Ghost flowers

Took the Pinsta out again, down to the garden of the gallery where I work. These are unevenly developed, yes, and the chemicals were tired and the flowers were blowing about in the wind and I like all of that.

Rhythm practise

My loft//studio space now has a wonderful new drum kit majestically installed right next to my desk and I’ve found this is working out quite nicely.. because I’ll go up to play the drums and end up working on some art, or I’ll go up to work on some art and end up having a good practise session instead. My procrastination has been tricked! I went up yesterday to practise, and the typewriter was still out from something I was doing last week so I ended up doing some of this instead.

The Hum across the Fifth Continent

Yes, of course I have a thing about Dungeness. And a thing about pylons. I am a cliché.

But Dungeness is a truly special place. We stayed a few days for my birthday last year, and so got to spend a good time walking. One day we walked out into the shingle desert beyond the power station and the power lines, the silence and the sun beating down relentlessly intense. It was nice. We ate bread and cheese in the shade of the only tiny stand of trees out there, and wished we’d brought more water and some sunscreen.

So a few weeks ago I was having a very unproductive and frustratingly slow day in the studio, trying too hard and not really liking anything I was doing and really starting to question a lot of things. I was giving up, starting to pack up and then found a tetrapak plate I’d completely forgotten I’d made the day before, drawn from a photograph taken on that walk. I had half an hour to be cleared up and out of there but I wanted to see what it might look like. So I made two very hasty dirty prints on scrap paper, made without thought or any due care and attention to inky fingerprints, and this one came out like this and I like it.

Sill trying

I have been working on this print on and off for the last few months. It’s proving tricky to get the exposure times right. And I’m not the most methodical person, so my experimenting is a bit slap-dash. I might be getting closer though..

Experiments in cyanotype

My phone gave up the ghost last week. I cannot describe the overwhelming feeling of joy and relief when I saw that flashing glitching apple logo. I've had seven glorious days of freedom. No email, no text messages, no to do list reminders, no alarms, and no surprises. I've read so much. I've done my work. I've got so much work done.

Here's a quick and scrappy cyanotype from the end of a long day of experimenting. I've been working on another image for the last few weeks but it's taking longer than expected to get right and I was starting to get impatient so I did a quick test print of this negative instead just to see how it might come out. Took a guess at a 14 minute exposure. The highlights are a bit blown out, so I decided to stick it in a bath of tea.. All a bit slapdash, I think the tray might probably have had some soap in it which might explain these errant blue blotches. Which I kind of like. And the vertical stripes are from the print lying facedown on the bottom of the tray and not enough agitation. I guess they shouldn't be there either. But I like the glitches. And I really like the colour of the toning. Iron gall. I shall write a bit about the science and history behind that at some point.

Anyway. This is a rock from Rannoch Moor in Scotland floating above Lindisfarne, Holy Island in Northumberland.