Pine Street Student Exhibition 2011

132 works in the catalogue of this year’s students at the Pine Street Creative Art Centre in Chippendale, with a fascinating variety of printmaking techniques in evidence. While I found the prints personally engrossing, I acknowledge the high level of skill shown in the drawing and silver jewellery, with some excellent surface work in the ceramics.

Andy Leigh had works with marvellous constrasts between hard and soft lines, strongly evoking texture as well, in his etchings on aluminium. Juliane Roebel-Hermann submitted a work done by photopolymer entitled Benvenuti a Sydney, with a highly-developed sense of pattern and design. I found Dorota Bora’s work intriguing, balancing both strength and delicacy, with incredibly soft textures. Ashlinn McCarthy had a strong combination of etching on katazome-printed fabric. I wasn’t surprised to see Belquis Youssofzay’s drypoint having been sold and I liked the liquid colour work within deep shade  in Cara Anderson’s reduction linoprint devoted to the Taj Mahal.

I found Laura Cunningham’s Food series quite compelling: exploring delicacy and fragility of closely-studied subject matter, with hard and soft lines and a variety of mark-making in her etchings on aluminium; not surprised to see her Poppies having sold. Naomi Tan exhibits a deep understanding of the etching-on-aluminium medium in her Surrender. I liked the cutout cicada by Sheila Myers (incorporating etching, solarplate and chine colle), particularly that traces of the green printing ink were left behind, effectively linking the cicada with its (brilliantly-worked) environment. Michaela Hauer (linocuts and etching on aluminium) is a talent to watch. It goes without saying that the excellent linocuts of Mike Cook should justly feature so prominently in the exhibition poster and catalogue.

Derivan Block Ink Medium

 

A new product from Derivan for makers of linocuts (and wood block prints)! A new medium and extender, it seems to have great potential for linocuts, especially if you are working in more than colour. I will try to post some pictures to demonstate the different effects.

 

Q. Printing one colour on top of another and want the background colour to show through?

A. Add the medium to the top colour. The top colour will become translucent, allowing some of the background colour to show through. As we know, you print one colour onto another and the top colour will completely cover the lower one. Not any more! No more adding water to the ink, which only dilutes it by weakening the body of the ink.

 Q. How much medium do I add to the upper colour of ink?

A. Up to three parts medium and seven parts ink. More medium than this 3:7 ratio will make the ink translucent, allowing more of the background colour to show through.

Q. Any “side effects” for the rest of the linocutting experience?

A. Adding medium will increase the ink’s “tackiness”, so make appropriate adjustments when inking up the linocut.

Q. Got paint (Matisse Structure Acrylic, of course) on hand and want to turn it into relief printing block ink, especially to create continuity with an existing Derivan block ink?

A. Add medium to the paint. Adding the medium to the paint turns it into ink!

Q. How much medium do I add to the paint?

A. Six parts medium to four parts acrylic paint is recommended. That is, add lots of medium to give a suitable printing ink body to acrylic paint, to create that buttery block ink texture.