Print Club News / Winter Solstice, December 2022
So we’ve reached the Winter Solstice, the beginning of the holiday period, and a beautiful moment for reflection and celebration. If like me you’re a gardener, you’ll know that today marks the point in the year when the light levels start to increase again, albeit slowly at first. As a point of interest, I found out recently that the rate of increase is sinusoidal, so maths and nature intertwined perfectly as ever.
Apologies that I haven’t managed to get these two latest pieces out in the post to you yet, although I don’t think we’re too far away from that moment. I’ve completed a couple of rounds of proofs with the help of Ripe Digital in Corsham. I dropped in there yesterday to look at the latest prints, and discuss the best way forward with Rik. It’s always worth meeting in the real world, as with a little discussion we finally worked out how to multi foil a print, which has been the stumbling point for this edition up until now.
Essentially I’ve been trying to overlay four different coloured foils onto one print, but that hasn’t proved possible, although I think with some digital cutting and adhesives it may well prove possible to assemble multiple separate foils onto a single print by using low tack adhesives and some kind of registration system. Something for next year maybe.
The solution for these two latest editions has been to holo foil the entire print surface, and then overprint with highly translucent inks, which gives a rather amazing effect, that sees the images moving from highly saturated to quite dark, depending on how the light plays across the surface. I hope you’ll agree that this technique makes them good candidates for the Experimental Print Club. The circular image has sprung out of Spinnaker, a drawing I’ve revisited for a recent commission, and the other is a cleaner new geometric piece that hinges around the X,Y,Z drawing axes, creating what I think is a rather satisfying small puzzle like form, that seems quite festive to me. I’m going to work further on this geometry.
I’ll be back in touch in early January with a longer newsletter and the completed editions. In the meantime, I hope you have a great Christmas and Happy New Year.
With best regards and many thanks for your support this year,
Chuck Elliott
If you’d like to receive three or four exclusive new editions in the post each year, alongside personal news and views from the studio, and invitations to shows and fairs, please do consider becoming a member of my Experimental Print Club. You can join or leave the club at any time, with absolutely no obligation to stay any longer than you want to.
New works are sent out somewhat sporadically throughout the year, often in line with the changing seasons. Each piece is unique, exclusive, and only available on the day it’s editioned, the size of the edition being determined by the number of members on the day.
I hope the club presents a more personal and intriguing way to connect with the studio, by creating a platform for collecting engaging new works for your home. The club is hosted online here, and I send out fairly regular blog posts and emails about the work too. I’d like to think that it’s an interesting proposition!
Membership is currently priced at £36 per month inc. UK delivery, or £42 for an international address.
