Summer Exhibition RA - 30th July 2010

I always go to the Summer Exhibition, it's a bit like a circus and fire auction rolled into one. I particularly wanted to go this year because I know there are a lot of prints, mainly in the Large Weston Room. This year there were prints throughout the exhibition which I don't remember before.

I find it annoying that the prints with the most red dots on are either small, comic images, obviously reasonably priced, or the attempts by RA's to cash in on their name by producing a series of prints. That's me off the potential RA list then!

There is no doubt that a successful print at the Summer Exhibition can make you a lot of money.

On the whole I liked what I saw although I can't see the point of purely representative etchings, what do they add to printing other than showing how good the printer is at etching?

My favourites were:

Quarry Edge - very colourful screenprint by Barbara Rae

Red Sky - as above

Bikini Print - silkscreen by Gary Hume of a stylised naked torso with a big brown nipple slightly off centre. I like the design of this and the interesting shapes. the combination of pink, grey and the big brown nipple was interesting too.

Three prints by Stephen Chambers (one of which I've shown here) The Professor, A Problem Day and Medlar Meddler.

Wollman Rink by Bill Jacklin (shown here) I like the design of the skaters and their shadows which is interesting yet cohesive.

Late Night Stories - Hand finished lino cut by Claas Gutsche of a block of flats at night with different coloured light in windows. This was atmospheric and clever but simple at the same time.

My favourite print was White Horse, Sutton Bank - a lino cut by Catherine Sutcliffe-Fuller. This was an interesting representation of a chalk horse with some red dots and brown but mainly black. It combined a number of elements of a landscape, like street lights and roads leading to the hill with the white horse itself but all jumbled up to make a decorative and interesting image.

Apart from prints I liked the large sketchy oils of William Bowyer, with their peculiarly acidic colours, interesting mark making and chilly Sunday afternoon in February atmosphere.

Module Four - finished on schedule

I feel like I'm making progress now, not just because I've completed this module by the end of July as I planned but because I'm beginning to understand monoprinting. I certainly have an idea about how to generate certain effects and how to work with the 'accidents' that happen.

I have my own ideas about making prints that have a luminous quality and are atmospheric and I'm beginning to develop a palette that allows me to do this. I want to use the textures that are peculiar to monoprinting in a creative way and I want to generate images that have their own perspective not necessarily from a fixed point, a bit like cubism or the Hockney photomontages.

I guess I'm talking about multiple images in one work, decorative not abstract but around an evocative theme.

Anyway I can spend the rest of this course finding out what I mean!

I've posted two of my recent prints which I am happy with as far as they go.

Made contact with my tutor which is a huge relief as I can't do this completely on my own. She sounds constructive, helpful and professional.

I am away on holdiday at the end of this week and will spend the time doing some watercolour sketches for fun and planning how I'm going to do the next Project which is relief printing.