The Fantasy Birds from Faraway are also destined to be a book... more fun and less formal. There are 9 of them.
Last year the City of Stonnington gave us some seed money to create a book about birds in Stonnington. The artists worked hard to create images in various techniques and here they are. They are all hanging in the gallery, a wonderful testament to our talented artists.. The Book Arts Group is slowly making the bindings for the images. I'll write more when the book is finished.
The Fantasy Birds from Faraway are also destined to be a book... more fun and less formal. There are 9 of them.
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Thank you Lee, for giving us this gorgeous wee press. Its going to be so useful and although very heavy, it is still portable enough to take for demonstrative purposes. Sturdy. Wonderful.
Imagine our excitement when we received an email asking us if we would like to have a press for the cost of the removal! Post-haste the Committee went to view and decided YES, it was a good press and suitable for our back room and would cater for our enthusiastic relief printers. We got the Friendly Moving Men in to shift it. They used three young strong strapping fellows. I don't usually advertise in these pages, but I have to say they were extremely easy to work with. Highly recommended. So then it needed an overhaul, a clean up and to be fixed in position.. Thankfully Allan Dabscheck is an old hand with presses and he is in the process of getting it ready to use. We are really excited about this new press. Its going to be fantastic!
One of our members is a member of a small social group that meets monthly to do exciting things together. She suggested to them that they try their hand at printing on acetate here at the Firestation. We organised the class together and they had a ball. Lots of laughs and excitement in the studio. John Hinds took the class and initiated them into the wonders of the printing press! If you would like to do the same, just contact me here at FPS
Carmel O'Connor generously donated her time and expertise to Firestation and take this workshop for 15 eager participants. Carmel is a Archibald prize finalist and a full time artist, both painting and printmaking. We were very excited about this initiative which has brought many more people to our facility from all parts of Melbourne. A couple of her portraits are shown below. Evelyn Yee did a fabulous portrait on the day. Unfortunately my camera was giving me problems and I didn't get any other photos.. Enid Ratnam Keese's metier is Paper Drypoint. She's a wizard at it and she's a fantastic teacher as well. She has her large pieces hanging in galleries all over Australia, with a very large piece in the Canberra War Memorial. She had five very happy students for this workshop! Works in progress......
Wendy Sharpe and Bernard Ollis at Firestation Print Studio Gallery: Part Two: Bernard Ollis29/2/2016 Bernard Ollis is Wendy Sharpe's life partner. He is an accomplished artist too, and as you see their works side by side you can see there is an interplay between their subjects and how they see them. Their works are completely different, and yet, and yet, there is a cross pollination. To have Bernard's works here alongside Wendy's is a joy. Thank you Bernard!
I met Wendy Sharpe in Morocco last October on a tour where she was the guest artist. It was a special holiday and needless to say I learned a lot! So when an unexpected space occurred in our Gallery exhibition timetable, I asked her if she would be so kind as to send down some of her Limited Edition Prints. These are some of them... These are taken with my phone, so not Museum Quality, but nevertheless you get a sense of her sensuous lines and her quirky view of the life that is being lived around her. They range from drypoints (the two from Morocco), to one or two plate soft ground etchings. I have to say the two plate etchings are extremely beautiful and are my favourites. I am so pleased Wendy was able to send these down and very proud to have them at Firestation Print Studio. AND they have spawned interest in soft ground etching.... which leads to another workshop! Thanks Wendy!!!!
First Lino & Print Club meet today. Lots of people doing lots of interesting things. Challenging themselves, having cups of tea and chats. Making art socially. Learning things. Fun. Love it!!!!
Book Arts started with a bang this year as we are concentrating on making the book for our Bird images. Harry Simon saw the proposal and immediately said that the book was much too small and we have doubled the size of the book. It is now a grand tome, and with that comes a lot of construction difficulties. Our group of dedicated bookmakers, Liz Batliwalla, Belinda Kopietz, John Hinds, Wendy Leason, Nyrel Saunders and Suzanne Kaldor are learning a lot about the craft of bookbinding. We have had some assistance from Debra and Jim from the Victorian Bookbinders Guild. Its going to be beautiful. Here is a couple of images from the book: Below: our bookmakers hard at work....
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AuthorEdith May is manager of FPS. For blogs prior to 2015 click here Archives
June 2017
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