I want to familiarise myself with the press so I start off bevelling and cleaning the steel plate to make monotypes. I start in black and white. There’s a certain amount of pressure because my proofing paper hasn’t arrived so I am using precious editioning paper for experiments. I start off working from a drawing of a relatives’ description of a hallucination that resulted from an adverse reaction to medication - he described being trapped in one of his own huts by the surrounding trees - I’m not sure how much of this is real but it struck me as close to how I felt about the sometimes intimidating proximity and presence of nature in the weeks when my body was aching after coronavirus. It feels precarious to try and get this vulnerability down and I want to keep the marks indefinite - the experience universal. I try reduction and painted techniques - it feels good to transcribe a biro scrawl into soupy black ink on metal. Some of the prints are low contrast and distressed - too much water on the paper or too much thinner in the ink. I hope I can salvage these later using watercolour or maybe egg tempera. I need to up the pressure on the press.
A morning goes by and thunder rolls over the Ystwyth valley - village misty and deep south-ey in the mugginess. I am working upstairs and the storm makes things very dark and moody. I’m battling a metallic mouthed storm headache. I stick to the weekly lockdown drawing zoom - I usually sketch from a building site so it’s a gift to have my materials laid out and a press to work with during the call. Monotyping from the screen I use Gutenberg printmaking colours - and working on steel plate make much quicker prints. Again the paper’s too wet on some of them and I couldn’t work out how to flip the zoom screen to get Yvette’s I heart NY mug the right way round (I’m not even sure if this matters to me) but the colour ink is exciting and reactive to marks on the metal and the limited time helps drawings to move along without too much questioning. We take turns sitting - of today’s call drawings I’m most happy with my monotype of Barbara - it has the unanswered slippage that I can foresee translating into a painting later. I like the background ‘noise’ of the hastily wiped plate.
After the drawing session ends I head out to experiment with plein air monotyping - walking up the main road out of the village to draw the house in the trees - I brush the drawing on - the hidden house intrigues me - I’ve seen photos of this stretch of road in the twenties and the climbing dark of the trees is a mad contrast to the bare fields that used to be here. The secret dark of a house in the woods. Getting plate and ink palette back to the house is a juggle but I want to carry on with these throughout the week. It’s odd and disorientating to see my familiar landscape in reverse.
Energised by the colour ink I go back to the black and white monotypes of the hut battle in colour and then refer to another drawing I made of a man collecting pebbles in his socks against the silvery post storm sea on North Beach - he stood on the jetty and leaned out and watched. I was drawn to the seeming disconnect between his big beer belly and sports wear and his delicate curation of a little tupperware box of pebbles - uncomfortable with my assumptions this print feels like an apology. I begin to clean up - make a palette cleaning oil drawing of the same but it’s too brutal and cruel compared to the monotype and the sea lacks broiling elemental scale. Nature and elements are skirting - confinement, fear and celebration.
Next day - work into hut battle duds, try and solve faded monotype issue (dry paper more pressure?) Set up guide on press. Degrease and prep plates - hard ground. Another plain air - the crab apple or the oak or the stream in the woods - maybe the pulpit den. At some point some night prints. Communal night fires - that’s something I’ve talked to a few people about as something to look forward to during lockdown - the small beach fire we made on Sunday night - hope dotted along South beach.