Clare, reading

Clare Snowdon reading, Cerét, France, 1991

I was sifting through years of arty paperwrk in my cabin and came across this study of an old girlfriend reading that dated back to 1991. I was obviously not too well-equipped (artistically) for this holiday (like I would be now) and drew this using a Bic biro. Cerét, Rousillon, France, 1991.

Winter salmon monoprint

Winter salmon © Peter Gander

Following on from my previous ‘Leaping salmon’ post, I printed a few copies onto Raven (black) paper in white and pale blue inks. Tonight to one of these prints I added a background of stylised wintry riverside branches in hand-painted brush with Winsor & Newton white ink. I think I owe the design style of the branches more to the curly wrought-iron gates in front of our house more than anything else. The flowing fine lines of the trees make a nice contrast to the textured block printing. Once printed onto the Raven paper I immediately thought that the fish looked like an icy cold pescatorial ghost, like a ghost koi carp, I was just waiting for some inspiration to take it further. Monoprint - hand-painted white Winsor & Newton ink and two-colour cardboard print on Raven black paper.

Leaping Salmon

The final two-colour print © Peter Gander

See today’s previous post to see how this was made...

Making the cardboard print for Leaping Salmon

The logo made with cardboard printing

Logo in-situ

After printing a simple oast house logo for my wife Fiona’s blog, ‘Fiona’s Kent Food’, I felt inspired to test the boundaries of printing using paper and card. Unlike the glass-smooth surface of lino, cardboard and paper can have a lovely texture and the fact that it is easily cut offsets the downside that you can’t print more than a few runs from your ‘block’. These are really monoprints, in fact, as no two will be the same. Because Fiona’s end product was a logo for digital reproduction and thus only one was needed, it wasn’t really worth crafting it in lino anyway.
It is the lovely texture of a hand-pulled print that was the important thing. Of course, I could have imitated this printed effect digitally in Photoshop, but where’s purity/fun in that? So, accepting the limitations of paper and card I chose a simple image of  a leaping salmon, as fishing is a subject close to my heart.

The cardboard salmon © Peter Gander

Cornelissen’s Shellac Varnish

This cardboard is taken from the back of one of my drawing pads. It’s quite solid and just thick enough (about 3mm) to be able to cut through easily with a scalpel blade. Also you can see where I’ve debossed and incised areas like the gills and fins with scribing tools. I also used the back end of a paintbrush to dimple the fish’s body and thus create white spots where the ink won’t reach. PG’s TIP If you’re using uncoated paper and card you will need to prevent ink soaking into the substrate, so use Shellac varnish or PVA to coat your relief ‘block’. I use shellac as it dries very quickly. The one shown was purchased at London’s Cornelissen’s art shop. A couple of coats or more may be necessary, but they dry very quickly. So once your image is cut out, you can adhere it to another board for stability, but a small one-off design won’t need it, if you’re going to print it rubber-stamp style. Small surface areas can be sponged or painted with a thin layer of ink or use a roller and sheet of glass to roll out your ink on. If you’re crafty and have a little space between seperate colours or tones, you can easily dab on colour all in one go if you’re quick and can do it before the first colour you put down dries out. As the print is relatively simple, I wanted to make use of some spare fancy Japanese Yuki paper. This handmade paper has threads of silk running through it. It’s not very evident from the main pic, but the detail photo here shows how the threads reflect the light.

Soaking the card with shellac

The Yuki paper

The salmon just before it’s ‘ready to roll’

I cut a window the same size as the baseboard holding the fish, out of a larger piece of paper which was then taped to the bed of my roller press. The larger piece of paper matches the paper size that will be used for printing on. Then I drop the freshly-inked printing block inside the window, lay a piece of paper face down onto that, then keep it in place with the felt blanket. Then it’s a case of adjusting the roller press pressure to suit and get printing!

Black and brown hen

Black & brown hen © Peter Gander

As both chicken-owners and parents, we’ve learnt the hard way that it’s not worth giving our egg-laying friends individual pet names, thus the rather prosaic title of this post. We started off with six hens a few years ago and a flurry of cute names, but the odd disease or wily fox has claimed a few and with it, the novelty of the birds with the children has diminished too, so ‘black and brown hen’ it is. This particular hen is a black-rock, a dark-brown egg laying hybrid. Black-rocks are a true first-cross hybrid from selected American strains of Rhode Island Red (male line) and a Barred Plymouth Rock (female line). They are lovely, densely-feathered birds with a big body frame. The health of a bird is often reflected in the strength of colour in their ‘comb’, (the headpiece), which in her case is a very strong red, so we know she’s healthy and happy. Our birds are essentially free-range - we let them out of their hutch and pen area in the morning and lock them up at night, due to the fox threat.  

