études exists

Études, a press, now exists. I finally bought my first ten ISBNs. Wowzers. I'm officially a grown-up now. I've been thinking about doing this for about ten years now.

Études launches with my first publication… A Polychromy in Black: An Enchiridion. It's a publication documenting the process behind my Bideford Black: The Next Generation project.

More information will be available soon.

bideford black: printed shadows

And finally… all the tones: accumulated, layered, overprinted, repeated, cut up, collaged. All printed in my Bideford Black letterpress ink. These are one part of my larger work and will, in one variation or another, be appearing at the Bideford Black: The Next Generation show, starting at the Burton Art Gallery & Museum on October 3rd.

bideford black: light on light

bideford black: trailer

The trailer for Bideford Black: The Next Generation is out!
The full-length feature film will be ready for the exhibition which starts October 3rd at Burton Art Gallery & Museum, Bideford.

Thank you Liberty Smith for all your hard work getting this together.

bideford black: 999 prints

bideford black: dot dot dash, drawing, drawing, drawing

Tones and drawing on studio wall

Drawing Bideford-inspired tones

Drawing Bideford-inspired tones

Out with the pencil and drawing tones, inspired by samples of shadows, blacks, glooms and darknesses gathered whilst snooping round the archives at the Burton Art Gallery & Museum. It's amazing the array of techniques that artists have developed through paint, print and pencil to show shadow and form.

bideford black: making an ink to print on a press

Grinding Bideford Black

Mixing a Bideford Black letterpress ink

A jar of Bideford Black letterpress ink

Weeks and weeks of grinding and mixing, regrinding and testing to get an ink made of Bideford Black that dries quickly, doesn't smudge or transfer, sits well on paper and hopefully is relatively light-fast… Time will tell.

bideford black: drawn thoughts

bideford black: of ink and tones

Tones gathered at Bideford Archive © Lizzie Ridout

Tones gathered at Burton Art Gallery & Museum © Lizzie Ridout

Start at the beginning…
Reading up on the wider cultural significance of black and particularly interested in black as ink. That's to say, the qualities of ink and how it's been used in history. Also as the sort of supporting hero in the bigger and hugely important story of the invention of the printing press. 

First stop, Bideford Archive to gather examples of blacks used as tones from old, local newspapers, followed by a similar process at the Burton Art Gallery & Museum, Bideford.

black list

Black is night skies, gloom, shadows, caves and dungeons; blackboards, witchcraft, chimneys, a punch-to-the-eye. It is negativity, formality, convention, sophistication and seduction. It is the printing press, pigment and photocopiers. It is earth, oil and dirt; life, death, mourning and melancholy. It is blackout curtains, a Claude glass and a camera obscura. It is darkness, the absence of light, all colours and yet no colours. It is a void, a deletion, a censorship, a secret, a mystery. It is the end. And it is the beginning.

bideford black: the next generation

Delighted to have had my proposal selected for Bideford Black: The Next Generation, an ACE funded project. In association with The Burton Art Gallery & Museum and Flow.

Other artists include: Neville & Jean Gabie, Corinne Felgate, Luce Choules, ATOI, Tabatha Edwards, Sam Treadaway, and Littlewhitehead. Filmmaker Liberty Smith is commissioned to document each artist's project.

The first site visit presented a surprising and unusual landscape – and the beautiful seam of Bideford Black pigment.