Giclée Prints and Screen Printed postcards #1

I have been working on doing a series of prints to display and hopefully sell at the Festival Preview event which I have a table at on the 7th March. I narrowed down the drawings to just over 20 which I thought might work as prints roughly A4 - A3 in size:

I printed these out on the MFD and narrowed down further to about 15. I wanted the prints to be mounted ready for framing and found a local company Cotswold Mounts who cut mounts to standard and custom sizes and also supply backing boards and bags. I ordered just over 30 of these and have prepared the files to the correct sizes for fitting into the mount frames. These I plan to print at Hardwick at the first opportunity.

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I also wanted to do some postcards but, having had a look through various websites offering postcards decided I'd rather do some myself, which I may yet regret given the time I don't have. Rather than going for more Giclee I decided to use some of the line drawings I'd done in the earlier stages of this project and go for some screen printed postcards which would allow me to spend some quality time in the print room.

The line drawings are all of characters from the course and I decided to add in a spot colour - I initially thought yellow as this is associated with Cheltenham racecourse with the yellow scarves at Festival time etc. I used some background elements from other drawings I'd done to form the colour layer as well as putting in some block tone in photoshop. Here are the designs I came up with:

Having shown these to a few people and received good feedback I went ahead and prepared them for screen which involved shrinking them down to A6 size - I'm afraid they will be a little small for my liking but I can always come back and make larger ones. A6 is also standard postcard size and will allow me to put them in proper sized bags for selling. Here is an example of the design for the screen: 

Actually, this one looks quite good in b/w: 

I will get some thick paper from Hardwick tomorrow and hopefully crack on with printing them in the evening. I can do a letterpress of this blog address and my name and email on the back afterwards.

Cotswold Life

I am in the March edition of Cotswold Life magazine! Just a wee drawing, but a good description of the project. See page below: 

Promotion Update #2

Since I last posted, various developments:

1: A drawing of mine will be published in the March issue of Cotswold Life magazine. This came about through Tracy Spiers on the course who works for the magazine. I don't know which drawing they have used! But await the outcome anyway. It is likely to be a small image as I got in just before the deadline, and some explanatory text with a link to this blog.

2: Following onto this, I pitched a daily blog idea to the magazine's assistant editor Candia McCormack - the idea being that during the Festival I will send some drawings to the magazine and they will feature them on their website with text written by me as well. The Festival is four days so this will mean coming back to the studio, scanning and cleaning things up and doing a bit of writing. The idea was welcomed and all going well will go ahead - which is excellent. I hope this will give the work and myself a bit more coverage and also give me a bit more of a clear idea of how to approach the work during Festival week.

3: I have also obtained passes to all four days of the Festival (11th -14th March) through my contact there. This won't get me into the Parade Ring or weighing room but the rest of the place should be on. So I don't have to fork out cc £300+ for tickets which is nice.

4: I made some more business cards as I ran out; again on the MFD but this time with some decent card from Rymans. Made a template in Indesign this time so it printed Duplex, then trimmed them down:

5: I have approached The Loquens Gallery in Cheltenham which specialises in cartoons and watercolours. I introduced my project and work and exchanged business cards. They said that, contrary to logical assumptions, Festival week is quiet as far as art sales ago, but they can at least look at my website and see whether they like any of the drawings.

6: I will hopefully be able to have a table to sell work at a Festival preview evening event on the 9th March organised by a contact I met at the racecourse - Steve Ennis who organises the Cheltenham and Three Counties Raceclub. I have prepared just over 20 possible prints in A4 size ready to go with a few A3 and will have a look at buying some mount board or getting pre-cut ready made mounts from somewhere possibly the range to mount up some Giclee prints I intend to do at Hardwick.

7: I intend to research the racecourse gallery itself which apparently exists somewhere in the bowels of the grandstand and which I am yet to find although I need to know who runs it so things to find out here.

Forest of Dean drawings

These are the drawings I got done on the Forest Adventure, all done in the hostel or the pub due to the weather. I thought it would be worth analysing them in the context of my ongoing development of observational and reportage drawing. 

I think this drawing works well with its unusual perspective and playful characterisation. I wasn't so bothered about capturing the James' features more than conveying a sense of companionship. I gave James Baily small wiggly arms which makes him look somewhat like an overgrown child - he was at the time struggling with his horrible burger and feeling fairly helpless. I enjoyed drawing the plate of burger that was giving him trouble.

I am trying in general to think more about how to treat objects in drawings that are principally about people - how to observe them appropriately in relation to the people in the pictures.

I used my Lamy safari pen for many of these drawings which skates quite well over the smooth moleskine paper allowing for rapid drawing. The ink also collects in tiny dots which create quite an interesting effect.

I like the table tennis drawings above and below as I've gone more for a lively approach rather than aim for characterisation above all else. One obviously has to choose a pose for the tennis players as the movement is too fast and (in the case of these amateur, undisciplined players!) rarely repeated. I tried to get a sense of how the style of play sheds light on character - Matt Amos jutting forward and prone to rash shots, Jacob laid back and languid. 

I am pleased with this drawing which is unusually composed. I hope it captures Jon and Jess quite well. Jess was always a werewolf in the games (of werewolf) we played and had an extremely poor poker face which betrayed her every time. Jon is wearing his usual expression of impish amusement; I am pleased with his bendy leg which somehow sheds light on his sense of humour. I went for a gently comic effect here without hopefully any malice. In this drawing I actually drew the whole window and much background detail in the common room and had a fair amount of time to do so as I was generally killed in the game fairly early.

Putting the window in reminded me slightly of David Hockney's drawings, which often feature characters against the backdrop of a window. I associate Hockney with producing many drawings of friends, although he tends to draw in sittings as opposed to observing daily activities. In particular Hockney's naturalistic drawings done in the 1970s, where his attention to detail and likeness comes to the fore.

Briefly: Hockney's sparse use of line (Picasso?) in observing still life: 

A drawing of the artist's father - sensitive characterisation and positioning the figure within a sparsely detailed context:

I think there must be something in the process of drawing friends and those familiar that changes the experience of drawing and the focus slightly. One can be less precious with those that one does not know. However, there is a certain sensitivity that comes through in drawings of people we like and are familiar with.