Etching Press for Sale

Etching Press Sale Enquiries: johnnymulvay@vodafone.co.nz

This one's got to go and I have to make another for my own use pdq. Got a couple of months of printmaking planned. Sold to a Nelson Artist

Drawing Musicians

Adam and Mike and Alison are having a musical evening on Friday night so Ruthie and I go along to enjoy the music and I do some sketching.
Alison above is playing the keyboard, she thinks she looks grumpy in this drawing but I tell her she was intent on her playing, engrossed in the sounds

Adam playing some of his original music.

Drawing Horses from Life - Blue

Blue is a bearded lady with the most gorgeous blue eyes and a gentle nature. A grey Clydesdale 22 years old and she has had a hard life towing wagons and carts all round the South Island.
She is retired now and is one of my favourite things in all the world. She's a bit shy with me but she doesn't mind me drawing her.
The above drawing is a good likeness and I am very pleased with it and will make it into a print, maybe a softground etching but we will see what we will see when the time comes.
I've put aside two months, from mid November to mid January for to create a series of prints of Horses and other creatures.

Drawing Horses from Life - Chase

I don't know how Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec did it, I guess they were around horses all their lives and there were no cars then but these critters are a real challenge for me.
These sketches are of Chase who is a magnificent beast, a 4 year old Clydesdale Thoroughbred cross and I am determined to get some good woodcuts and etchings of him from drawings done from life, right there in the paddock and not from photos.
I've tried photographing him and it's as hard or harder than drawing him strangely enough.
Horses seem to be worse fidgets than even me and believe me I am a wriggly restless creature.
My choice though and it's kind of fun when the big boy comes over and tries to eat the sketch book.

Angel

Out at Ruthies animal farm I set out with the sketch book to draw the horses but was sidetracked by Angel, the eleven year old cow, down in the ditch beside the old railway embankment eating hay.
She is huge, must be over a ton, looks like a bull and people make jokes about reporting her to the SPCA because of obesity.

A Death in the Family

Eddie, my main man, in better days.
Only nine years old he fell to a heart condition
Too soon, way too soon.
There is an emptiness in the house..

Poor Paddy is devastated, missing his energetic little buddy

The artist's best friend is now a two dimensional image and a wee mound under the the Yuccas

The Heavy Metal Tug of War

A titanic struggle between an English Victorian etching press and a Danish World War 2 lathe.
The plucky pipe etching press stripped and oiled, less than half the weight of the Viking giant grey beast!!
Undaunted our roller-bowler top heavy hero, using all the cunning of an empire on which the sun never sets, gets a toe hold under the flooring while the Scandinavian cast iron monster bunches up his cast iron mass and calls to the Norse gods of Great Gravity and Iron Inertia to defy movement!!!!!

The ropes tighten, the chains creak, the tension mounts - stand back!! Something could blow!!

England wins!! Denmark must obey!! A triumph of the underdog over superior forces!!!
Hoorah!!

Horses

Walking the dogs along the riverbank I saw two horses on the other bank, walked home for a sketch book and came back to find this critter in the same pose that attracted my attention and did a few fast drawings. The horse knew we were there. Wasn't too good at keeping still.


This is my favourite horse; Chase. A Clydesdale thoroughbred cross. Stroppy and naughty like a teenager. He would make a great hunter but for me he is a model, or will be when he gets his Winter cover off. I don't ride but I like horses for their mythical beast quality, the atavistic living metaphor. I don't know what they are a metaphor for (meta44) but they touch a chord in me.

Next blog

To find inspiration for myself I like to open this blog and then click on the next blog tab at the top of the page and I am sure to find five or six art blogs, random, from all over the world.
It seems Google has shuffled art blogs together over time.
After five or six or so the next blogs go real random - blogs about anything at all which is also interesting.
And oh it is a bitter sweet pleasure because I am finding no time to do any new drawing myself.
Perhaps later this week.. or next week...
Nice to be busy though.
The pastel drawing above is an old one of mine of someone else drawing which is where I am at lately - looking at some one else's drawings.
It crushes my ego to realise I have become a wannabe, a dilletante, a bloody procrastinator!
Still, could be worse. It's a sunny day today and Spring is coming.
Like Christmas.
Like my latest drawing..

Painting Cars 1

I have been dreaming of this for years.
Putting art work on the car.
So I pulled it to bits to get into all those hard to get at places and deal with what ever and make sure it don't become a future problem.
This vehicle is a canvas that I want to last.