In-progress with my huge (size 20) brush

If you like a bold painting, use a bold brush. A big brush. Detail is not my bag as I enjoy a more gestural style and a size 20 mop was the only brush I used here, (its fine point small enough if the odd delicate mark needs to be made however, such as the pupil of the hen’s eye). The Russian blue squirrel-hair mop holds bath-loads of water and is a particular favourite of mine, but be warned, it is as expensive as it is exotic!
Size 20 Pro Arte Renaissance squirrel mop brush with Winsor & Newton watercolour on Bockingford 190gsm Rough paper.

Muttley

Muttley © Peter Gander

Like buses, no paintings of dogs for years, then three come along at once ;) This one I did for Liz, a Christmas gift as it were, from my wife Fiona. Mutley’s a cross between a Lakeland Terrier and a Jack Russell, he’s down from Suffolk to stay for the night with us, so Stanley (our dog) will have company. They have already fought a few times, but now I think Stan understands that though this dog may be smaller, he is older, so he rules, even in Stan’s own house. That’s how the dog thing works. Anyway, from an artistic viewpoint, I worked from a photo but was very happy with the way that the sunlight effect came across with this uncompromising medium (watercolour). A very dry brush loaded subtly with Payne’s Grey dragged across the textured tooth of the paper assured a lovey texture, perfect for a rough-haired dog such as Muttley. You can see the texture of the paper in the upper green area where the (Winsor & Newton) paint pigment sinks into the pitted parts of the paper, becoming darker in those areas. The effect is lovely, a case of the painting partially at least, ‘painting itself’!

Stanley, Bishopstone Beach, Kent

Stanley, Bishopstone Beach, Kent © Peter Gander

Still on the subject of canines, a recent watercolour of our one year old Parson Russell Terrier, Stanley, wet from splashing through a low tide at nearby Bishopstone cliffs. (Parson Russell Terriers are similar to the Jack Russell, but with longer legs). I painted this as a creative Christmas present to my wife Fiona, very pleased that it’s a good likeness too, down to his ginger eyebrows. He is normally a scruffy-looking dog at the best of times as he’s a rough-haired variety, but the waterlogged coat only adds to that ragged charm. I used masking fluid at the edges of his body to acheive the spiky fur effect on a darker background. Watercolour on Langton Torchon 300gsm paper.

Border Collie Bobby drawing

Bobby © Peter Gander

Pencil drawing of a friend’s border collie ‘Bobby’. 5B graphite pencil on off-white cartridge paper.

France: Pork joint and French beer

French beer & glass © Peter Gander

We bought some pork belly from the butchers next door to my brother’s house. With some dexterity and a little artfulness, he swiftly took out the ribs from this joint, attached a sliver of fat around the base and wrapped it up snugly with string. Fiona was to cook it later, along with the previous vegetables painted on the previous post. What better to slake your thirst whilst painting than a chilled bottle of French beer too, (although I begrudged having to ‘wait for myself’ to paint it before I could finish it off!

Pork Joint, Navarrenx, France © Peter Gander

France, leek

Leek © Peter Gander

Still on the side vegetables that went with our roasted pork, a French leek which was later made into a gratin.

France, Autumn marrow

Forgive me for I have not posted lately.  Fiona and I returned to the south of France to Navarrenx where my brother lives, for his 50th birthday. Normally fishing would be high on the agenda, but sadly it was out of season. The local river Oloron is a salmon river and protected at this time of year so we couldn’t even fish for barbel or chub, not even tiddlers, (so I couldn’t live there, that’s not enough scope for fishing!) Thus I got out my filbert brush rather than my fishing rod and did some painting when we weren’t eating or sipping beers in the local bar.

Autumn marrow © Peter Gander

It wasn’t terribly great weather for painting those lights and darks as it was grey and overcast all day as you can see from the overall tone of the painting with just a feint highlight on the marrow’s surface. It had been raining and this was painted in the rural garden of my brother’s gate house, The Concierge that he and his wife Lindy let out to holidaymakers. It lies about 20mins walk from their home in Navarrenx. I painted under a roof overhanging a patio area to the soft drip, drip of the rain falling off the leaves. A blackbird was rustling through fallen leaves in the garden, apart from that, it was wonderfully quiet. We later ate the marrow with Fiona’s roasted pork, the skin was as hard as nails to peel off but it tasted great.