news everyday, the terrible things that happen. Some moments you cry, other moments you laugh” (Conversation with Judith Collins Hambling 1993 p13)
Drawing and portraits
My first introduction to Maggi Hambling was through the ‘George always’ exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in 2009.
Then her wave and Walls of Water paintings shown at the National Gallery. These include a series of monotypes first shown at Malborough Fine Art (see the exhibition), then the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the National Gallery.
More recently her work has been more political with the exhibitions, dealing with topics like global warming, migration and war:
- The Edge (See my Maggi Hambling post on illustration blog)
- War and Requiem
How important is being ‘lesbionic’?
Book References
Hambling, M. (1993). Towards Laughter. Sunderland, UK, Northern Centre for Contemporary Art.
Hambling, M. (1998). maggi & henrietta.
Hambling, M. (2006). Maggi Hambling the Works and Conversations with Andrew Lambirth. London, Unicorn Press Ltd.
Hambling, M. (2009). The Sea. Salford Quays, The Lowry Press.
Hambling, M. (2009). You Are the Sea. Great Britain, Lux Books.
Hambling, M. (2015). War, Requiem and Aftermath. London, Unicorn Press Ltd.
Ramkalawon, J. (2016). Maggi Hambling Touch: works on paper. London, Lund Humphries and British Museum.
Attitude towards death and relationship with Henrietta Moraes Evening Standard 1999
Categories
Iona Howard
- Post author By lindamayoux
- Post date August 21, 2017
- No Comments on Iona Howard
She has a studio in Cottenham in the Cambridgeshire Fens.
My prints explore the notion of time and landscape through a contemplative exploration of surface. The sources of my prints can come from working in the open air or expressing landscape filtered through memory…I am captivated by the ancient semi-natural landscapes typical of my native west Cornwall where a blurred line exists between nature and human activity. Recent works of the Fens focus on the meeting point of land, horizon and sky, their flatness altering the perception of distance. ‘
From interview with Iona in Cambridge 4th Feb 2017:
Her landscapes have a strong geometric structure of contrasting colours and textures. She mainly uses a combination of carborundum, drypoint and monoprint techniques. A mix of a binder (polyurethane varnish) and carborundum grit is applied onto the surface of a plate and sealed with the same varnish. The binder has to withstand a lot of working but should not be so thick as to hide the grit texture of the carborundum. To contrast the carborundum, drypoint is added to produce an incised line. The plate is then inked up using etching ink and copperplate oil with a brush or roller.
Originally she worked in black and white. Now she also works in colour from memory and notes. Colour is built up by layering carborundum plates or more often overlaid though monoprint. Dry ink can be added as a third pass. Ink can be laid on thickly for more embossing. She can use the same base plate but with different seasons. Editions of 40. Or 10-15. She gets commissions where people ask for specific colours.
The technique allows working directly in the landscape to paint on the carborundum and the drypoint plates, and large images can be produced. She prints on thick Somerset paper, printing to the edge of the paper to “leave the composition as unconstrained as the landscapes from which I seek inspiration”. She mounts with nonreflective glass.
Akua Intaglio inks are soy-based and water-soluble. They dry on contact with the paper through absorption into paper fibres, not on the plate which means they can be manipulated for a long time. But drying times are longer than water-based ink.
They can be used for drypoint, etching, relief printmaking, monotype and collograph printmaking. Blending medium gives water-colour effects. Akua inks are less viscous than standard oil-based inks, but for a stiffer ink eg for impasto they need to be mixed with Mag Mix.
Akua liquid pigments were originally developed for monotype printmaking, but it can also used for other techniques such as Japanese woodcut and painting on paper. They have a slow drying formula which will allow for an extended working time to create images on a monotype plate. They can be mixed into Akua Intaglio Inks or the Transparent Base to create new colours, it can also be printed on top or beneath Akua Intaglio inks for multi-plate overlays. All colours are lightfast. Can be printed on dry paper.
I used Akua inks in:
Project 2.2 Random Abstract Prints (monoprints with Richter-type effects with palette knife)
More experiments planned in Part 5.
Abstract in style of Richter
Abstract in style of Richter
Abstract in style of Richter
Abstract in style of Richter
Abstract in style of Richter
Abstract in style of Richter
Abstract in style of Richter
Abstract in style of Richter
Videos with basic techniques
Carborundum
Drypoint
Monoprint
Forest Moses
- Post author By lindamayoux
- Post date January 30, 2017
website: http://www.forrestmoses.com/monotypes.htm
- Tags monoprint
Edgar Degas has been influential in my work for:
- Project 1.1 Natural Landscape
- Assignment 1: Willows
- Assignment 3: Chiaroscuro
- Project 4.2 Self Portraits: Reflections 1
- Assignment 6: as an influence on the monotype approach of Maggi Hambling
Degas produced many prints as well as paintings, and often worked in pastels over prints.
