No Blog is better than a Bad Blog

If you've looked at my website (http://www.pjsutton.co.uk/home.html) you'll notice that there's just my artwork on display. There's no blog.

Now, we're told we should have blogs - to 'bond with people who like their work', to quote The Artist's Guide to Selling Work by Annabelle Ruston. All well and good in theory. But...

What if you can't think of anything to write?

I'm not a natural blogger. I called this blog 'Open a Vein' after the quote (often attributed to Hemingway) that goes "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein". In other words, words don't come easy. And this particular blog is about all kinds of stuff, whereas a printmaker's blog, you would expect, would be purely concerned with printmaking. Not many potential customers, the people a printmaker is trying to attract, are going to care about his opinions on world politics or the ridiculously high price of lamb.

And so, if the blog is purely about techniques and processes, it's going to appeal, not to customers, but to other printmakers! Your rivals!

I checked out a few of my favourite printmakers' sites to see what they were doing:

Nick Morley, AKA Linocutboy - Ten blog posts in the last year. A mix of tips, news about work done and courses available. http://linocutboy.com/blog/

Mark Andrew Webber - Four posts since May, but it's a new site. He says "I also hope to be updating this blog on a more regular basis, to include work in progress pictures, and general thoughts", so looks like the last blog wasn't too regular. http://markandrewwebber.com/?page_id=2331

Gail Brodholt - No blog. http://www.gailbrodholt.com/

Paul Catherall - No blog. http://www.paulcatherall.com/

Kevin Holdaway - No blog. http://www.kevintraditionalprintmaker.co.uk/

Angie Lewin - Nine posts in the last year. News on her and other printmakers. No tips. http://www.angielewin.co.uk/blogs/news

So some do, some don't. Perhaps I'm just arguing about the definition of the term 'blog'. In my mind a  blog is a constant stream of blather, and it's beyond me how people can come up with all the stuff they do. I suppose its not the doing that bothers me, but the frequency and quality. I can do quality. Quantity I'll leave to others.
 

Distraction Tactics

If I had a pound for every time some idiot has made a comment to me like 'Cheer up, it might never happen"....

My default expression is, I gather, quite surly. Off-putting, even. I've got used to it over the years, but it occurs to me that it might be something of a disadvantage when trying to sell work at print fairs. After all, when in second year we had to show our work to the third year and absorb their critique, NO-ONE approached me. I sat in splendid isolation, avoided by all.

So, should I practice being more personable by smiling in the mirror?

Maybe not. so what am I going to do?

Then I remembered something that had always puzzled me. Inevitably at print fairs there's one person who is working at his stall, cutting away at a lino block. Why, I wondered, are they doing that now? How do they concentrate? But now it occurs to me that they too might not want to scare the customers away.

So that's what I intend to do. And of course potential buyers can see the skills and effort involved in making the work (and justifying the price). Result.

Plakatstil - Poster Style, and how to do it.

Of all the art forms I've been exposed to over the last three years, this is the one I want to emulate the most.

'It's only posters, not real art' I hear you say. well, tell that to the 'real' artists who created stuff like this:

Poster for the London, Midland & Scottish Railway, by Norman Wilkinson.

'HMS Courageous in Dry Dock' by Charles Pears.

 'Cowes Week' by Kenneth Shoesmith

'Petergate, York' by Fred Taylor

I liked this stuff before I had a vested interest; I like it even more now I'm into printmaking. Because this style adapts itself very well to printing. Who would have guessed that of something called 'Poster Style'?
This is how I transform a photo into plakatstil:

Find a suitable image, load into Adobe Illustrator, and live trace it.

This is six colours, though I could use as many colours as I saw fit.
Then hit expand. This vectors the separate colour layers.
Then select all layers and click window-pathfinder-trim. This 'cuts out' the separate colours.
Next click on a single area of one of the colours, then click select-same-fill colour. this will select every bit of that particular colour.
In the layers panel you will now see a square of colour to the right of the layers tab. Create a new layer, then drag the coloured square into the new layer tab. This will move all the areas of that colour into the new layer. Repeat with the rest of the colours.
You now have the picture dissected into separate layers, which can be transferred to screens of lino blocks for printing.

