Fresh from his flight across The Pond, I had the pleasure of meeting the street artist Yis “NoseGo” Goodwin in my studio yesterday.

As recently described in the Huffington Post, Goodwin creates playful, energetic totemic imagery of animal characters born from his imagination.

Goodwin is working with Unit 44 Gallery here in Hoults Yard, gearing up towards a solo show opening this Friday 10th May entitled The Marvelous Clash.

I’ve known Danny Hughes and Steven Dunn at Unit 44 Gallery for some time now — Goodwin’s work has provided a great opportunity for us to collaborate together for the first time in making the editioned Archival Pigment Prints to accompany the show.

Danny kindly describes the editioned prints I’ve made for Unit 44 as, “the most beautifully finished print we have ever released.”

Find out more information on their pricing and availability here.

In his latest blog post, Danny recalls a conversation with Goodwin over breakfast:

“He [NoseGo] described the totem composition of a number of his paintings, comprised of multiple layers, each distinguishable, separate however contributing to the over all form of the character. He referred to peoples experiences, lessons, and memories good or bad that make up who we are. He then went on to describe the somewhat ‘random’ composition of style, character, and look of the artworks. The result in this made absolute sense. He described the childhood toy box filled with all kinds of gems, figures, characters, animals, action heroes, vehicles etc. He then described that back then there was no constant ‘style’ in which you would arrange and play with your toys – this being the ‘marvelous clash’.”

Finally, I’ve always been fond of the photographic eye of the inimitable David Bilbrough.

David popped into the studio last week to capture the print production process. Along with Unit 44, he’s kindly allowed me to share some of his observations with you here…

Three years ago, I wrote a short post on printing a series of Arabian Horses for Tariq Dajani.

I mentioned at the time how special that felt, not least because many of the prints I made for Tariq over the years are now with the Jordanian Royal Family, some members of the ruling families of the UAE and with various other influential people in the Middle East.

So, perhaps you can imagine my eyes lighting up when Tariq mentioned that some more images were on their way to me. Falcons would feature this time for a show in Dubai.

Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) 2011 © Tariq Dajani 2011

I love Tariq’s approach to photography, using very modern methods to realise photographs with a very traditional feel.

Tariq describes:

“The falcon series was shot over a period of two years from 2011 to 2012. The Peregrine, Gyr and Sakr falcons are all female birds, more aggressive and are bigger than the males.

“They are all prized and valuable hunting birds owned by some very important people, whom I’m not at liberty to mention.”

Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) 2011 © Tariq Dajani 2011

“While the precise origins of falconry are lost in time, the keeping of falcons in the Middle East is as ancient as the emergence of its civilizations and goes back at least 4000 years.

“As with my series on the Arabian horse, this series pays tribute to the traditions and heritage of our region.”

Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) 2011 © Tariq Dajani 2011

The prints I made were huge; most were around 130cm on their longest dimension.

Due to their size, each print more-or-less filled my entire print table, making them many times larger than life. On my way to the studio each morning, I had to remind myself what was waiting beyond the door so as not to get a shock each time!

The beautiful, trusty combination of HP Vivera Pigment Ink and Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm prevailed once more; I thought I’d leave you with some photographs I captured during the printmaking process…

Print Detail: HP Vivera Pigment Ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm

Print Detail: HP Vivera Pigment Ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm

Print Detail: HP Vivera Pigment Ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm

Print Detail: HP Vivera Pigment Ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm

Print Detail: HP Vivera Pigment Ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm

Print Detail: HP Vivera Pigment Ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm

If you’d like me to make prints for you, please feel free to contact me.

My latest list of services and prices can be downloaded in PDF format by clicking here.

‘sky-wheel’ by Alec Finlay and Jack Lowe (2007-2008)

Several years ago, I met Alec Finlay for a spot of lunch at The Cluny in the Ouseburn Valley.

By that stage, we had already worked on several projects together.  Through our collaborations, I was gaining insights into Alec’s mind, insights that were already enhancing my outlook on the world around me.

We sat outside on a lovely, relaxed sunny afternoon. Around us, the colours of Spring were springing and above us, the blue sky…

Ah yes, the blue sky.

That’s what Alec wanted to discuss — the colour of the blue sky.

What colour is it?  Could I use my understanding of digital colour and technical skills to somehow translate what’s up there into some glorious new colour wheel down here?

As it happened, yes I could and that idea manifested itself as sky-wheel.

Later, we would also make apple-wheel together, a piece that would form part of Alec’s shortlist exhibition for the Northern Art Prize:

‘apple-wheel’ by Alec Finlay and Jack Lowe (2010)

On his skying blog, Alec describes the thinking behind sky-wheel in more detail:

This sky-wheel is a record of the colour of the sky, representative of a coastal location in North East England. It is…a work that appears to be scientific but is in fact entirely subjective.

While the sky-wheel does not meet any scientific criteria…his (Jack’s) role was as a mediator, between the technology of the digital camera, which produced the sky samples we used, and the technology of the digital ink-jet printer, which produced the final artwork.

The outer ring of the sky-wheel records a colour for every day, specified from a digital photograph of the sky. The camera is in a fixed position on the roof of NaREC (Blyth), pointing directly overhead and taking photographs at four hourly intervals during daylight hours. The calendar ran from midsummer day 2007 to midsummer eve 2008.

The outer ring shows the 365 days.

The second ring records a colour for every week; an amalgam of the seven colours for the individual days during this time period.

The third ring records a colour for every month; an amalgam of the four colours for the individual weeks during this time period.

The penultimate ring records a colour for each season; an amalgam of the three colours for the individual months during this time period.

The inner circle of the sky-wheel is a composite colour representing the entire year; this was created by amalgamating every other colour specification that appears in the colour wheel.

Below are photographs of the camera I rigged to capture the sky every four hours for a year from midsummer day 2007 to midsummer eve 2008.

The Canon SLR was controlled by an Intervalometer, all neatly encapsulated within a waterproof housing. I managed to feed a mains power lead from the camera, through the housing and attach it to an external power supply on the roof.

Every couple of weeks, I travelled to Blyth to swap the memory cards over and collect the images it had captured:

Fixed to the wall on the roof of NaREC, the camera points skyward in its waterproof housing…

The slice of Northumbrian sky captured every four hours…

Corrosion to the mount fittings as the year-long capture process comes to a close…

Corroded Bolt

Over the course of the year, I made twenty pages denoting colour values, which were then transferred to spreadsheets to calculate the final entries for the artwork that became ‘sky-wheel’.