Lithographs
He produced lithographs from some of his paintings – some of these have a beautiful dreamy quality, benefiting from a monochrome treatment to enhance the total contrasts.
Etching
His etching uses a range of styles, often based on drawings of intimate scenes that have a . In ‘The laundress’ his energetic lines echo the frenzy of work in the laundry, and the ink tone on the plate conveys the steam and mist. His ‘whorehouse scenes’, some based on monoprints have an immediacy and poignancy not found in his painting.
Monoprints
Degas (1834-1917) took up monotype printing in 1874-75. In his lifetime Degas produced more than 250 subjects and 400 separate impressions in monotype, far exceeding his etchings or lithographs. He used ghost prints as a basis for pastels. Between 1876-1881 nearly 70% of his works in colour were monoprints enhanced with pastel, sometimes drawing with them, sometimes wetting them for watercolour effects to give different moods, and to add and take away figures.
Degas found monotype gave him greater freedom to improvise and be spontaneous than drawing on paper allowed. The ability to wipe and smear ink on the plate, and the darkness of tone from the ink, allow a range of mark=making and tone very difficult to achieve with charcoal. It was ideal for capturing secret and intimate scenes, such as women engaged in their toilet or in brothel scenes. He was influenced by Japanese woodblock prints and was interested in the ways shapes and lines can be organised on paper to indicate figures in movement. From 1870s he started to have problems with his eyesight, so he was more sensitive to light/dark contrasts and created dramatic chiaroscuro effects.
He was introduced to the process by his friend the amateur etcher Vicomte Ludovic Napoléon Lepic (1839-1889). Lepic enjoyed experimenting tonal wiping (l’eau forte mobile or variable etching) to create many variations on a basic landscape composition. He used one etched plate and wiped off this plate, and also ‘retroussage’, a way of adding ink to previously wiped plates to produce much richer tones on the prints.
Degas adopted this ‘dark-field’ method. He covered the entire surface of the printing plate in oily, slow-drying ink and then removed it as necessary to create the image. He scratched and brushed it, wiped it with a rag and manipulated it with his fingers to create the composition, before fixing it by printing it onto paper. He worked and reworked his plates, wiping off and adding ink with rags, fingers and brushes. Later he began to draw on the plate with Indian ink, often diluting it with turpentine and working directly on the plate with a paintbrush.
Degas usually printed two impressions of each monotype subject, one strong, the other weak. He would keep untouched the first impressions (this is a first impression), but he would rework the second with pastel or gouache.
A Strange New Beauty: Monoprint Landscapes
His monoprint landscapes, included in a MoMA exhibition in 2016, are particularly beautiful and innovative. These use oil based ink and solvents to produce misty effects with strong abstraction.
Sources
Hauptman, J. (2016). Degas: A Strange New Beauty, New York: MoMA.
Google images for Degas chiaroscuro
Degas Creative Commons site for paintings only.
- Tags chiaroscuro, figure, French, impressionist, monochrome, monopprint, painter, pastel
Draw happiness from oneself, from a good day’s work, from the light it can bring to the fog which surrounds us. Think…”that was the best time”
To be further developed as I finish Assignments 3, 4 and 5.
Picasso’s work is a key influence in my printmaking, both stylistically and conceptually. I am particularly interested in his abstract work both that influenced by African art with its ferocious angularity that is also echoed in Guernica, and the fragmented light of the abstraction in analytic cubism ‘trying to communicate the perfume’ of an image. See particularly:
- Assignment 2: The Human Condition 3: Fury (influenced by Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and the Three Dancers)
- Assignment 3: Still LIfe Mushrooms (influenced by his linocuts and still life)
and forthcoming:
- Assignment 4: Abstract Self Portrait (1932 paintings, cubism, portraits and lithographs) forthcoming
- Assignment 5: From memory (influenced by Guernica) forthcoming
Painting isn’t an aesthetic operation; it’s a form of magic designed as a mediator between this strange, hostile world and us, a way of seizing the power by giving form to our terrors as well as our desires.(p11)
Painting is stronger than I am. It makes me do what it wants. (p70)
A picture is not thought out and settled beforehand. While it is being done it changes as one’s thoughts change. And when it is finished, it still goes on changing, according to the state of mind of whoever is looking at it. (p12)
References and Resources
- Borchardt-Hume, A. and N. Ireson, Eds. (2018). Picasso 1932: The EY Exhibition. London, Tate Publishing.
- Clark, H., Ed. (1993). Picasso: In His Words. San Francisco, Collins.
- Cohen, J., Ed. (1995). Picasso: Inside the Image. London, Thames & Hudson.