So far the images I've created using this process have been pretty good. I'll carry on experimenting with it to see how far I can go.

Hopes, Fears and Opportunities - Part 3

I hope I'll never have to work for anyone ever again. And I fear that I might have to.

If you've looked at the previous two posts in this series, you'll have seen my gradual change of career direction over time. In the first post I was thinking I might possibly end up working in a studio, albeit in some other capacity than that of Mac-monkey; already I knew that was not for me. By the second post I had decided, after sage advice from Vicky and Chris at Textbook Studio (and later confirmation from Peter Holden), that graphic design was out of the question. I was only interested in the image - the words were someone else's problem. And the images I liked making were prints.

The days that most changed my direction came in first year. The first was when I volunteered to help Kiran with the screenprinting of the tablecloth to be used at recruitment fairs. I had no idea what screenprinting was, but I found the process fascinating and rewarding.

The second came when Lucy trooped us along to Jacqui Darlington's domain to sample the delights of printing. At that time I knew so little that I was surprised to find that Linocut actually involved lino, like you used to find on bathroom floors. Bu the prospect of cutting into something appealed to me, so I gave it a go; and from the first cut I was hooked. I am enraged to think that, thanks to the college's penny-pinching (except when it comes to management salaries), both these departments have been gutted and new students won't get the levels of inspiration and support that I did.

I've never liked dancing to someone else's tune. Especially if that someone else is an idiot. So the prospect of life as an independent artist/printmaker is very appealing. The act of creating something of my own choosing is deeply satisfying, and recent history tells me that people like what I produce. After that it's a matter of marketing and selling the resultant prints, which is admittedly a bit more like 'work'; but overall a lot more attractive than staring at a computer all day, worrying over whether I've chosen the right font.

Of course, I realise that it may not be that simple, and that I may have to get a job. But I'll aim for something relevant to my field and skills, such as screenprinting, rather than just take any old nonsense. God knows I made enough bad career and life choices over the last forty years - well, until I signed up at the college and my life changed - and I'm damned if I'm going to make any more.

The path is clear from now on.

Make prints. Sell prints. Repeat.

Tooling Up

To do printmaking the way I like to, you need a lot of stuff.
Some people are happy transferring the ink from lino block to paper by rubbing with a baren or a wooden spoon. But I've never been happy with the results, and it takes an age. So I'm going to need a press.
There are various tabletop presses on the market, but all but the very small ones are of the etching press type, where the block is dragged under a roller. I've used the one at College, and I'm not keen on that either. So, shall I buy an Albion or Columbia press?
There are disadvantages. Not least the price.

This is for a brand new one. So how about second hand?
Before the curse of Ebay, which enabled everyone to find out the value of everything, these things were going for scrap metal prices. Not any more. The only one I could find on Ebay today was this one...

Yours for £6500, guv.
And then there's the weight issue.

Never going to get that up the stairs. So, what to do?
Join Hot Bed Press, that's what.
Based in an old factory near Islington Mill in Salford, Hot Bed Press have three relief presses - two Albions and a Columbia, five etching presses and seven screen beds, along with tech support on tap. Anyone can join and gain access to this wealth of equipment and knowledge. They run frequent courses  - I joined a while ago and attended one on reduction linocut led by the brilliant Kevin Holdaway. I learned a huge amount over that weekend, producing this in the process.

So if you like getting your hands inky, but lack the money and/or space to tool yourself up, sign up now. It's well worth it.
Check them out HERE

Bust a deal, face the wheel.

