Let Me Introduce You to Printmaker Kyoko Imazu

Kyoko Imazu is a friend of mine, I know her first from my year at RMIT studying printmaking, but mostly from working together at the open studios in the Australian Print Workshop. She lives in Melbourne but is originally from Japan. I love her work and want to show everyone else too! 

I have chosen a number of images of her work from her blog and asked her to say a little bit about each one.

"This is a doodle I did when I was in Japan this year. I got ideas when I was reading a comic that I used to love when I was a child. It's got a lot of supernatural beings in it and I wanted to draw something that has a sense of those supernatural beings.Those beings are called Yokai - they are kind of like monsters but some of them are treated like gods too. I put my usual bunny and Jizou, it's a stone statue you can see anywhere like roadsides or cemetery in Japan. I think I felt really nostalgic about my childhood."

"This is one of Japanese Yokai as well, called Jinmenju (Human-face tree). First drawn by this guy called Toriyama Seiken in about 1870. The fruits are human heads and they are always laughing or smiling and if they laugh too much they fall from the tree. It's a legend and this tree is supposed to grow in remote mountain valleys in China.

I want to turn this into a print so I'm thinking about how I should do it at the moment."

"I wanted to draw something from my collection of minerals and fossils. I was looking at a calcite (see the picture second from top from the link) and thought I could actually imagine this to be a miniature island. I wanted it to look sort of like an illustration or ex libris from an old book like Gulliver's Travel so I used wood engraving as a medium. Also I needed to practise the engraving so I was a bit desperate to find an image for woodblock!"

"Rather than going for a detailed rabbit, I wanted this to be a bit more ambiguous. The rabbit's got a claw-like hand but I wanted it to be both familiar/not-familiar and not easily recognisable so I decided to black it out like a shadow."

"This is an invasion of Telebunnies! I used to love teletubbies, in probably pre-high school time. When I look at them now, they are kind of scary and weird with the funny voice and screens in the tummy.... (I think it's like Wiggles in Australia, I don't understand why kids love those old men) So I decided to make a bunny version of teletubbies but more of them so it's like they are going to come and get us with the crazy TV in the stomach to communicate with each other.

I wanted it to look like a doodle so I did sugar-lift. This print is quite small as I was experimenting with the medium so I think I will do them again in a much larger plate."

"I got the image when I was doodling again. I had a Edvard Munch's The Kiss in my head when I made a sugar-lift version of this doodle. In his painting, faces of man and woman are melting in to one another. I think I didn't want to make a parody but kind of pay tribute of his work about life, melancholy and death! Someone at APW said it looks like Michael Leunig's though..."

"This is a work called 'What the Mouse Must Know' and I made it when I was in uni. This school project was about what is real and not real, what defines 'real'. My work has always been about a constructed nature and a question of what is nature, so I decided to use a mix of my own project and school project together. I wanted to make a landscape with lots of animals and plants in it but they are mixed with images from fairy tales and drawings from a colonial time. I put those animals/plants/stories/historical drawings together so borderline of all becomes blurry. And because it's all made of paper it can add the sense of being constructed/man-made and also a fragility to it. I painted the back of each paper strip in light red colour so the colour would reflect on the one behind. "

"I think I will paste a text from a gallery proposal I made last year about this image. Although it sounds really stiff, it can summarise better.

"Kyoko Imazu examines artificial and cultural constructions of nature using the motif of the rabbit. The significance of the rabbit in the context of Australia and in children’s books and films around the world is vastly different. It is viewed both as a pest and a symbol of cuteness. Through distorting and manipulating its physical structure the work challenges conventional representations of this creature in a cross-cultural investigation. Using copper plate engravings and referencing eighteenth century natural illustration the pieces evoke an imagined evolution of this iconic animal."

"This is a doodle from which I got the ideas for Telebunnies (5) and The Kiss (6). I can't really explain how I got these images or why, because I drew them when I was on the tram or on the phone at work. Lots of animals are working or playing like humans. Sometimes humans trying to be animals just like a girl in a picture with rabbit mask.

I'm always thinking about ways to incorporate my doodles into prints but haven't quite figure out how."

"Bob the Hare! I felt a little bit rude about making so many hybrid or anthropomorphic animals in the past ( I still do!). Rather than playing with the rabbit's physical form e.g. hybrid, I wanted to make him as he is, not against his nature, so hopefully he keeps the sense of awe that we used to have to animals. Because of our desire to collect, research, label and understand the nature, nothing is a mystery to us. It's not an unknown anymore and we don't feel scared by it so we do whatever we want with it. I thought this wanting-to-know-everything-around-us resulted in human's dominion over nature. And I think having no respect towards nature is one of the cause of all ecological concerns. By drawing animals as they are in nature, I thought I could pay more respect to the animal." 

