MEND - These Islands, We Sing

This month sees the release of These Islands, We Sing a new collection of poetry from publishers Polygon. As the Polygon web blurb says "this anthology pays tribute to the islands’ creative output by bringing together a huge array of poetic talent, from the internationally-renowned – Sorley Maclean, Iain Crichton Smith, George Mackay Brown, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Hugh MacDairmid – to those fantastic poets deserving of more attention – Jim Mainland, Aonghas MacNeacail, Meg Bateman, Alex Cluness, Jen Hadfield, and many more – in one wonderful collection. With poems exploring the themes of love, language, landscape, identity and belonging, These Islands, We Sing is a significant and heartfelt celebration of poetry and place."



This collection is of particular interest to us here at New Dead Language as it features a number of poems from our very first publication, MEND by Alex Cluness. We are extremely proud to have worked with Alex on the original pamphlet and are delighted to see a selection of these poems reaching a wider audience.
If anyone is interested in purchasing a copy of MEND it is now available over on our etsy page.

Boxerfish

For many known and unknown reasons this print has been a long time coming. The original layers were inked and uploaded to my flickr page 18 months ago. Unsurprisingly when I came to print I couldn't remember the exact colours I'd intended to use although perhaps surprisingly I got two out of three right. I'm still not entirely sure what the third colour would have been had I printed at the time of illustrating (I have a note of it somewhere) but the results are satisfying enough.

In the image below you can see the developmental stages of the aforementioned misprint. Absentmindedly I'd printed the green layer the wrong way over the copper layer. This gave a curious impression of depths and shadow, the suggestion of a denser school of fish than I'd originally drawn. It's a very nice effect that I wish I'd had the foresight to do intentionally. Intrigued, I split the run in two with half following the error and half continuing down the intended path.



There are 10 copies of each variation, A4, signed and numbered. The main version is available over on etsy but if you fancy buying a copy of the variation just let me know and we'll sort that for you.

Kissy Kissy Fairy

Back in the January of this year Jono Sandilands and I had ourselves a little doodle week in which we each found elements to develop into full screenprints.

Elephant Deuce

Original artwork from Philip Eight's seminal 1978 fragrance, Elephant Deuce.

Mind Your Head

For the next fortnight the latest prints from co:lab will be hanging at the Peerie Shop Cafe in Lerwick. For this project we've worked together with local charity Mind Your Head and have each explored the subject of mental health in our own unique way. This has made for a very rich and diverse set of prints. You can see above my contribution - My Aching Back, My Tiny Crown and Rate the Bug People.
All monies made from the sale of these prints go directly to Mind Your Head and we're hoping the work invites debate while further raising the charity's profile.
If you're interesting in buying any of this work you can fill in one of the forms at the Peerie Shop Cafe, speak directly to one of the artists or visit our online Heart Your Head shop over on Etsy. Co:lab will also be launching an Etsy page specifically for this project in the next day or two so watch this space for more details. Each print is an edition of 20, 297mm x 420mm and cost £20 each.



Above and below you can see a brief photodocumentation of the printing process we used. Both my prints feature three colours - cyan, magenta and yellow.

NDL goes Etsy : Buy now!

The New Dead Language shop is now active over on Etsy. It's still a little rough around the edges but I'll refine it as I upload more prints and such for sale.



For a lot of you it'll still be easier to buy direct from me, face to face. But for those of you who are a little further away this should be a useful addition to the NDL webnest. Check it out and tell your friends!

Doodle week

Jono and I recently enjoyed a doodle week over at the co:lab blog.



You can of course also see the results over on my flickr page.

The Mathematicians

Here's a peek at the latest prints currently being exhibited at the Bonhoga gallery as part of their Sprickle an’ Peester Christmas show. Co:lab were delighted to be asked to contribute and set about producing two pieces of work each to our own loose theme of "two".
I decided to explore the lives of two French mathematicians and tell their stories in two colours.
As is my want these days I tried a few variations with the colours and particularly like the results from using the same semi-transparent blue for both layer.
The show runs until 23rd December 2010.

