Cantering along the path

This might sound as if it's all rather easy - wrong; however, it is at least happening and beginning to accelerate somewhat  so here is where I am at now:

First the linocuts

 

Proof

 

Two colour on newsprint and I would have to say I love to print on newsprint

 

 

The drawing - I held the tooth in my mittened hand, sketched it, then drew it to the size of the piece of lino

 

Transferred it to the lino (sorry -this is upside-down)

 

The lino-cut - I like the bit of resistance in the grey lino

 

The proof

 

 

The wall now - the two lower ones are prints

 

Etching is continuing apace

 

 

the two plates cleaned

 

 

The two first prints - more tomorrow and hopefully some aquatinting  - the plate has been rosined but not cooked yet.

 

 

..............

 

 

 so this is where they're coming from

 - They will have to be stopped.

 

 

 

Across the river

Let's resume our perambulations around London.

On Saturday morning got tube to Mansion House and walked down a delightfully quiet Queen Victoria Street in the middle of the City - a man casually cycled down the middle of the empty street.

One turns left and there is the new footbridge straight across the river to the wonderful Tate Modern. (The bridge is called the Millenium B and was part designed by the great sculptor Sir Anthony Caro whose obituary I read with sadness yesterday - he was in his nineties and still working.)

 

and looking left there is the extraordinary Shard

 

 you really need to check out the house at its foot to get some scale

 

My main reason for going to Tate Modern on this occasion was that I had a ticket booked for the  Paul Klee retrospective. when I had heard that this was opening two days before I was coming to London I couldn't believe my luck and better still when I arrived about an hour too early the gatekeeper laughed and said ' you're fine - go on in'. This was really good because when I was coming out - about an hour after my specified time, it was really packed and I missed all that

 

 

 

Paul Klee falls into the same category for me as Henry Moore - a very powerful influence at a very formative time.

[I should perhaps note here that I was very law-abiding and did not take any pictures so the images I show are of pictures I saw there, but downloaded]

 

The exhibition was really excellent and if you were to read any of the reviews they are uniformly extremely warm.

 

Here are some pictures and a story or two.

 

I was walking and looking when I rounded a corner and was faced with this:

 

 

It is variously known as   'Battle-scene from the Comic Opera The Seafarer'  and

'Sinbad the Sailor' and it is a w/colur from 1923.

 

When I saw it  I was stunned, for the last time I was in front of this was in it home gallery of Basel in the mid- sixties. I was hitching around Europe with an art student friend - Mick O'Sullivan' - and we purposely stopped in Basel because we knew there were Klees there.

Some years later when he had his first show the biog said that he studied in Basel..........yeah,for about an hour! - I've always been a bit suspicious of biogs since.

Anyway a year or so later I bought a reprod of this on card and it has been with me ever since ( a bit battered now) - the first thing put up in any new abode.

 

I went on an just marvelled at the drawing and water-colour work:

 

 

Historical Site -1927

 

 

Harmony of the Northern Flora -

 

Uncomposed Objects in Space - 1928

 

 

Greeting -1922

 

Low-lands - 1929

 

I particularly liked this one for the subtlety of the colour-balance and the tranquillity of wet landscape receding to the horizon - maybe Julian Opie looked at this

 

Part of the ticket deal was that I got a ticket to another show - a retrospective of Mira Schendel, an artist with whom I was completely unfamiliar:

 

 Now the confession;

I'm afraid I wasn't quite so altruistic at this exhibition mainly because I was so astounded at what I saw:

 

 

this was a terrific installation of hanging threads filling a whole room

Really these shots don't do the artist the credit she deserves and I intend to investigate a lot more - there was another installation consisting of a large number of different sized white cards with black text, except for one black card with white text - description is poor it -  needs to be seen.....experienced.

[later addition -I had forgotten that I did a rough sketch on the spot  so her it is just to give you some idea:]

 

 

 

You know, I nearly 'didn't bother' going in - what a loss that would have been. The other thing that struck me was how Eurocentric we really are: because Mira Schendel's artistic life took place in Brazil, I knew nothing of her; I am ashamed.

 

I went for a tour around the gallery to see what of their permanent collection was up; reduced because they are undergoing a major building programme to open late next year I believe. Even the Turbine Hall was out of action:

 

 

 Anyway, the collection:

 

Tanguy

 

up-and- coming young Spanish artist

 

I loved the windows but I and Joseph Beuys don't really get on

 

great collection of Russian revolutionary posters

 

Love the texture and tone here

 

I have seen this many times but it still affects me deeply

 

this exhibit plays interestingly with the Orientalist idea - I wonder what Edward Said would have thought about it

 

As I was going down the escalator this reflection appeared - I think I am going to have to gather all the reflective pieces together and see what happens

 

I left Tate Modern and headed upriver by boat to the next visit  - Tate Britain - but along the way some images presented themselves:

 

A wave washed over he front of the boat

 

 

The ceiling of the ferry terminal

 

You realise in somewhere like London how rural ones normal surroundings are and even that Limerick is not a very big town.........but that's not a bad thing

 

 

The Climate-changeingly-warmed weekend path

Right  -as promised - a survey of some recent work, but first a portrait of your intrepid blogger being forced to shop in TK Maxx:

To more serious stuff;

In the studio on Friday morning I did quite a lot of scraping having spent the day before regrounding two plates - several times : its a long sad story and we won't go in to it here but just a warning : pay attention to what you are doing when putting bitumen on the plate and make sure it is the back!!!!

Anyway here are some images of the present state of play:

 

The photo

 

The drawing

 

The plate

 

 This is the first plate which has been considerably  redrawn

Both are waiting for fresh acid and will undergo multiple etches.

Unfortunately I failed to photo the first etches but they are reasonable - need to be a bit heavier though.

On Thursday I did some drypoint which will be used together with the first image:

The photo

 

The acetate

 

The print

 

 

 

 

I retained this because it was an accidental image produced when I put the acetate face down on newsprint to clean the back - an unexpected monoprint

 

The other thing I did a good bit of on Friday was the linocut self-portrait; I am not really finished it yet : it needs a lot of care and the light wasn't great where I was working; also I could have done with my magnifiers so I have brought it home to finish over the long weekend:

 

 

I did a bit of studio touring, visiting Sculpture 2 and saw these:

 

 

These come from Shane, I believe, but the bike tubes really chimed for me.

 

....and you know, of course that I am becoming obsessed with mirrors, reflection, self-portrait et al  - they are really all the one, aren't they?

 

not sure whose these are but loved the black feathers

 

In passing here were another couple of mirror images that may produce something later:

 

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But preferably side by side

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While in the workshop we noticed that the staff were watching from outside....

 

....but after a while they got bored and move away.....

 

.....while outside in the corridor the robots were taking over

 

 

When we finished on Friday went for a stroll and paid a second visit to Henry Moore in the Hunt but after much stimulating discussion this was what I noticed:

 

 

 

The fascinating thing about this juxtaposition is that I only then remembered that there is a 

Henry Moore - Francis Bacon  Exhibition taking place in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford at present; even though they were working at the same time one couldn't imagine them having a lot in common  - the comparison of their work and potential conclusions to be drawn must be rather interesting  - I will see if I can find a review and post it  -watch this space

 

While walking through Limerick I just couldn't resist these

                                                         

 

 

 

 

Delicate differences of shade

 

Sometimes one feels one should be looking at the stars  .. but the ground can be quite interesting

 

As can a wall:

 

 

 

 

....and a change of headgear to finish: