Hi there Friends,

It's been a very busy few months here between my usual run of classes and workshops, including my 101 masterclass in encaustic at my home studio. A tailor made package for 2 people where I introduce participants to the joy of encaustic painting on panel, including, medium and paint making, incising, accretion techniques and transfer...a great fun day out with lots of materials to play with..I have two weekend dates still available prior to the Christmas period, so drop me a line if its a day of exploration and experimentation you think you might enjoy.

​ artistniamhoconnor@gmail.com

Its also been a busy time for exhibitions as I showed a number of works from my "hidden...Out Loud" series at Hambly and Hambly at Dunbar house in Enniskillen as part of their summer solstice celebrations during their event happening as part of the amazing Fermanagh Live festival.
L'art Pour L'art, was a magical happening event as an opening reception for the exhibiting artists with the most spectacular music provided by Maeshine a Bangor based duo, namely Inge and Anna who fuse Folk with cetic, world and new age genres...soulful stuff and a terrific showing of available works from yours truly and many others.

I have had the distinct pleasure of having my work accepted by one of my very favourite Galleries, Hambly & Hambly at Dunbar House. (See images below, of pieces currently available there). One of my first encounters with this fantastic large Commercial Gallery came through Facebook, I was astounded by how many of the artists I follow, love and admire where on show here....I quickly joined their mailing list and when well enough started to attend some of their amazing and varied exhibitions and happenings.

In 2018 my work was accepted for the 1ft sq show, an annual exhibition I have been delighted to be included in now for some years, with the unfortunate closing of the wonderful Higherbridges Gallery in Enniskillen the exhibition was opened in the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh. It was a successful exhibition with the usual mix of stunning works from all levels of creative....It was decided by the powers that be that the exhibition should again be shown in its original hometown of Enniskillen and Hambly & Hambly was the chosen destination much to my absolute delight. This was the first introduction of my work to this prominent Gallery and our relationship has developed from there.

I am seriously thrilled to tell you my work is available in the same space as so very many of my peers & idols, contemporary & modern artists and abstractionists...this progressive vibrant and quite possibly largest commercial Gallery in the region is ticking all my boxes, do yourself a favour and go visit, the breath of work is outstanding, varied and exciting and the venue itself a hidden oasis of grace and elegance.

We had a wonderful night at our Opening Reception for #shiftingwalls in Strule Arts Centre, Omagh...or so I'm told! Due to a calendar clash I was unable to attend the opening night...we knew this as soon as our dates came in and whilst it was unfortunate it was unavoidable.

Kate, Jo, Roisin, Jackie and Sinead were all there, along with Fermanagh and Omaghs District Council Arts Manager Byrony May who so readily agreed to open on our behalf ..and what a fine job she did (https://www.instagram.com/p/B0Wv-xUlbRj/?igshid=yczlbiykga0c) and thank you again Byrony, your support means a great deal to us all.

I had mentioned earlier there are plans afoot for a closing event in Strule before this exhibition continues onto its next destination (The Markethouse, Monaghan followed by Droichead Arts Centre, Louth). However at time of writing we are still finalizing these details, coordinating so many busy diaries is never a simple task and I shall of course tell you all as soon as I can on the date settled, for now I'll leave you with an open invitation to go see our exhibition, enjoy our work and feel free to let us know your opinion or indeed share your #shiftingwalls story.

I have mentioned before that I was bringing my wax ironing workshops back to Armagh in August, and it's coming up....Saturday Aug 10th to be exact ..and news is there is 1 space left....see below for details xx N.

Hope to see you there, please feel free to share this link and all bookings direct to the numbers given - many thanks Niamh.

Hi folks,

​This past weekend I had the pleasure of being on the other side of a teaching table for once...I attended a lithography class with visiting artist Deidre Hierlihy from Ontario Canada at the Barracks Store in the wonderful Enniskillen Castle....its an amazing venue but I will come back to that in a minute!

So Deidre is visiting the Fermanagh/Omagh region on residency and I did mention her recently in a previous blog (see here) as I meet Deidre at the HAMBLY & HAMBLY showing of the successful, annual "1ft sq" exhibition, in which I was showing some of my wax & pigment monotypes from my #shapeoflifeseries that had travelled from the STRULE ARTS CENTRE in Omagh to the Hambly gallery in Enniskillen.

At the Hambly showing Deidre did a talk with slides about her work to date as part of a presentation by the local council and arts office by way of introduction into their (and their partners) ARTSLAND initiative focussing on inclusion.