Tanngnjostur og Tanngrisnir

My Co:Lab cohorts and I were recently asked if we'd like to submit work for this year's Christmas exhibition at the North Rock Gallery. We were, of course, more than happy to take on the challenge and we each set about interpreting their Yule time theme.
Although briefly tempted to tackle the story of the Yule Cat, it was the Julbocken or Yule Goat that, in my research, excited me most. Generally represented in straw bound in red ribbon, the Yule Goat is a strikingly simple and beautiful sight and would lend itself well to screenprinting.
However, as I explored the history, I was increasingly intrigued by it's links with the legend of the Norse God Thor who rode through the skies in a chariot drawn by two goat, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr (teeth-barer and teeth grinder). At the end of each night Thor would slaughter and feast on his goats only to resurrect them with his mystical hammer the next day and set out anew. I was struck by and sympathised with the curious daily routine these goats would endure and the loyalty they seemingly showed their master.
In my illustration I was most keen to capture that sense of burden these goats carry and contrast it with the spritely enthusiasm of them as newly born kids. I've taken a few liberties in my interpretation of this but it seems fairer on the goats to allow the scene to be reimagined in new ways.
The text in the composition, with the help of google, translates from the Icelandic as "born again with each new dawn"

Bonhoga Open Exhibition: Portrait

Themed for the first time, the Bonhoga Gallery Open Exhibition this year filled their halls with portraiture. Photography, painting, sculpture, jewellery and print all featured and there was an impressive turn out for tonight's opening (though, disappointingly, many of the prize winners were conspicuous by their absence).
Here's my entry. It is composed from three different five colour screenprints torn and pasted together.

Exeter Poetry Festival 2010

A wee peep at the brochure, programme and a promotional postcard for the Exeter Poetry Festival.
Check out their web page www.exeterpoetryfestival.com for more information.

Telephone, telephone so much

Another co:lab project for you all. This one was produced during the two week residency of the pop-up shop down at the Toll Clock shopping centre. The theme this time around was red and blue with the criteria being that we use red and blue only and the artwork fits to A6. Here is my effort. I can explain the thinking behind it if anyone cares to ask!

Co:lab down the pop-up shop

The co:lab kids would like to thank everyone who came down the pop-up shop, hung out, chatted and bought prints. We've had a lot of fun seeing you all over the last two weeks. Big thanks also to Karen Bruce without whom the shop never would've happened and all the folk involved with Vunk Fest. Looking forward to the big weekend in July!

Two Ply Gin

Co:lab have once again been at the printing ink. Our latest project is 3-fold and explores the rich seam of interpretation inherent in our alphabet. 26 individual characters being reproduced in countless variations the world over.
In presenting our take on our favourite graphemes we not only show the alphabet in its natural order but also put them to practical use in the context of 3 very different pangrams. Additionally each co:labber has chosen their favourite letter to BIG up.



I experimented extensively before reaching a style I was happy with and felt would carry through from A to Z with relative ease. The technique involved great reams of toilet paper, lots of water, ink and a big fat brush. In selecting a pangram I decided to search outwith my native tongue and found two potent and very different samples. One Danish and one Portuguese. I went with the Portuguese pangram "Um pequeno jabuti xereta viu dez cegonhas felizes" which as it turned out didn't feature all 26 letters as the Portugese alphabet isn't exactly as it is in the UK. This left me missing w,y and k – a problem I navigated with the naming of my jabuti "Wakiya".



Curiously, despite the Portuguese pangram, the three pieces look particularly eastern. Largely I guess thanks to the method I used to create the letters but also how well they work reading top to bottom as opposed to our convention of left to right.

There were only twelve of each of these printed and we launched them two weeks ago with the opening of the temporary Vunk Fest pop-up shop. Sales of this and other prints were encouraging and I'm pleased to say that my pangram is now completely sold out. Thanks to everyone who bought a copy of this and/or any of my other print. It's much appreciated and I hope you enjoy having them in your home!

Turtle print

Some months after finishing the inking work, the turtle print has finally reached completion. It was a delay that amazed with the problems encountered in finding somewhere to produce the A3 acetates to be used in exposing the screen. Fortunately my good friend Martin down in Falkirk came to the rescue with a suitable solution.

So once again, with Jono's generous assistance, I set about printing. Two variations this time. The first, in keeping with my original plan, featured the three basic primary colours of red, blue and yellow. The idea being that through overlapping I'd hopefully achieve the secondary colours of orange, purple and green. What I actually got wasn't quite as well defined as this but the results are none the less satisfying with clearly defined secondary colours... albeit not a direct match for those in my mind at the point of conception. And in the interests of the experiment I could have been a bit more liberal with the blending of the blue and the yellow in the pursuit of green. There are 24 of these, signed and numbered.



The second variation features purple, turquoise and copper and was purely an additional indulgence taken before washing out the stencils. A chance to play with the composition using a rather more earthy palette. The purple and the turquoise work beautifully and found compliment with the copper (having failed to agree with a pull of raw umber). As I'd hoped, I've learned a good few lessons with this design and can see how I can develop the work further. There are 21 of these, signed and numbered.

