Victorian Ark Building

This semester I have been taking a relief print class, and I love it. So much fun! I have also been driving myself crazy working on enormous intricate prints that take me ages and give me a headache, but that's another story. Here's one I completed earlier, with a few photos I took along the way showing some of the intermediate stages of production. (This was made using a lino block, since that's all this class is covering - woodcuts are maybe for a later class.)

Step One
First sketches - this is a building on my campus, by the way.

Step Two
Finishing up the drawing of the building.

Step Three
Adding in some animals - giraffe, finch, okapi, anteater and moose.

Step Four
Tracing the sketch over to the lino block, adding details and going over it in Sharpie ready to carve out.

Step Five
Printed the lino block in black ink. Note that the image is reversed.

(Click for full view)

As ever, apologies for my crap camera on these pictures. Also I may have missed a few steps.

I think the print turned out pretty well. I have a lengthy explanation as to the artistic intentions of the print, if anyone is bothered, but in the main I just thought it would be an interesting image. Printmaking is fun, yo!

EDIT: I added in a better scan of the finished print.

Metal Tiger

Hey, check out what I just bought:

Kiriko Moth, Rebuilding, 2007

$5 from Etsy plus postage, thank you very much. I'm not sure this is the kind of thing I'd usually go for, (art nouveau steampunk) but it's so cute and well-executed I couldn't help myself. Plus I am a sucker for a 'Lady and the Tiger' theme.

So Kiriko Moth (I suspect that is not her real name) does lots of illustrations in a similar vein - birds, flowers, foliage, lovely people, animals and birds. I would recommend a little trawl through her blog.

Oop North

So this isn't going to be remotely interesting for anyone but those who have been to my home town and who, er, aren't there now. It's a pretty small group of readers.

But: They have been redoing the square outside the railway station for maybe a year now, at vast expense and inconvenience, and it is finally finished!

As far as I can tell, all they have done is repaved everything in pretty much the same stone as it was before, moved the statue of (former Prime Minister) Harold Wilson, and put in some fountains. They are the kind of fountains where it's just a random jet of water coming out of the ground, at an unexpected time.





This is fun for the kids, but it really helps to have hot weather, and when is it ever hot in this rainy Northern town? About two days a year, that's when. So I am skeptical. (My Mum tells me people have been writing into the paper to complain about the fountains making the pavement wet and slippy. Which, see aforementioned rain - sometimes that gets on the pavement too.)

So, I am skeptical about the square redevelopment project. And that's my twopennorth for the day.

Basstastic

It's Gossip Girl day!!


I tell you, there had better be some more Chuck Bass time in this episode, or I am mutinying. Maybe Ed Westwick is shooting a movie or something, because he has hardly been in it lately. Last episode, instead of some satisfying Bass shenanigans, the three most boring people in the show/universe somehow managed to have a threesome. And all Chuck did was show up about twice to be the voice of reason to Blair's craziness. Something not right there. Although I did enjoy him chatting up a bloke a couple of eps back - "You think I never kissed a guy before?"

Also, here is an interview with my other major man-crush, Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

..........

I think I had better write something soon about some celeb ladies I fancy. As much as I have a straight-on for Chuck and Joseph, there's a chance that new visitors to this blog might not even realise I am a raving lesbo. And we can't have that.

Benson Bubbler

Made a little postcard-sized print yesterday. This is a Benson bubbler, one of about 40 drinking fountains dotted around Portland. They were donated to the city in 1912 by a very rich fellow called Simon Benson who was keen on philanthropy and being teetotal (hence water fountains, rather than beer fountains). I am very fond of these cheerful bronze fountains, they make the vicinity look fancy and they are beautifully designed.

TP Roll on the Fan is My Fave

Watch this video through to the end, and you will know what madness feels like. It's actually quite calming. Go on, I dare you.

P.S. It's a bunch of people doing weird things, but then again I just described half the internet to you.

(Courtesy of Kitsune Noir.)

Frosty New York Night

Snow Shovellers: New York, by Clare Leighton, woodcut?

My Dad just bought this print and sent me a scan of it. He probably bought it for about £3.50 in Rare and Racy, knowing him. Some people have all the luck. (Although he has been known to spend £80 on a rare brick, so he is not exactly a bargain hunter, to my mind. I suppose value for money is relative.) By the way, Rare and Racy is my Dad's favourite print and book shop in Sheffield.

This week I have been working on a lino cut, and this print, which my amateur guess says is a woodcut, pretty much blows me away. I wish I could do this. Maybe one distant, halcyon day...

Lesbian Romance Tuesday

Fabulous new Chanel ad that I thought we might all enjoy looking at.

Karl Lagerfeld, 2009

It apparently references the famous love affair between famous historical lady-lovers Violet Trefusis and Vita Sackville-West, which is nice.