Half Price Print Sale (for next 30 days)

I accidentally posted this post to this blog (I had originally meant to post it to my other blog, WAYNE CHISNALL'S ARTWORK, not realising that I'd logged onto my OODLES OF DOODLES blog instead) but now that it's posted I might as well leave it up. So here goes -

It's been a few years since I last had one of my print sales and I've decided it's about time I had another. So for the next thirty days I'm offering a selection of my prints at half their regular price. If you'd like one at a 50% discounted price drop me an email at WAYNECHISNALL@YAHOO.CO.UK

Here are the four prints that are included in the sale -

IF THEY WERE BUNNIES (£75 instead of £150) 

I created the original image for 'If They Were Bunnies' by first selecting a newspaper image of British police officers attacking demonstrators. I then painted out the protestors - replacing them with my own cartoon rabbits. I'm pleased with the contrast between the crisp graphic line work of the bunnies and the just about perceptible halftone modulations of the newspaper image.

Printed using cutting edge Epson® HDX Ultrachrome archival pigments inks, as opposed to ordinary dye-base inks, which are more prone to fading over prolonged exposure to UV light, and printed on Hahnemuhle Bright White 310 gsm; an acid-free, premium heavy-weight archival paper. The image is 45.5 x 33 cm, and the paper size is 50.5 x 39.3 cm. Each print is signed and editioned (being from a limited edition of 100). The prints are also embossed with an authentication stamp in the lower left corners of the border.

SPIDEY PODS (£100 instead of £200)

The Spidey Pods piece came about through the merging of a few different ideas or interests. Part of it was to do with my interest in nostalgia, childhood perceptions of adulthood and childhood heroes (hence the elements of the 70s style Spiderman costume). The work was also influenced by an interest in forms that reoccur within larger forms. Just prior to making the preparatory drawing for the Spidey Pods piece I had been peeling back the skin of a segment of orange and marvelling at the mass of smaller pod-like segments that it was made up of. 

It was whilst sketching out the initial drawing that I also remembered a scene from the original 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', in which the main character from the movie finds himself in the back of a truck, on top of a pile of giant pods. So again, there is this reworking of nostalgic elements, as films have been another important influence throughout my life (especially during my childhood).

Limited edition, hand-printed, silk-screen prints on acid-free, archival high grade paper. Signed and numbered. Edition of 300 (although less than 100 have so far been printed and it's unlikely that any more will be printed).

Dimensions: 58 x 53 cm.

MORPHED COMPONENTS (£80 instead of £160)

The 'Morphed Components' prints are based upon one of my pencil drawings, in which I morphed together elements of different found objects and materials that I'd been collecting for use in my sculptures. Unlike my recent quick-fire drawings this one harks back to the draughtsmanship style I used when I first started out as a technical illustrator for one of the big Japanese companies back in the 80s. I found it interesting using the same precise and clinical rendering that I used back then, on something that is personal to what I do now. Some people have said that they find the drawing a bit disturbing but I find it quite relaxing to stare at (the original hangs on the wall at the foot of my bed).

In order to give the prints a subtle pencily (that's not a real word is it?) quality the screen prints were hand-pulled using an ink made with graphite powder. As with all my other screen prints, these are also printed on archival quality paper and each one is signed and editioned. The paper dimensions are 54 x 52 cm and the print run is an edition of 60 plus five artist's proofs

Title: Morphed Components

Dimensions: 54 x 52 cm (approx)

Medium: silk-screen prints (hand printed) on acid-free paper

Colours: 1 (graphite powder ink)

Edition: 60

SWIRLY SKULLS ON PINK (£70 instead of £140)

For those of you who love skulls but with a shade of femininity, here’s my two colour, ‘Swirly Skulls on Pink’ screen print. They come in a strictly limited edition of 50 and each print is signed, titled, editioned, dated, and printed on archival paper. The paper dimensions are 70 x 50 cm (larger than my single colour, ‘Swirly Skulls’ prints which are 60 x 45 cm).

If you are interested in any of the prints (temporarily at half price) just drop me an email at waynechisnall@yahoo.co.uk

Sketchy Thoughts

As much as I love spending hours walking around art galleries, scrutinising works by my favourite artists and discovering pieces by artists that are new to me, one thing that I always want to see more of is their accompanying sketchbook work. I'm fascinated by these visual diaries/notebooks and how they reveal the thought processes behind the finished works that we see up on the gallery walls. And it's with this in mind that I thought that I'd give you a little insight into my creative musings by posting a few recent scrawls from my current pocket sketchbook (these days I rarely use a sketchbook bigger than A5 size).

My own sketchbooks are amongst my most precious possessions; probably the first things that I'd try to save in the case of a house fire. To me they serve multiple purposes. Often they are repositories for pretty much fully formed ideas for potential future artworks (mostly sculptures) - having long ago realised that if I don't get an idea down on paper straight away, I'm liable to forget it forever. But they are also where I go to work out the not-so-fully-formed ideas. Sometimes an idea is so vague that it's not until I start to see it take form on the page in front of me that it is actually realized. Sketchbooks are also great places to knock lumps off of forms before you attempt it in the real world. By this I mean that you can experiment and make your mistakes on paper, before you commit to the physicality of the actual sculpture. It's also a good place to refine the form of the sculptural work that you are going to pursue - the place where you discover its ideal outline.

I have more ideas for artworks than I'll ever have the time in which to create them, especially since the act of constructing a sculpture always generates ideas for various different versions of itself (usually there will be multiple points in the construction of a sculpture where you are confronted with the option of taking the work in one of at least two different directions), so I content myself with the fact that if I manage to get my ideas down on paper at least the work exists in some form.

Although the majority of my sketchbooks are filled with preliminary drawings, I do also use them for making working drawings of mid-construction sculptures - as a way of working out some of the finer details of a work in progress. I find that it can also be useful to make sketches of sculptures that I'm working on, purely as a way of temporarily distancing myself from the sculpture, and in which to see it from a fresh perspective.

As you've probably noticed from these few examples, I usually eschew the pencil; instead preferring to work directly in ink on paper. I like the immediacy of working with a pen. Knowing that you can't erase a mistake, trains you to be more accurate and economical with your mark making, or to incorporate rogue lines into the body of the drawing. Although, saying that, some of my thumbnail sketches can occasionally lean towards the clumsy, especially if I'm more interested in quickly jotting down an idea (usually accompanied with a few notes on materials and construction methods) than I am in pure joy of drawing.

Another thing that I love about sketchbooks is that they can act as an inspiration store. I have sketchbooks dating back decades and every now and then, when flicking through them, I will come across a forgotten drawing or set of notes that triggers an idea for a new work.

I smile now when I think back to my early days at art college, when the tutors would try and impress upon us the importance of sketchbook work, and would demand to see a body of preparatory drawings accompanying each finished piece of artwork. Inevitably we would all disregard this - go straight ahead with our main piece of work, then, once it was finished, we would laboriously try and come up with the pages of 'preliminary drawings' that had led us to that end point.