Coppel, S. (1998). Picasso and Printmaking in Paris. London, South Bank Publishing. - Cowling, E., N. Cox, S. Fraquelli, S. G. Galassi, C. Rigpelle and A. Robbins (2009). Picasso: Challenging the Past. London, National Gallery Pubications.
- Eik Kahng, Charles Palermo, Harry Cooper, Annie Bourneuf, Christine Poggi, Claire Barry and B. J.C.Devolder (2011). Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment 1910-1912. Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
- Picasso (1980). Picasso: Lithographs. Toronto, Dover Publications.
- Picasso (1981). Picasso: Line Drawings and Prints. Toronto, Dover Publications.
- T.J.Clark (2013). Picasso and Truth: from Cubism to Guernica. Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press.
Picasso as artist
Picasso’s life and evolution of his style from:
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- Highly accomplished figurative drawings and paintings from boyhood to late teens
- Blue period (1901–1904) influenced by the suicide of his close friend Carlos Casagemas
- Rose period (1904–1906) during his early marriage and relationship
- African influence (1907–1909), notably Les Demoiselles d’Avignon as a sudden leap to abstraction (see also Wikipedia overview of images from, this period)
- Analytic cubism (1909–1912)
- Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period.
- Neoclassicism and surrealism (1919–1929)
- The Great Depression to MoMA exhibition: 1930–1939 – the period of Guernica, his 1932 paintings of Marie-Thérèse Walter and the Vollard Suite etchings
- Later works to final years: 1949–1973 combined elements of his earlier styles
Overview: BBC Modern Masters Series by Alastair Sooke
Gives an overview of Picasso’s life and art and the way they influenced each other, and the influences that Picasso’s art still has for us today.
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, MoMA
A detailed discussion of the origins and meaning of this painting.
Exhibition Review: Exhibition Review : Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy at the Tate Modern 2018
The Exhibition focuses on his numerous paintings in the one year of 1932, influenced by his relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter. See catalogue:
Borchardt-Hume, A. and N. Ireson, Eds. (2018). Picasso 1932: The EY Exhibition. London, Tate Publishing.
Girl before a Mirror
Discussion by a teacher of the ways in which the meanings of this painting are seen and explained to children.
Picasso portraits at the National Gallery
Looks in particular at multiple viewpoints and cubism.
Guernica and attitudes to politics
Picasso’s last paintings are very poignant, but not well received.
Picasso as printmaker
Picasso (1881–1973) made prints throughout his career – over 2,500 principally in etching, lithography and linocut, but also monoprints.
The Vollard Suite at the British Museum (etchings)
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Linocuts
Invention of the reduction linocut
His earliest linocut is from 1939, but his major period of working in this medium was from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s. During this time the artist resided mainly in the south of France, far removed from his collaborative involvement with the master printers in Paris where he had made his etchings and lithographs in the 1930s and 40s. He began by producing linocut posters for ceramic exhibitions and bullfighting events in Vallauris with the talented local printer Hidalgo Arnéra.
Within a very short time Picasso was finding new ways of producing colour linocuts which dispensed with the orthodox method of cutting a separate block of linoleum for each colour. He devised a method of progressively cutting and printing from a single block that required him to foresee the final result, as once he had gouged away the linoleum surface he could not go back.
Linocuts Exhibition British Museum exhibition: 10 January – 6 May 2014
Still Life under the Lamp (1962) depicts a still life of apples next to a glass goblet, brightly illuminated under a lampshade at night. The BM exhibition shows nine stages, beginning with a blank tabula rasa, Picasso progressively cut and printed the single block, gradually building the image with increasing complexity. At each stage the viewer sees an image that would appear finished but Picasso goes further, pursuing it to its final form. (See Google images)
Jacqueline Reading (1962) a series consisting of four progressive proofs for a monochrome subject, Jacqueline Reading, Picasso’s second wife Jacqueline Roque with whom he lived in the last years of his life. She is posed reading, one hand held to her face and eyes cast down, locked in an interior world. For this print Picasso used two blocks. In the first block he scratched the surface with a stiff comb to describe the form of Jacqueline’s head and bust in tonal terms. A second block was cut with gouges to leave just her outline. Then the print from the second block was superimposed over the first to achieve the final image. (See Google images)
- Other linocuts: Google Picasso linocut ;
- before the lance avant la pique 1959 1
- Deux femmes près de la fenêtre, 1959
- Danseurvet musicien
- Les Banderilles Like Cretan. Like the composition. How about the background?.
- Trois femmes 1959
- le vase de fleurs
- tete de femme de profil
Picasso lithographs: Google images
Picasso drypoint : Google Images
Painting technique: Cubist
MoMA painting techniques series has an interesting overview of how to draw multiple perspectives.
- Tags cubism, gallery, linocut, painter, perspective, portrait, reduction linocut, Still Life