The Art of Work

For the last couple of months I have been renovating a big old farmhouse, giving the vehicle a makeover and overhaul and creating space and tools for an expanding etching press manufactory.
It's Winter, a great time for working, advancing the cause, preparing for the future.
And while working towards the better functioning of future work other work is piling up: trees need pruning and planting and gardens sorted, various preserves need making and maintenance of the home ...unfinished work crying out for attention all over the place.
It seems there are three types of work to do.
Building for the future which I am currently engaged in.
Routine and seasonal maintenance which I try to fit in.
Artwork-
Yes, I remember when I used to be an artist and here I am with an art blog with no new art work to show
This is a serious threat to my whole carefully constructed ( read dreamed, made up, wishlist, fantasy, delusion, get real, who do you think you are anyway, get yer hand off it, etc, ) philosophy of the meaning of life, in particular; my life.
Yes folks, the life of an artist!
Will he ever draw again? Where are the new paintings? The new etchings? Do we even care?
Well I'll leave those, and other pressing questions to you to sort 'cause today I am off to build a deck and hang a door and feed some horses.
And it's not raining again for the fourth day in a row, hooray!!

Calligraphy - A Poem

I am finding that people who are not artists give me art works and frames to have or to store for them indefinitely.
The poem above is in an old leather bound sketch book of first quality and contains about a dozen poems, some illustrated, reproduced with calligraphic inks and pens by hand.

The book belonged to an aquaintance's Mother and I protested that she should not give me a treasure made by her Mother but no - She insisted.

Lucky me..

I am using the remaining pages in the book to draw animals, mostly horses, from life.
The quality and age of the sketch book and the almost faultless calligraphy of the poems in the first pages of the book encourage me to be on my very best behaviour drawing wise and I only use the book when I feel I have my eye in and am inspired by what's in front of me

The Artist's Zoo

This little fantail comes in the house most sunny mornings and sweeps all the rooms feeding on tiny flying insects and plant pests. She's cute and cheerful.

Nigel the Siamese cat is dying, won't keep on any weight and it's a while since he brought home a rabbit or an eel. In his retirement he is working part time as an Artist's model, he's quite good at keeping still these days and just laying around....

Eddie, my main man. Eddie hunts the mighty rabbit and loves riding in cars with boys.

Walking up town with Paddy can take a long time because everyone wants to cuddle him.
His main occupations are eating, sleeping in unusual positions and graciously allowing people to go all gooey over him.

Printmaking on Perspex. Nigel the Siamese Cat.

This week I got to make a print of Nigel the skeletal Siamese cat. I had done a nice drawing of him sitting in the sun and I thought how easy he would be to print with just burnt umber.
Dry point on a prepared piece of perspex and I managed to get three good prints off it using burnt umber and black before running out of steam.
I touched up the prints after with a little black pastel and sienna acrylic paint with clear medium which is cheating I know but you won't tell on me will you?

Table Top Etching Presses For Sale

Etching Press Sale Enquiries: johnnymulvay@vodafone.co.nz


Sold to a Whakatane Artist

This little cutie is newly made from a 1903 pattern Ewbank mangle and is the baby of the range, takes up less space and has a press bed 450mm x 900mm, comes complete with new felt blanket and can easily print plates or wood cut up to 10mm thick.
We can deliver overseas from our base in New Zealand if you wish it.
Prices and freight charges are available on request.

Sold to a Dunedin Artist

Newly made from a 1908 pattern Ewbank mangle this etching press has stronger springs and wider rollers than usual giving it a large press bed of 600mm x 1200mm.
It comes complete with a new felt blanket, ready to print and will easily acommodate plates or wood cut blocks up to 10mm thick.
Our antique etching press manufactury is located at Art School Waihi in Northern New Zealand

New Waihi Mural

The scaffolding is down and there she is, finished. Back to making etching presses now and doing a little printmaking.

The Mural Artist Mural

Work is underway on the latest mural, called, appropriately enough; the mural artist.
Keri Ann van Doorne a.k.a Girl Friday, the foundation stone of Art School Waihi, is learning all about heights as she helps out on our mural.
We are painting a kid painting kid's art and we are climbing on a jungle gym to do it.
Are we serious?
Most definitely not dear reader. Life is short and fun is there to be had.
Promoting the beauty and joy of kid's art on large public murals is as serious as I will ever get.

A New Mural

Back in the saddle again with another mural.

Painting starts in two weeks.
It's a mural of a young mural artist.
The design of the ground our young artist has her scaffolding on is a work in progress. It will be covered in a kid's art design to represent a field of dreams; a young artist's imagination.