After choosing 'Trees' to be the subject of my 'Initiate' brief, I remembered speaking to Beth Knowles at the Manchester Print Fair. She's a Manchester Councillor and runs a charity called 'A New Leaf', whose aim is to increase the greenery in central Manchester by planting trees. I prefer doing a live brief to a plain old academic exercise, so I decided to offer my services.
I met Beth at her office in January to discuss the selling of my work to raise funds. She liked what I'd done so far, and off I went to continue with the brief. I promiswed her product for the next print fair in April
Fast forward to April, and due to the string of catastrophes I'd been subject to I hadn't got anywhere near as much product as I intended. But I marched off to the People's History Museum, venue for the print fair, with an armload of my best stuff.
Beth wasn't there - she was stuck on a train between London and here, so I dropped my stuff on the desk of Alessandra Mostyn, Beth's oppo. She hadn't a clue who I was, but with some bemusement said she'd lay out the prints for anyone to buy.

Plenty looked, but no-one bought as far as I know. And that, it would appear, was that.
I haven't contacted them since - no time, as the disasters haven't abated - and they haven't contacted me. So with the finishing post looming, and with having to work for a living only weeks away, it's tempting to write it off. After all, who wants to work for free?
But I won't.
Why?
Because it isn't a good precedent to set.
I said I'd do it. It's public knowledge that I made this offer. I don't want to get a reputation for unreliability. I don't like people breaking their word to me, so I don't do it to them.
In the film Mad Max 3 the post apocalyptic market town run by Tina Turner had a policy to ensure straight dealing - Bust a deal, face the wheel. They spun a wheel to decide the grisly fate of the deal-breaker, with options like death or amputation.
Sounds fair enough to me.

Proofreading's first rule - make the words REALLY BIG

The book I created for my research project came back from Blurb the other day. And it looks great.

But, but, but...
There are mistakes. Hideous blunders. SPELLING MISTAKES, for God's sake. Or at least typos.
Now I'm a grammar nazi, up to a point. I don't know enough about it to get things spot on, but I've read enough to have a good idea what looks wrong and what looks right.
Some of the lines are single spaced, when I wanted them all double spaced. Sometimes these two options are on adjacent pages! And I didn't spot it.

I figured out that it was the fault of the smaller image on the Mac screen. The defects went unnoticed despite the horrendous length of time I spent staring at the screen. But they screamed out at me when I saw them actual size.

Lucy once gave me a great piece of advice: test print EVERYTHING before the final edition. But the college was closed, every time I came in the Mac suite was bolted and barred, and anyway it would have cost a tenner...so I didn't. But I wish I had.

Portfolio Revue – Peter Holden

I'm an Illustrator. Apparently.
My visit to Holden and Sons confirmed what I heard at Textbook, and what I already suspected: My future lies in the world of images. Peter expressed surprise that my tutors hadn't transferted me to the Illustration course whether I wanted it or not.
Holden and Sons has expanded since our visit in the spring, so now there were roomy couches for me to sprawl on while Peter made the coffee. The new room isn't yet cluttered with old machinery, but if the other room is anything to go by I'll bet it soon will be.
Peter liked my images a lot, especially the linocuts. He reckons I've really got something there. He also liked a style of thinking that can jump from a Russian doll to a Dalek. What he doesn't like are my typographic skills, or their absence.
The 'leaves' print for the Growing Together project drew fire for the way the type has been highlighted to stand out from the 'busy' background.

I explained that I came up with the idea, created the image, and only then thought about how to merge in the type.
We fell to discussing an interest in typography, or a lack of it in my case. Peter's interest was sparked by this:

The 1960's TV series 'The Avengers', or rather its opening sequence. I explained that I'd tried to become enthusiastic about typography, but it just didn't 'take', and he agreed that you can't command yourself to be interested in something. You either are, or you aren't.
Adobe reared its ugly head when Peter said that today's studios expect full–spectrum skills from their potential recruits. I replied that I was never going to be better than average in that department, but that I didn't see myself touting for a studio position – who's going to take on a 55 year old? He then revealed that he knew perfectly good, experienced designers who couldn't get work as they were competing with the whole world now. Another suspicion confirmed – unless your skill is unique, someone on the other side of the world will undercut you. So my hopes of sitting in a room with bikes hanging off the wall, staring at a Mac screen, motionless but for my cursor hand, for eleven hours a day have been dashed.
So, self-employed printmaker it is. At least I'll be doing something I enjoy. How many workers can say that?