Exhibitions!

 A look back at a few of my exhibitions over the last year or so!

RBSA Friends Exhibition Jan - Feb 2023

I started off 2023 with the Friends of the RBSA exhibition where I had an oil painting self portrait accepted!

RBSA Friends Jan - Feb 2024

I also managed to get two pieces accepted into the Friends of the RBSA exhibition at the begining of 2024 too! I was really excited to have two tiger collagraph prints accepted as I hadn't been able to do a lot of printmaking over the last few years. As due to a bad accident causing mobility problems these had been the first prints I had produced in a very long time so its was a good start to the year to finally show some new prints again! I also brought my printing plates in and did a little talk to Birmingham Art Circle all about my collagraph prints!

Birmingham Art Circle Selection Day Exhibition

In March 2023 I had a mini exhibition of my portrait paintings at the RBSA for judging by Birmingham Art Circle to be able to become a member of the society. I was very happy to get accepted to the Art Circle and try and get to their meetings as often as I can.

Birmingham Art Circle exhibition at the RBSA November 2023

Later in the year I had two oil portrait paintings in the Birmingham Art Circle exhibition at the RBSA gallery and the one of my mum even got a special mention in the speeches of the opening!

Art Yard Open Exhibition Sept 2023

Art Yard Open Exhibition Nov 2023

Art Yard Open Exhibition Dec 2023

Art Yard Open Exhibition Feb 2024

I've also exhibited quite a few times at the Art Yard, Cradley Heath. This is a lovely friendly gallery not far from me and they are always happy for chat, often with coffee and cake!

I've had steampunk cats, elephant oil paintings and hippo collagraph prints on exhibition at the Art Yard and I'm looking forward to exhibiting many more times with them this year!

Ikon Gallery Print Fair

I've got quite a few exciting upcoming exhibitions too. I've got a stall full of my prints at the Ikon Gallery Print Fair on 14 April 2024.

Two exhibitions with Birmingham Art Circle later in the year.

Print Fest Wolverhampton

I'm also helping to organise Print Fest Wolverhampton on 8 - 10 November 2024 at the Newhampton Arts Centre, and will have a stall there with all my prints. I will also be doing a bit of demoing of my printmaking practice too!

Clare x

Making a Crackle Printing Plate!

I have been doing a lot of experimenting recently with overlaying a crackle textured printing plate on top of some of my older collagraph printing plates to create some different patterns and age. 

I discovered, by accident, a few years ago a reaction to using two different shiny paints which causes the top coat to crack and then produce fine lines which are an interesting texture to print. These are all completely random so are very fun to produce!

Here's how about making a crackle printing plate:

I use a piece of scrap mountboard cut to size. Then I apply a layer of gloss acrylic medium all over the mountboard. It doesn't have to be too even, infact as uneven as possible seems to produce more interesting cracks!

Once the acrylic medium is completely dry I add a layer of radiator paint (it only works with the cheapest possible radiator paint, this one was about £5 from B & M Bargains) Again this layer doesn't need to be even. The radiator paint then needs to dry out overnight and the reaction is best done in a cold room (I have put the prinitng plates in the fridgeto crackle too!)

A tiny bit of cracking is starting in the corners after a few hours but don't be tempted to touch these plates until at least 24 hours has passed and they are completely dry.

Its hard to photograph the cracks as they are white on white! Heres the finished crackle printing plate all inked up with yellow ochre ink and my Dudley Castle collagraph printing plate ready to be printed.

The castle printing plate goes through the printing press first with the edge of the paper caught slightly under the roller so that I can then align and replace the castle printing plate with the crackle printing plate to print on top of the image.

The crackle plate is then printed on top of the castle image. (As the ink is still wet you can see some residual ink left from the castle on the crackle plate)

I'm only printing these in very small editions, four for this one.

A close up of the finished collagraph print so that you can see the interesting textures created by the crackle plate!

Clare x