All in we spent about nine hours straight working on these prints... coating, exposing, washing, printing, washing, drying, coating, exposing and so on. It was a long cold exhausting day but very satisfying.

Philip Eight

It was a heavy few nights of printing last week as co:lab set about the second of our team tasks. The brief we set ourselves this time was to create, within the space of a week (give or take allowances for general real life shenanigans), an A4 advert suitable for two colour printing. Those were our only spec. The product, concept, ideal or whatever we set out to promote was entirely ours to choose.
This is my contribution...

Philip Eight, the brand, has become synonymous with magnificent fashion and the most elegant of fragrances. Beloved of the great and the good.
We see here an advert for a new man smell designed for the fat glossies. Although originally conceived as an initial yellow layer plastered over with a second black layer, inspiration kicked in and I decided to try out the florescent pink, caking it in a second coat of raw umber. The pink was magnificent and when shining through the raw umber the colours joined in a deep regal red. I have 18 of these, signed and numbered.
We'd set aside a full night for each of the co:lab designs so I decided to plough on and try a variant on the initial yellow idea... unwittingly treading on the same error Jono and I had made with the screw picture from co:lab 1b. Yellow, it appears, is a remarkably difficult colour to work with when overlapping colours. It seems to lack punch and struggles to hold definition. We printed 21 sheets with a base colour yellow and proceeded to work through 4 alternatives (many of which delivered oddly hazy results) before getting excited about the blend of the yellow with the florescent pink which we had stumbled upon earlier in the process while fooling around. I have 11 of this final combination, signed and numbered.

Addendum: Having seen the workings for these prints Philip Eight has ask Andrew to become his official biographer and over the coming months his life will be documented in pictures at philipeight.blogspot.com.

Works in progress

Here's a wee sample of what's being worked on at the moment.

The three layers on the left make up the turtles print. This is being produced as a test, experimenting with a dense brush technique and multiple colour overlays. If the results are promising the approach should lead on to other experimentation which in turn should lend itself to larger works I have in mind.
The layers on the right make up the boxerfish print. This is more a piece produced for fun although certain challenges in the colour management and how information is to be related adds to the value of the experience.

The Co:Lab team at Unique Presence

Big thanks to everyone who came along to Unique Presence to witness the Co:Lab live debut on Saturday 5th December. We were all extremely please with how it went and greatly appreciate the enthusiasm shown. It was a long day starting at 2pm in the Islesburgh Community Centre and the first half was especially busy. We're glad however to have been able to keep the show open until 9pm, welcome the folk keeping less regular hours and sell them prints! Hopefully all the prints sold will settle happily into their new homes and earn a quizzical look or a toothy smile from time to time.

Thanks must also be extended to Karen Bruce of Vunk Photography and Mootie House Designs for organising the event and inviting us to participate. The Drama Room at the community centre was a great space in which to exhibit and looked particularly vibrant when filled with the textiles, jewellery, photography (and prints) of independent local artists and designers (Vunk Photography, Mootie House Designs Ltd, K J Originals, Jane Naish Jewellery ...)

For anyone who couldn't make it along, never fear, we're hoping to give you another chance to pick up a print very soon. Watch this space for details!

Co:Lab - Tag Team take two and exhibition news!

Following on from the first stage collaborations between Andrew Morrison, Beto and Jono Sandilands we have repeated the process in reverse! Which is to say, Jono, having received Beto's art to work first time around and his piece having gone Andrew's way, this time Jono's illustration went Beto-wise while Beto's effort was passed to Andrew!
Interesting and educational results... particularly in the instance of failure experienced in the first attempt on two of this series' collaborations – solved with advanced colour consideration.

The work from both stages in this Co:Lab project are to debut, for one day only, this weekend at Unique Presence, an exhibition of print, photography and textiles with sales of original artwork and contemporary gifts. If you're in Lerwick on 5th December any time between 2pm and 9pm then swing by the Drama Room at Islesburgh Community Centre. There are only 40 of each obscenely affordable print so be mindful not to miss out!

These photos by Jono Sandilands

Tag team fun with Jono & Beto

The results!, originally uploaded by newdeadlanguage.

Andrew Morrison recently joined Jono Sandilands and Roberto Getto in a 3week tag team screen printing experiment. For the first week they each created an A4 image which was passed to another member of the trio who would then for the second week create another A4 image to overprint this with. Third week saw the printing! Here are the results. Watch this space for news of a second set of these and more fun from the trio!