Lulu, Dylan and Bird

Drypoint with chine-collé.

The chine-collé got a bit smudgy but the happy accident is that it lends some dynamism to the objects and figures.

At Georgie Fay's wonderful print club I've been experimenting, watching, asking questions and learning slowly to find out what I can do and what I want to do with printmaking. It started off as an offshoot of some ideogram line drawings and linocuts that I'd done with the idea of making zines. I like the diy subversive element in zinemaking and wanted to get tore into some of the slimy political goings on in these little backward towns but I couldn't get any collaborators so it's unlikely I'll get that kind of thing going here. Fortunately there's a world beyond the Borders of Scotland.

Then I slowly began to appreciate the beauty of printmaking in its own right, the processes, the layers - not unlike some aspects of musical composition. It's not painting and as you can see you don't need to be a particularly good illustrator. I often see the world through a child's eyes or as some kind of cartoon, more like the notions of Lila and Maya than absurdism or nihilism if you want to get philosophical about things. I already knew about the art brut of Dubuffet (and indeed have made such music with drookitarlùp (2020)) then I discovered the brilliant work of Gary Goodman and Chang Uc-Shin and delved into books about animals, architecture and typography as well as the colour plates in a lovely book I have on Indian miniature painting. I copy and adapt motifs from those artists and eras - people, especially women and their adornments, simple, exotic and unusual or even impossible buildings, animals, especially pets (my dogs end up looking like piggies), trees, plants and flowers, how these artists set out simple landscapes and render features like mountains with a simple triangular or lumpy blob of colour. Always the sun and moon.