Category Archives: Influences

Printmaking Workshop

I will be giving a hands on  introduction  to  woodcuts and how to create  prints at West Buckland School in North Devon (UK). Within the time frame it is hoped that each participating member will be able to create a finished image. The techniques I will be introducing will be simple ‘kitchen table’ processes that will be easy to replicate at home. Read more about my work...

Printmaking Workshop:

Saturday 11th June 10-1.30pm £28.75

(venue: West Buckland School, NorthDevon, UK)

For further details of the available courses, or to request a booking form please contact Karen Wicks kaw@westbuckland.devon.sch.uk or telephone 01598 760281.

Course Programme:

Pottery Evening Class: Wednesday 7-9pm £69 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th May

Learn hand-building techniques with clay using slabs, coils and modelling, plus a basic introduction to glazing.

Raku Glazing Workshop: Sunday June 12th 10-4pm £46

Create experimental glaze effects using this traditional Japanese form of glazing (pots supplied).

Life Drawing Evening Class: Wednesday 7-9pm £46 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd June

Learn to draw from the figure using a range of materials and approaches (aged over 16 only).

Glass Fusing Workshops:

Introduction to Glass Fusing: Saturday 11th June 10-1.30pm £28.75

Learn the basics of fusing glass and using inclusions to create coasters, light-catchers and pendants.

Intermediate Glass Fusing: Saturday 25th June 10-1.30pm £28.75

A course for those who have completed the introduction workshop, and a chance to develop more personal work, including using slumped glass.

Dichroic Glass Jewellery: Saturday 2nd July 10-1.30pm £34.50

Use metallic and coloured glass to create small fused jewellery pieces.

Feltmaking Workshop: Sunday 12th June 10-1.30pm £28.75

Learn how to create flat and sculpted pieces using felt fibres.

Printmaking Workshop: Saturday 11th June 10-1.30pm £28.75

An introduction to using woodcuts to create a series of prints.

Nude Drawing

Life drawing is perhaps something every artist must do – not easy and very frustrating but I had a go.

Going back to the basic skills of drawing is an interesting excursion – a journey I’m not sure I will complete. Drawing a life model for the first times in decades was a bit daunting but old tricks and shortcuts were soon remembered and in many respects drawing is a bit like riding a bicycle. Read more…

Dance – Hermitage Museum St. Petersburg – Matisse


It is easy to excuse ‘Masters‘ and be in awe of their genius but shoddy painting is shoddy painting no matter who does it.

This is perhaps one of Matisse’s most famous iconic images. Seeing it in the flesh, I was surprised at how badly painted it is. This is definitely a painting that looks better in reproductions – in the flesh it is shit!

Dance, is a large decorative panel, painted with a companion piece, Music, specifically for the Russian businessman and art collector Sergei Shchukin, with whom Matisse had a long association. Until the October Revolution of 1917, this painting hung together with Music on the staircase of Shchukin’s Moscow mansion.

The painting shows five dancing figures, painted in a strong red, set against a very simplified green landscape and deep blue sky. It reflects Matisse’s incipient fascination with primitive art, and uses a classic Fauvist colour palette: the intense warm colors against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and hedonism. The painting is often associated with the “Dance of the Young Girls” from Igor Stravinsky’s famous musical work The Rite of Spring.

Dance is commonly recognised as “a key point of (Matisse’s) career and in the development of modern painting”. It generally resides in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Dance (Matisse). (2011, January 13). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 09:04, March 7, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org

Gauguin – The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

The coarseness of the painted surface and the open weaved cloth it was painted on shocked me – I always imagined his paintings on fine flawless canvas. The rustic finish was reassuring – I’m glad I am not the only one who has had to compromise on materials due to the lack of funds.

If you compare the materials used during the Tahiti period and the Pont Aven period there is a clear indication of the availability of materials and (maybe) funds. The urge to create was not hindered by these factors, he still managed to ‘do it’.

June exhibition

Rediscovering the printing process after nearly 40 years has been an interesting process – disappointingly modern inks are not as rich in colour (earthy colours are very plastic like) and modern waterbased inks don’t become part of the surface, they sit on it, which is incredibly frustrating – the reason I took up printing in the first place was because of the absorbed flatness of the pigments.

The image below is a lithograph I did in 1978.

I have begun to frame some of the prints for the June exhibition. The main theme will be ‘woodcuts over printed paper’. Traditionally black and white prints were hand tinted with either ink or watercolour – I have begun playing around with this idea and am using different processes to create full colour prints.

The most inspirational woodcuts (for me) are by Émile Bernard. Émile Henri Bernard (April 28, 1868 – April 16, 1941) is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin,  Eugene Boch and Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and Synthetism, two late 19th century art movements. Less known is Bernard’s literary work, comprising plays, poetry, and art criticism as well as art historical statements that contain first hand information on the crucial period of modern art to which Bernard had contributed. Bernard was in many ways, the young, educated and intellectual mentor, who was crucial in intellectualising and inspiring Paul Gauguin  during the Pont Aven period of his career. Read more…

‘Bernard’s ideas fired Gauguin’s enthusiasm, and Bernard’s important painting Breton Women in the Meadow (1888; France, priv. col.), a starkly drawn and crudely painted composition depicting a Breton Pardon, enabled Gauguin to go on to produce his own revolutionary painting Vision after the Sermon: Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1888; Edinburgh, N.G.) in a similar style and composition. Bernard exhibited Cloisonnist paintings and prints of Breton inspiration alongside Gauguin and other artists at the Exposition Universelle of 1889, at the Café Volpini. This exhibition acted as a catalyst on the Nabi group and drew a number of new adherents to the Pont-Aven school.’

Text from MoMA.org (original source Oxford University Press)

L I N K S

The beginnings of Synthetism through Bernard to Gauguin

Émile Bernard (wikipedia)

MoMA (images)

Don’t black Hat!

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on February 2, 2011 by admin
Black hat applied in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) industry, uses SEO tactics that attempt to redirect search results to particular target pages in a fashion that is against the search engines’ terms of service. White hat methods are generally …
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