Print 13 finished elective

A few last prnta this evening , I will have been assed by now. Need to decide what to do for next 3 years on monday!!

Print blog 12 (I think, its been a long day)

A real long day today, saw 38 patients this morning before college , got a few prints done then did my journal , lots of looking up print makers on the internet. Interestingly, where as artists in general tend to be live long lives ( must be something to do with smoking roll ups) Print makers seem to die young ,is it something in the ink, I;m wearing gloves from now on!Anyway trying to not to neglect my continueing dental educatiion so went on to a lecture on gum disease after doing my journal ,yum,yum. just home now , shattered. Between the dentistry and the art was swapping e mails with a marine archeoligst friend, found somethiing interesting scuba diving in the lake on sunday and I want him to come down and do a survey , so keeping all my irons in the fire today!

Print blog11

Did a 2 part (2colour) wood cut today. Its an old steel works in Poland . I visited it last summer

print blog 10

Went into Art Mad today looking for oil based printing ink.They didnt have it but the man working there used to be a technician in the print dept. he said it wasnt the ink that was the problem it was lack of pressure. He said oil paints or water based inks, though not as good as oil based would do the job if enough pressure was applied , so I went home and tried it. it works ok also found i could applie water based inks over oil paints, with interesting results. He also said I could use much thinner acetate so I bought some, havent tried it yet

Anselm Kiefer , Scuba diving in the river versuses the Red Sea and Mike canning

Mike Canning said Art is unlike a good joke in that good art improves with each viewing where as a joke looses it impact after the first telling . It set me thinking , I dive in the river every few days winter and summer no matter how cold ,how fast the current is or how poor the visability is . sometimes the place is so dark you cant see half a meter in front of you and you have to hold your buddies hand to stay in touch. Yet i find it endlessly facinating.I've also dived the Red Sea , its wonderfull, millions of brightly coloured fish ,you follow reefs which drop off 2 miles beneath you, you explore wrecks that look like a Holly wood set, Ships sunk during the second world war ,still full of tanks, aeroplanes all the crap of war stacked up but never got there because the ship was sunk, old sailing ships, intact and full of their cargo of wine. at night you can open bottles of wine 150 years old then dive at night amonst the sharks and all the scary things that come out in tropical waters at night but for all that , it 's like Mike Cannings joke , if youv'e seen it once the next day and the next is the same . The visabilty is so good you see it all at one go , no mystery.. Dara Waldren gave a lecture about the romantics and talked about the Subline. He said there is a thing in extreame tourism to be droped by helicopter in a compleatly unexplored part of the world , the idea being to be , literally the first person on earth to be at this spot' All this must take so much time and cost so much but I explore bits of the river ,underwater, that i know no one ever in the whole world has ever seen before. Ive come across skulls of ancient animals, 4000 thousand year old dug out canoes , mysterious deep dark pits full of meter long blood sucking eels with concentric rows of tiny sharp teeth, I know no one has ever seen these things before .This to me is much more fascinating than the bright colours of the red sea and can be done on a weekend morning for free. This brings me to Anselm Kiefer I love his mucky,obscure and sloppy looking pictures. I've tried to express the underwater river artistically but its fasination to me is the lack of any senserory stimulus , you cant hear anything , can see practilly nothing , have no sense of up or down , your almost compleatly sensually deprived and its weird that for an artist i find that so compulively interesting.BUT..Anselm Kiefer seems to be able to capture how the river feels to me

print blog9

Work today, no art,so I did a dry point scratching when I got home. Tried to do a print using oil paint and a rolling pin. Didn't work , Ah well off for a beer , Friday night ,its been a long week and I've been good since christmass (mostly!)

print blog8-still enjoying print

Hard, stressfull day at work, very tired now. But enjoyed my afternoon in college, did these dry point prints. Went to the Lips Art Book opening and bought 2 books. One, Life is Not Enough , by Limerick artist Joe Duggen, is a story of love and loss. It used the minimum text and visual props to tell a touchiing story. The other,the rose hedge, by Paki Smith was also charmihg, the llustrations were nicely mysterious and slightly menacing. Too tired to do any morer , really did have a rotten day at work!!!!

Print blog 7 1st day

My first day in print, loved it. Discovered dry-point, it's a very easy way to get quick, effective prints. all you need is a thick acatate sheet and something to scratch it. what makes it easy is; 1)the scratchs take up the ink, unlike lino-cut where it's the background that takes the ink.dry-point is much more like drawing. 2) because the acetate is transparent you can trace over things.Transfering an image to the acetate is so easy 3)again , because it's transparent once the picture is drawn you can cut from the other side so the final image is'nt reversed , this makes things so easy,no szusprises when the print is revealed. 4)SCRATCHING THE ACETATE S ALMOST AS FAST AS DRAWING, MUCH LESS TEDIOUS THAN CUTTING LINO

Ptint -blog6

I finished off the kitten print. Working in Kenmare tomorrow so will miss first day of print, unfortunatly

Print blog 5- Ghost of a Kitten

I did another drawing today, I cant make pictures big on my blog but the man in the background has a kittens skull for a head

Miscarrage in African Flower Workers - Print Blog 4

I did A poster today. I heard yesterday that the pesticides used in flower growing in Africa causes workers to miscarry. A lot of the flowers we give our mothers and wives come from these African fields and maybe our well intentoned gifts are depriving others of the chance of being mothers , I thought it was worth a poster, Iv'e never done one before . I put acouple up around the college

print elective blog3

I did another sketch today, will think about how to make a print of it I did a second version, I like this

print elective ,blog2

took some photos around limerick at lunchtime , did a pen and ink sketch , just working out some ideashref="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpP0bfCRatEOTjxALdODUjZ8Jt5t8vsD2NUPHV218fWV8CJwbumDxl5zeHAhxpV4sIZCgPC9dPLPimZCqFQMXTxtqWDRJ874Xz3TO6EJtW-9fCN4v5t0x-QgISltwgYEvCI0bez8Vtqa-k/s1600/003.jpg" imageanchor="1" >

print elective ,urban landscape

I'm trying to use rag week to get an early start with print. I'm always caught for time due to work comtments.This is a sketch idea for a print.The background is a town I know in Brittany,I took the photo I that used some time ago. the head is drawn from a google photo,the body I made up.The stag man is running scared because people can be scary and towns alianating

Collecting

Just back from a few days in lanzarote. I was looking in churches and museums , saw lots of little collectons , carfull aqrrangments of holy statues or childrens toys. Also beside my bed in the appartment I put things i find underwater or on the beach, fossils, bits of Roman pot, animal skulls . I like collections, the way stuff is carefully arranged .I move the bits around to give the most pleasing effect. I was also looking at holy statues in churches the Spansh have a great apprciation for the colourfull and grotesque saw lots of statues with real clothes and hair ( I own 17TH C Jesus with real clothes hair and glass eyes, he lives on a shelf in my house and stares out madly at us)Its strange what looks natural to one culture looks qute bizzare to another