Tag Archives: original prints

Valerie Armstrong : A riot of colour in India

Valerie Armstrong is giving a special talk entitled A Riot of Colour, about a recent mural project with children at the All Bengal Women’s Union and Childrenʼs Welfare Centre in Kolkata, India. The talk is at:

THE KENDREW QUADRANGLE AT ST JOHN’S COLLEGE OXFORD
at 3pm on Saturday 4th June 2011

The talk coincides with an exhibition of her photographs, Moving Closer: The many faces of India, at the Kendrew Quadrangle Gallery, St Giles, St John’s College, Oxford, open from 4th – 7th June 2011, 11am – 5pm.

The exhibition will be formally opened at 7pm Friday 3rd June 2011, by guest of honour Rekha Mody, Founder Trustee of the Divya Chaya Trust in India. Proceeds from the exhibition will go to: Save a Child UK.

Valerie Armstrong, an artist, photographer and previously an art therapist, began visiting India about twelve years ago. She was immediately enchanted and over the years she has returned many times with her husband where they have explored many different regions and cultures in a vast, colourful and mysterious country they have both come to love.

Two years ago she was delighted to be invited to travel to Kolkata in West Bengal, India, in order to run creative workshops in the orphanages and educational centres for destitute women and children, set up by the NGO, Divya Chaya Trust in India. Valerie now returns to India annually.

Valerie Armstrong explains more about the project:

In October of last year I travelled to the Indian city of Kolkata, to run art workshops in an education centre and a child care home. These are variously supported by Divya Chaya Trust and Save a Child Save a Child. For this trip I was awarded a Suffolk Craft Society bursary, which helped considerably towards funding and enabled me to purchase lovely materials for the workshops, which are not available in India.

I divided my time equally between the two institutions; DCT Karam Bhoomi, Rajarhat and All Bengal Women’s Union Children’s Welfare Home, (ABWU) Karam Bhoomi, Rajarhat.

Rajarhat is 29 kilometers from Kolkata in a beautiful leafy rural village surrounded by rice swamps. Mosquitos thrive in their multitudes! Karam Bhoomi means joyful land. The centre was built as a holistic development and holiday camp for the sponsored children from the Divya Chaya Trust homes. The centre also serves as a skills development centre for teenagers, The Teen Outreach Group & Vocational Training for rural women: The Pallivan group. The Pallivan women come from the poverty stricken outlying villages and are taught the specialist skill of Kantha embroidery, thus are able to make a real living and develop a feeling of empowerment and self worth. Pallivan means “to bloom”, and thanks to the support of the two charities, the women are certainly blooming, their needlework is exquisite and is now selling at real and deserved prices in the West.

Women from the Pallivan group, Rajarhat, India

This year for the first few sessions at Rajarhat my friend Sarah joined me – we have worked together in the past when I practiced as an art therapist. Sarah and I worked with the Teen outreach group and the Pallivan women (shown above). We had prepared four separate workshops to cover the different groups over the two days and were able to offer two printmaking techniques to the teenagers: reduction press printing and transfer monoprinting. The second day we ran a workshop with the Pallivan group.

Most of my time in Kolkata was spent in the ABWU. I had been invited by the charity Save a Child to supervise the painting of a mural in the dining room of the children’s home. Thanks to the generosity of Suffolk Craft Society I left England with an extra suitcase filled with lovely materials such as watercolours, crayons, some brushes, some acrylic paints, multicoloured tissue papers, and metal leaf, gold & copper powders and size. Save a Child kindly offered to cover the cost of materials in India.

Children painting the wall mural at ABWU

Armed with boxes full of materials and some trepidation as to how we would begin, how the children would react to so large a project, Sarah and I set to work. We needn’t have worried; the children were already fired with energy and enthusiasm! These children are so needy and longing for affection and our concern was, how to get a mural painted under such conditions. Together we managed, and delightful images emerged, some thoughtful and remarkably sophisticated painting was produced by a group of the older girls.

I returned to Kolkata in late January 2011. The children working on the mural had made progress in my absence; lots of drawing had appeared and I saw clearly the passion of the children involved. The children were inspirational. They have suffered the most horrible of abuse and deprivation through brothels, trafficking, being plucked from life on the streets and railway stations by the police, tragic stories so familiar to us in the West; physical and sexual abuse from employers, friends and family members who they should trust.

