Open Days
Many Many thanks to all those who contributed to the success of our Open Days in June. It was a success in financial terms as well as attracting new visitors and print buyers to the studio. As a result we have more people on our mailing list for future events.
We took approximately £2500 over the week, with nearly £1000 of this going directly to artist print sales. The rest was made of up sales of donated prints /refreshments /cards and the raffle. Particular thanks to the artist who put on the print demonstrations on Saturday and Sunday, which was a big draw for many of the visitors. Although most of the sales were on the weekend it was worth opening for the rest of the week as there was a steady trickle of visitors and some more sales. Many thanks to those who gave up their time to look after the exhibition and talk to visitors during that week.
The Brecknock Trust
Due to the good offices of Robert Macdonald, one of our directors, the Brecknock Trust have once again given us a grant, this time for £1500. We are investing it in an upgrade of some of our IT support and an A3 scanner for the computer in the drawing room. This is more satisfactory than using a camera for scanning work and represents a considerable investment for us. Our last one cost £1000 and worked for 10 years so we can’t complain. Members are welcome to use the scanner to get their work digitised. You can scan direct to Photoshop Elements and do any tweaking there.
Kelly Stewart Workshop
We were lucky with the weather on the drawing day at Mumbles and had a great range of drawings at the end of it. Kelly’s workshop was an intensive process covering layers of printing with multiple images on screen and challenges for registration. The outcomes were great and we learnt a lot about organising images and print set up as well as colour and ink management. It made us re-think some aspects of our set-up
Keeping the use of the power washer to an absolute minimum. Most of the wash up was done at the printing table with a bowl of water and clean
sponge. Hosing down screens gently initially in the washout bay, where
chemicals are used, rather than blasting them into the air
unnecessarily.
We will no longer be providing plastic pots for mixing ink. Instead we would ask people to bring their own jam jars with lids which can be washed and re-cycled. Bowls are provided for mixing inks – this enables a really good mix and the spatulas get every last drop of your mix ready to use. Anything you want to keep or make available for others to use can go in a jam jar. A full set of notes from the workshop are in the Workshop manual in the studio for reference. Anyone who attended the workshop will be emailed a copy.
Kelly will be back in October to run a workshop, so if you are interested let
us know. She can also offer the printing course plus the opportunity to
make an artist book incorporating print with bookbinding.
WORKSHOP | Screenprinting with Sarah Hopkins
Sarah is running this workshop on the weekend of August 5 and 6. Those of you who are familiar with her work will know that she has her own unique approach to designing for print, capitalising on cut and torn paper stencils to build up the design through coloured layers. No coating of screens, no exposures – just cutting and a lot of thought! This is a very open, non technical approach enabling great flexibility as you go through the design process.
We are offering this workshop in house first to members before we open it up to the general public.
See workshop page for full details