PICTISH WOMAN BY GILLIAN NIX

I came across this image in a book at work a few weeks ago.  The book was titled 'The Decorated Body' by Robert Brain which immediately caught my eye because of this month's theme, Body.  

I found the image above with the following information:

"A romanticised sixteenth-centuary view of a tattooed Pictish woman, by Theodore de Bry after John White.  According to Julius Caesar the ancient Britons were tattooed with animal patterns, and it is possible that the word 'Briton' is derived from a Breton word meaning 'painted in various colours".

  How very interesting!  Apparently, Pictish women were valued much differently compared to today.  They were the royal heirs, they fought in battles and the most interesting of all is that it was common for female Picts to have their bodies fully tattooed.  I love the idea of women being completely decorated with animal patterns and floral tattoos which immediately gave me some visual ideas for this month's project.

This month I have been running some life drawing classes for senior students at work.  A few times when I wasn't too busy helping students, I was able to do a few quick sketches of the life models.  This particular pose I rather liked, and chose to develop the drawing for this idea. This is a relief lino print.  (I'm sure that you are fully aware of my slightly obsessive relationship to lino - I love it!) 

I had a few difficulties when I was printing this lino.  The irregular shape and fine lines gave me many headaches, but I got some prints that I am reasonably happy with.  Hope you like it!

Gillian 

Here is the carved piece of lino...

The original life drawing sketches...

MONTH 11 ' THE BODY'

Thank you to the very lovely Michael Johnson for choosing this month's theme....'The Body'.

Due date is 20th March 2013.  

As usual, you can submit your ideas in any format or way and email it thorugh to Chris or I.

Good luck and have fun with your bodies!!!!

x x

'COLLABORATION FACES' BY CHRIS & GILLIAN NIX

Okay, so this is very late....sorry!

Chris and I started or 'Collaboration' project last month but many things got in our way and we only just got the time to print our lino carvings last night.

Hope you like them....

We got the idea for this project after seeing some online images from an exhibition called 'The Rituals', including the work of Melbourne based artist/designer Beci Orpin.  

We completely ripped off their idea of each artist having to make an image centred around the eyes.  We began our process by finding a head template (see below) and we both came up with a design for our own 'face'.  

Chris's face is a development of one of his characters - he has tonnes of them doodled in sketchbooks and on scrap bits of paper.  I'm a little bit obsessed with patterns at the moment, and this particular pattern is one from a mug that I have at home, and is an 'Octopus' pattern someone told me once.  I don't know for sure, but I like it.

Inking up...

We used a different print press than normal.  This one is a bit like a spongey sandwich toaster and you squeeze the lino and paper together for an even print.

"SQEEEEZE!"

The magic reveal...

"SQUEEEZE.....!"

I wasn't very happy with the alignment, ha ha!

We tried a few different colour variations...

All the prints lined up and drying...

Our favourite print...

The original templates that we used to create our faces...

VOTE GREEN ON SKIRT GUARDS BY BELINDA ASHE AND DAVID DUNCAN

David and I got creative when we were told from several stores that skirt guards for bikes no longer existed! We used an old 'Vote Greens' corflute board and some cable ties. It is practical and creative!

Greenie Collaboration by Belinda Ashe and Dave Duncan.

'THE BARBOUR' BY SARAH & LYNSEY GRAHAM

We decided to collaborate and write a short story about an unlikely superhero who comes out of retirement to save the World from an evil villain, 'The Barbour'. 

Sarah came up with all the ideas and I wrote the story for her. The illustrations she has done here depict the first victim mysteriously losing her hair, the second is our hero getting to grips with new technology in the form of the computer lady and his new sidekick robot dog and the last is the guard at Buckingham palace which they have to sneak past for the final showdown with The Barbour. 

She has been learning about Andy Warhol and wanted to do the pics in bright colours but also comic-strip themed to incorporate the superhero genre. Therefore, we decided on rainbow paper where you use cocktail sticks to scrape through the surface to rainbow colours underneath. We think it works well as most of the action happens at night whilst our hero's grand daughter is asleep. 

xxx

THE MEENFRY BY RYAN HALEY & MEENAKSHI WOOLFE RAWAT

So the story goes……… close to a year ago now, myself and friend Meena were well on our merry way in some dingy/hidden Melbourne bar chatting and carrying on about all sorts of random things. There we realised our mutual appreciation and fascination for the street art and graffiti Melbourne and the world over has to offer. And so, on this particular balmy night we decided that we too wanted to contribute. Together we would join forces and come up with our own piece of street art/graffiti and hence, THE MEENFRY was born. The name is a combination of our own, Meena being MEEN and I being FRY (I’m known as Frysie by some). This new identity needed a design. We have toyed with ideas a few times that we’ve seen, and have settled on the creation you see below. Now, in the future we totally plan on getting stickers and stencils made up to plaster on toilet doors, bathroom mirrors, bus shelters, lamp posts.....you name it.....Melbourne and quite possibly the world over. Wikipedia apparently calls this sticker bombing, sticker slapping, slap tagging or sticker tagging. So keep an eye out Kitchen Table Art Clubbers……..THE MEENFRY is coming…….

DALEK BY ANNE & DENNIS HOODLESS

Dennis and I got together today to build a Dalek in the Snow for this month’s Art Club Entry, hope you enjoy.  

The snow started in Perth on Friday 18^th January and throughout the week we were never without the snow until today, Saturday 26^th January (Australia Day) when we saw glorious sunshine.  So I came up with the idea of building an object in the snow for this month art project and asked Dennis to help so we could collaborate on the project.  

My first idea was to build a horse in the snow, but thought Duke (the dog) might get too fond of it, so come up with the idea of building a Dalek as we thought it would be fun to do.

We started around 10 am this morning after clearing the snow from the front of the house.

The back garden during the snow fall...

The sunshine in the garden this morning.  You can see the black chiming on the right of the middle; this became the base of the dale...

Clearing the snow from the path at the front of the house...

Duke was enjoying the snow too...

 Dennis started the project and he used our chimenea as the base, covering it in snow.  We both piled on the snow before we could start making the shape of the Dalek.

Dennis was great at making the top half of the Dalek, as he carved it out with a bread knife.

Duke the dog also had to get in on the act by peeing on every corner of the strange looking object! 

I made some snowballs for the front of the dalek.

Snow angels...

Some fun in the snow when we finished about 3 hours later, but Duke didn’t let me do a snow angel as he tried to jump on top of me.