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Blog of the week: Charmaine Watkiss - The Open College of the Arts

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Blog of the week: Charmaine Watkiss


Blog of the week this week is Charmaine Watkiss‘ log of her progress through her printmaking course. In discussion Richard Liley, one of the Course Leaders for Fine Art said, ‘it shows working process, discipline , technique and research’ and I am keen to see students helping each other develop in this way. Richard followed up by saying with the exceptions of Hockney and Grayson Perry the sharing of technique appears to be limited amongst professional artists, but this was not always so. He quoted from a letter by Degas to Pissarro with technical advice on engraving and how to make the grain of the plate smoother – he says to Pissarro for example ” Previously you will have prepared a solution of resin in very concentrated alcohol. This liquid, poured after the manner of photographers when they pour collodion on to their glass plates (take care, as they do, to drain the plate well by inclining it) this liquid then evaporates and leaves the plate covered with a coating, more or less thick of small particles.”


Posted by author: Genevieve Sioka

4 thoughts on “Blog of the week: Charmaine Watkiss

  • That’s a very well laid out blog – very informative, the photos do well to inspire and to inform. Love the process to your work and you have helped me make my mind up that Printing 1 will be my next course…
    🙂
    Dawn

  • Thanks for sharing this. I’m just doing my reduction Lino at the moment and it’s nice to see how other students work. I have been doing my log in word document format and printing it to send to my tutor but I had been thinking about giving a blog a try. I do feel a bit intimidated after seeing this though 😉

  • I have just submitted my first assignment for Starting to Paint and my tutor was not impressed with my lack of organisation as he saw it. So I am really interested to see how other students organise their work, and how you show your working process. I can see why tutors would prefer to see a really clear progression such as yours. Thanks for sending it.

  • Thanks everyone for your encouraging words about my blog. Hey Angie it took a long time for me to put together a blog, I did a photography course with the OCA a couple of years ago but like you I also felt intimidated by the process – it is a scary thing, all I can say is just go for it!
    Thanks again everyone.
    : )

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