"This is a watercolour of a tree that I found on the internet. It made a list for world strange tree. 

I just couldn't resist drawing it as it was really beautiful! It wasn't raining in the photo but it looks like raining on the paper."

Thank you so much to you Kyoko for taking time to talk about your work. You can view more of Kyokos work on her blog www.rachelscabinet.blogspot.com. 

Bridbird is Flying the Nest!

Once again I've lost my camera charger. I just don't understand why this thing is so elusive! You'd think with all this taking apart of our house and belongings I'd find it somewhere along the way. but no. So no new photos.... Oh, but wait, I took some photos on someone else's camera of my exhibition. I'll see if I can find them. In the mean time, just to say, this is the last day to buy any of my gocco prints. I'm shutting shop on these prints and leaving them all behind when I move to Belfast, so they wont be available after today. So if there are any you want, get them now before it's to late! I'll also be announcing the winner of the giveaway later today or tomorrow.

My exhibition will be up until 26th September, but maybe for longer. Bird's Gallery are holding onto the pictures until I return next year or the year after, so if you can't make it during the show I'm sure you can still see them after.

Gocco Giveaway

I'm having a giveaway to help with the stock lessening for my move from Australia to Northern Ireland! All you have to do is go to my bridbird etsy shop, look at all my gocco prints and leave me a comment on this blog post which is your favourite design. The winner will receive a set of 6 different coloured fantail gocco prints similar to the one below. The closing date for this giveaway is Monday 14th September. My bridbird shop $10 sale continues until 15th September, after that the shop will be closed for a number of weeks and possibly not sell these items when open again. This could be your last chance!

Good luck!

I'll also just mention for Melbourne readers the fantastic girls of Thread Den, who are truly amazing, are putting on an extravaganza fashion show for Melbourne Spring Fashion Week. It sounds amazing.

They say "it's going to be an amazing night out - with a cast of dancers, live strings, opera singers - and of course stunning couture and ready-to-wear collections from emerging Australian designers.

Tickets are cheap cheap at only $12 (plus booking fee) at the Thread Den shop. And you go into the draw to win a pre-show makeover (and who doesn't love a makeover?) dinner at Sosta Cucina, 
bar tab at the after party and accommodation for two. So what's stopping you? Eh?"

Booking details:

Friday September 4, 7.30pm &
Saturday September 5, 7.30pm

The Lithuanian Club
44 Errol Street, North Melbourne

Tickets: $12 + credit card booking fee. Phone:( 03) 9329 5305

See The Gulls

I've some more new pieces just out of the drying boards this morning, the excitement of which got me out of my nice warm bed! I've been working on these plates for a while because they are recycled plates from my earlier small etchings of Australian native birds. I sanded down the backs of the old plates with varying grades of sandpaper until they were shiny and new looking. Then dry point etched my seagull drawings in to them. The seagull drawings are from sketches I made while doing my MFA a few years ago. I sketched such a lot then and it's great having so much base to work from. I really must make more time to collect new sketches for new pieces of work.

So, I've made a four plate etching and four single plate etchings. The seagulls were all sketched from outside the Melbourne State Library where they all seem to hang out in large numbers. I'd also like to make a book of the seagulls, I'll see if I get round to it before the exhibition on the 10th September. Getting close now!

Seagull I

Seagull II

Seagull III

Seagull IV

Turquoise Crow

I think this is the largest print I've made so far. It only just fit on my little press. At an estimate, from memory, it measures about 40cm across. It was made by drawing with thick PVA glue straight from the bottle, then grit poured on top, like glitter! I then sealed the plate with shellac.

The texture is very deep and it embosses the image into the paper as well as printing the inked image. I went through quite a bit of tarlatan (the cloth used to rub back the inked up plate) because the grit kept ripping it up, like rubbing cloth over sand paper. I also used an etching needle to score into the cardboard plate for the lose lines around the bird. I wasn't sure how this would work, but it seems to have worked as well as if it were dry point into copper. The edition is small, only 4 or 5. I'm hoping to have it in my upcoming exhibition at Bird's Gallery, Kew in September.

At Market

My friend Christina who has a stall beside me at Rose Street Artists' Market just sent me these pictures of my market stall. Market is such fun, even if it is freezing cold in winter and so hot hot hot in summer! Working from home can be so isolating, I think I would go a bit insane if I didn't get to see everyone on Saturdays, and then we all go to the pub for a nice meal and a glass of wine after.

 

Me at my market stall doing something on the phone.

  The necklace colony

  

 

 The brooch area

 

Me in a dress I bought from a fellow market stall holder.

