Whitechapel Gallery visit:
As the ADVENTURES OF THE BLACK SQUARE: Abstract Art and Society 1915-2015 exhibition draws to a close next week, I had the pleasure of visiting it this afternoon just for an hour or so. It is superb, and I urge anyone who likes abstract art and hasn't seen it, to go asap!

Coinciding with the Adventures of the Black Square exhibition is a room full of David Batchelor's 500 photographs, Found Monochromes, featuring white rectangles and squares he discovered on walks through cities all over the world.

David Batchelor's photos on light box

My own white square: window in staircase of Whitechapel Gallery

Difficult week, with a funeral and a relative in and out of hospital. I haven't been able to do as much work as I intended, but that's life!

One highlight was the printing workshop with Jennifer Price on Thursday. I had worked with her a couple of weeks ago, when we inked up the old printing press and took impressions on fabric sheets (now hanging in the corridor on the way to UCA's student union). Here are a few snapshots from this week's mini-session with Jennifer:

stencils, made of match sticks & beautiful just the way they are

objects which have been used for printing

foam next to print sample on fabric

test sample: two colour print marks next to black roller 'trace' and finger 'dabbing'

A-letter stencil underneath fabric, having been flattened by roller

Google honours the Kent-born botanist Anna Atkins who produced cyanotypes publishing them in what is thought to be the very first entirely photographic book. Good timing in relation to last week's International Women's Day!

More cyanotype printing for today:
after rummaging around the scrap yard and finding some interesting treasures...

... after some prep and 120 light units of exposure (who knows the exact definition?)...

 ... the chemical gets washed off the paper and...

 
 ... a new print emerges.

Voila!

An empty FA studio - a sheer joy!

My first cyanotype print! (inspiration from Walead Beshty's exhibition at The Barbican)

One of the reasons why I like the cyanotype photographic process is that the deep (or not-so-deep) blue reminds of my textile days, experimenting with the indigo vat.

The other is, of course, the x-ray like image which appears like a ghost on the page. Mysterious, yet obvious.



Cyanotype is an old monochrome photographic printing process which gives a cyan-blue print.

The English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel discovered this procedure in 1842. Though Herschel is perhaps the inventor of the cyanotype process, it was Anna Atkins, a British scientist, who brought the process into the realm of photography. She created a limited series of cyanotype books that documented ferns and other plant life. By using this process, Anna Atkins is regarded as the first woman photographer. (from instructables.com)

Comparing dry paint with the cyanotype print

The texture of both the dry acryllic paint and hard alginate build an interesting contrast strong midnight blue/white print. I prefer the light blue alginate. The mixed colour pallet of acryllic paint seems too much for my eye. Where do I focus?

Dried alginate sample on cyanotype print