The mural, almost finished

In the ABWU home they are given a real chance through the selfless dedication of mostly voluntary staff who give their time, energy, love and expertise. The work is entirely theirs, their creativity and focus has been awe-inspiring. The children have created a most beautiful piece of work, one that will hopefully last and change forever the depressing aspect of a room of dull grimy walls. The charisma, warmth, bravery and stoicism of the children have certainly changed me.

Valerie Armstrong surrounded by the young artists at ABWU

Divya Chaya Trust: www.divyachayatrust.org.in
Save a Child: www.saveachild.org.uk
http://www.ashanet.org
Suffolk Craft Society: http://www.suffolkcraftsociety.org
http://www.valeriearmstrong.com

Penny Bhadresa linocuts featured in BBC Gardens Illustrated magazine

Exciting news! Penny Bhadresa was recently commissioned by the BBC’s Gardens Illustrated magazine to create a new series of linocuts to accompany Carol Klein’s forthcoming series of gardening articles in the magazine, ‘A Year at Glebe Cottage’.

© Penny Bhadresa 2011

Penny explains: In late December 2010 I received an email from the Art Editor of BBC Gardens Illustrated Magazine. They had looked at my website and asked if I would consider illustrating Carol Klein’s new series, ‘A Year at Glebe Cottage’. This was an opportunity both extremely exciting and deeply daunting as the brief was to create two linocut illustrations each month to accompany Carol’s text.

Penny was actually considering having a well-earned break after one of her busiest years ever, but this was an offer difficult to refuse as the subject had great appeal and it was a great challenge, so she readily agreed!

As Penny says: accepting this commission has given me a chance to work on subject matter I find inspiring anyway but the challenge of working to tight deadlines, I have realised, requires a highly disciplined approach because of the time constraints involved. A nail-biting deadline is always looming!

My first deadline for the February issue was already looming so I had to get my skates on, but I managed to get the two illos (as they call them in publishing circles) scanned and delivered in time. I thought my somewhat hurried first two linocuts looked quite nice in the February issue of the magazine, and now, looking forward each month and seeing my work published in this highly respected gardening magazine is the icing on the cake.

© Penny Bhadresa 2011

Penny explains the techniques in creating her original prints on her own website – here is a quick excerpt that aptly demonstrates the level of craftmanship that goes into each of her distinctive & vibrant linocuts:

Making limited edition linocut prints has become a central part of my creative work as an artist. I love linocut for the boldness and strength of image it produces. The process starts with drawing my idea for a composition, remembering that the image will be in reverse in the final print. I work straight from my imagination or combine this with visual references from photographs I have taken or sketches I have made. When I am happy with my design and composition I transfer it to lino using tracing and carbon papers.

Cutting out the design is done with different sized gouges and V-tools. Once the cutting is complete the lino is mounted on board to strengthen it and is then ready for inking. I prefer to ink up my lino blocks in one go, using different sized rollers and sometimes brushes for intricate areas for each separate colour. Sometimes a subject may be suited to the traditional reduction method of linoprinting which produces a more hard-edged quality in the final image.

I like to use linseed oil based relief printing inks which have great depth and luminosity of colour. For paper, I experiment with different types. I especially like some of the fine Japanese papers and find Imitation Japanese Vellum a superb all-round support for linocut prints. For most of my printing I use a small table-top relief printing press, although for larger work I sometimes use a Britannia press. I also like to hand burnish my prints to give greater depth of tone where appropriate.

The two linocuts shown here can be seen in the current April edition of Garden’s Illustrated magazine. This commissioned series of prints will appear as new illustrations each month in Gardens Illustrated and they will also be available to purchase as editioned original prints. You can see more of Penny Bhadresa’s linocuts on the Artworks website & on her own website.

Penny Bhadresa is a founding member of Artworks, its elected Chairperson since 2003 and she exhibits annually at the Artworks exhibition. Penny is also a member of Suffolk Craft Society & exhibits annually with Norfolk Arts, and she also participates in the very popular Christmas Craft Markets at Blackthorpe Barn. Her linocut prints are also available to buy at Smith’s Row Craft Shop, Cambridge Contemporary Art, Craftco, The Suffolk Craft Society – Gallery 2 and St Judes Gallery.  In addition to her limited edition prints, Penny Bhadresa’s linocuts have also been reproduced as a series of greetings cards – you can view & purchase the cards online at One Brown Cow.