New Hatchings

I've been neglecting my bridbird etsy shop recently so I thought I'd make some new screen prints for it. It's also good to have new work for market so I got down to it and created these. I didn't make them as quickly as I would have liked because I realised I didn't have any black ink and had to wait a week until my ordered ink finally arrived and I could continue.

I made them in 4 different colour combinations and also as single birds. You've seen the fantail on the left before, the one on the right is new. I've listed a few on etsy already and will be listing the rest over the next few weeks.

I also managed to get a day in printmaking last week and editioned "Fitzroy Birds" I'm hoping to get into my studio today and print another two plates I made yesterday. It's so cold in there though, the thermometer on our alarm clock says it's 8.5 C. :(

What have I been up to?

Recently I've just disliked sitting at my computer, hence lack of blog posts etc. I always feel I should be getting on with something else. Here are a few of the other things I have been getting on with instead.

The Crows.
I started playing around with unique state prints made from two plates and various scraps of fabric. I found it all a bit stressful, which sounds silly, I should just immerse myself into 'playing' but constantly at the back of my mind I keep thinking 'deadline, I've got a deadline' and should concentrate on work that I'm more sure about for my exhibition in September. I do like the deep red crow with black lines on top. He was made with a collograph plate painted with PVA and grit inked up in red, then a dry point plate printed in black over the top. I really like the deep rustiness of the red colour.





Sketch Etchings
These are dry point etchings, the plates of which I made at Wye River in January. I decided to sketch straight onto the plate, rather than make the plate in my studio from drawings in my sketchbook. I like the immediacy of this way of working, but it is a bit nerve wracking because you don't want to mess up the copper plate.



I must also mention the winner of my may giveaway was Stef of Distracted Muse. I'll be posting her little felt brooch to her this week! Thank you to everyone who took part. I'll have another giveaway soon!

Left Hand Right Hand Drawings

Brunswick Street Gallery is calling for entries for their 'small works' exhibition. I thought I should give it a go, so I came up with these three pieces. They are pencil drawings on embossed paper. The drawing is done with my left hand, except for the area in the small embossed square, which is done with my right. I personally always prefer my left hand drawings. Nice and lose. I don't really enjoy drawing in too much detail, I prefer to capture the essence  of the subject, or maybe I'm just lazy?!

Be a Tourist In Your Own Town

A bee in a blossoming tee tree at Collingwood Station

A friend of mine has come to Australia for a visit and we did lots of touristy things today. Lots of things that even I had never done before. It's a shame that it takes someone else to arrive for you to explore the city you live in. I found that a lot of the things we did were probably more interesting for me because I did live here, for example we went to the Rialto Tower that is 88 stories high and has a viewing deck. It was brilliant working out where I lived, where my old house was, where Fitzroys is and how long Lygon Street goes on for! Then we went to the City Museum which had lots of old photographs and old films of how Melbourne used to look. As I said, probably a lot more interesting for me than for my friend. So if you live in Melbourne take the time and go to these places, they're great!

Views of Melbourne from the viewing deck at the Rialto Tower


A lovely poppy in the Fitzroy Gardens. I love poppies.

I then decided when I got home to go down to the Abbotsford Convent and draw. I'm feeling a bit sad that Jeremy and I will soon be leaving Abbotsford and moving across town in mid November. Abbotsford is such a lovely suburb with the Convent grounds, the River Yarra, the Collingwood Childrens' Farm, I wanted to make the most of it on this lovely day!

Abbotsford Convent, continuous line drawing, left hand

Just a Bit Further Before Home

I've had a great day today! This morning I went to St Kilda to visit some friends at their market stall at the St. Kilda market. We had barbecued bubble and squeak sandwiches on their little homemade BBQ and then the wind blew next doors stall over the wall. Very exciting stuff.

Then I caught the tram up to Flinder's street and talked the whole way with a lovely Polish girl who had just arrived in Melbourne as a tourist. It's nice to talk to strangers sometimes!

One of my new brooches, look I've learnt how to do featherstitch! (on his tail and wing)

In Federation Square I went to the Melbourne Makers Etsy meet up and met so many interesting people who all had their lovely things with them. I think my favourite was a crocheted cushion of a pair of boobs. Brilliant!! I'll let you know if they are on etsy any time soon. I definitely want one.

I then had to go and pick up my bike from Brunswick street, as I cycled down the gentle hill to home I decided it was much too nice an evening to go straight home so I cycled a bit along the Yarra, past the children's farm and the convent. As I was cycling I saw a flock of black cockatoos circling. They landed next to two baths acting as watering troughs, and all drank their fill. I fumbled in my bag for a piece of paper and found the little booklet moonmum had given me at the meet up and quickly sketched the squawking cockies in it!

Black cockie in a tree after his thirst was quenched