Metal Letters - A is for Ox

I produced this for the Oxford Summer School brochure. Metal stamping was a very small aspect of the course, but I wanted to indicate that exciting lettering can be accessible to all.

I stamped the letters into paper and onto two copper strips. then I rolled over the letters with a lino roller. I think the way the roller offsets the prints in reverse adds an interesting dimension. I glued the copper strips onto the piece of work I used glue called "The Ultimate" made by Crafter's Mix, a water based super glue; but I preferred a glue I once used called "Liquid Nails" or something similar and which I couldn't get. The Ultimate took ages to dry.
Now this is what I had envisaged with my screen printed circle of eternity!
Perhaps I could have cut a stencil of the circle and used a roller. The only problem is that it's mechanical to cut brush strokes and a lot of nuance would get lost, but then some nuance was lost in my decision to screen print anyway. And I never knew how the screen printing would work. Maybe another day? Another expression?

I'm putting the metal letters to bed for a while now.

PS This is one of my calligraphy (pen) teaching exercises for beginners - an animal alphabet using three letter words as much as possible, usually starting A is for Ant. The reason why A is for Ox here is because the pictogram of an Ox mutated into an A.

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Metal Letters in Copper

I thought you'd enjoy this metal stamping. It's a group interactive project which I set up at art in Action in 2010. I taped some soft copper foil to a piece of wood and my helper Christine asked viewers to each have a go at stamping a few letters, copying a text. This was while I was demonstrating monoprinting and layering.

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LX Exhibition 8 - Beginning and End ii

Since the piece with the dark black circle was successful, I could afford to throw caution to the wind and mix a very transluscent ink which was deliberately streaky and screen the circle onto the piece with the watercolour lettering.
All the same my heart pounds and I break into a cold sweat of anxiety while screening!

Yes, I'm happy with it! But a gold square just isn't going to work inside the circle, and in fact, a gold square will be too solid. I have my Chinese chop and I stamped Robersons Acrylic gold size onto the paper and floated silver and then gold leaf onto it.

Complete!

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LX Exhibition 7 - Beginning and End

I like running with two pieces then choosing the best. In this case it was even more important because I had one chance to screen print a circle and I wanted a second chance. But to do the same design twice is so boring, so I changed the design from the original concept. (In the end I did a third on silk while the screen was set up)
I did a column of stamping, leaving a middle bit for a gold square (which never materialised).

Then I did my loose pen writing with watercolour and a C-O Speedball nib over the stamping, and added some water. This has a softness that is so very different from "First and Last".
By the way, you may wonder why I drag out the telling of all of this.
Well, it's a blog and a kind of daily diary, and as it is, I am still condensing a few weeks worth of work into a few days. So there! Its kind of nice to keep you wondering as I do, what the outcome will look like! Also I can't always talk about things as they happen because for exhibitions its not fair to show work prior to the exhibition opening.
So, more tomorrow.

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LX Exhibition 6 - First and Last

The concept:
Words set Free: Birchwood with laminated paper which has a torn edge. Size 40cm x 40cm.
I showed the laminating process on the post dated 24th May.
Paper: BFK Rives which is soft and lovely for stamping into.
Text: John 1: "in the beginning was the word..."
The top half of the paper would be covered in text and contrast with the lower half.
A circle symbolising eternity would be screened onto the text, and the text would sparkle through as white lettering.
I could not have used ink with a brush as this would fill the dents made by the letters, but I thought screen printing would work. Besides, trying to do a perfect 20 second circle over 20 hours of stamped letters? No! 
I made a photographic screen and screen printed this over the stamped letters. This was extremely nerve-wracking as I had one chance and screen printing is never 100% predictable.
(I had a second chance with a different design, but even so...)
And the ink did not behave as I had expected because it filled most of the letters.
So I washed the screen and went home.

When you expect a certain outcome it is often difficult to appreciate what the actual outcome is. When I reassessed, I rather liked the way there were some deep velvety black letters and some sparkly white letters.
(hard to see in the photo as its quite subtle). In the end when choosing between the three some of my family chose this one. I decided on the silk because I thought I liked the warmth of the soft golds especially as I could not control the environment where it would be hung. Black and white is less versatile.

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LX Exhibition 5 - Metal Stamps

I just love metal stamps. I was introduced to these by Brody Neuenschwander who used these texturally in his work on gessoed board, but as far as I know (quite wisely) never nerdishly hammered out sentences, never mind whole tracts of text. He also used 6mm or 8mm stamps. These stamps are designed to stamp engine serial numbers into metal for machines. I've used them on copper, gold leaf and on paper.

You can buy them at a machine shop like Machine Mart and they are made by Clarke. I have 2mm, 3mm and my favourite size, 4mm. You can see on the D where I stamped into gold. I made a little alphabet holder to speed up my tracts of text and, yes, it takes a while, but so does writing letters individually in calligraphy.

I really like the results! I deliberately allow the letters to be a little informally bounced as this gives it a hands-on feel. This was the first piece that I did for the LX exhibition. I made three pieces in the end and found it very difficult to choose one of them!

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