Having seen Deidres wonderful printmaking skills first hand I was chomping at the bit when I saw the outreach programme of events for her visit included a number of print workshops, and especially her Lithography masterclass.

I arrived at the gorgeous castle site bang on ten o'clock for class, there was a small group of 6 of us, and Deidre herself, working from a large fit for purpose space within the inner courtyard know as the Barracks Store. After a brief introduction into the process, the materials involved and the small table top press Deidre proceeded to demo the print making process and before we knew where we were, we were away .... now traditionally litho is a stone printing process, laborious, masterful and precise...for the purposes of the class and with the onset of modern materials and greener practices we worked on polyester plates with oil based etching inks using soap, vegetable oil and coffee grounds as our cleaning agents ....the only chemical in use was citric acid and/or Gum Arabic for our water bath...good huh!

I won't go through the entire process here however there are great reference videos on youtube (as always) that will give you an idea of our process check HERE and look up printmaking with a Pronto Plate - its a brand of polyester plate, there are various plates, and brands of plates on the market for this process, so do check around the other references showing the process and of course if you are really interested do please look up Stone Litho - fabulous to watch and I imagine immensely satisfying to the print maker, there is a terrific intro video HERE .

We worked for several hours, I started with a very simple image, I was concerned with learning and understanding the process and not bothered in class about creating a perfect print...anyway my first attempt on newsprint was very telling! Not enough inking, my second was a mess, too much ink and not a damp enough surface...even the application of the link for Litho is different then my usual back and forth with a roller...you roll with pressure to ink and lightly roll in reverse to pick up any excess! Toothpaste was my white out when my inexperience left a finger print on the plate or the ink stained and left a blemish due to the lack of repelling surface water...but eventually I created a plate where the ink application was fairly even and I had learnt so much in the process of trying to get there!

An additional element to the day was an introduction to the use of chine colle to our litho print. This is the application of coloured or patterned papers (washi papers in this instance) adhered with the use of wheat paste to our inked printing plate, and put through the printing press to add colour to our final image. Again so many lessons learnt...the idea is to paste the coloured paper and lay it on your already inked plate with the paste side facing up...when run through the press the paper will adhere to your printing paper and the ink with print on top of this coloured paper as it adheres to the printing paper ....well that's the theory....but again inexperience showed, too much paste, forgot to work in reverse, colours used too dark to correctly see the ink overprinted on the papers.....but eventually we got there.

Whilst others were happy to create second prints after we broke for lunch, I was interested in the degreasing and additions I could add to this one same plate. I was also interested in pushing the image on a de-greased plate - would the faded original marks made (after degreasing) re-ink as shadows? What if I freshly drew over them in a gradated way, heat set and bathed and inked them again? Could I offset my print plate and ghost print onto the same paper print to create multiples of the image drawn....to what effect?? Needless to say others went home with a collection of prints they might not be ashamed to show off, not me, I left with a lot of mucky very averagely drawn prints but with a large and far reaching understanding of how this process works, its initial limitations (to my mind) as well and its extensive uses and possible adaptability in terms of my own interests and current practice.

How could I not have enjoyed the day, My many thanks must be extended to Deidre for her extensive knowledge and unwavering answering of my far too numerous questions. Fermanagh and Omagh District Council and Enniskillen Castle...Go Visit if you haven't already , its a wonderful sight and with a great coffee shop, visitor centre, 3 museums, a gallery and numerous displays on offer right by the water on the River Erne and with free onsite parking it's well worth the visit.

This class has encouraged me to sign up for others, a day like this refills the well..I'll keep you posted.

​xN.

So last you heard from me I shared a wee process video ahead of my part in the group exhibition called Connected@thecopperhouse (through all social media channels follow #connected12 to see images and updates from the entire gambit of artists involved) the work was broad ranging, mixed media, advanced paper works, clay, encaustic, watercolour, graphic portraiture and photography and as mentioned before it was colourful, it was THANKFULLY a packed house AND it was fun….

I was ever so grateful to see a couple of familiar faces, family and friends pop in to lend their support. I landed a tidy commission I shall tell you more about another time but for now want to give a shout out to Mark at The Copperhouse Gallery for his support, Tara Prendergast from Biscuit for the support and to Monica Loughman for opening for us on the night. I especially want to thank the following artists for their comradeship and for the opportunity to show along side of ye all – a good bunch – cheers ladies x
​
Ana Dorado, Emma Higgins, Deborah Cogley, Karen Hickey, Isabelle Gaborit, Miriam Fitzgerald Juskova, Angela Emsen-West, Liga Valge, Rachel McDermott, Valerie Sweeney and Fran Halpin.

Hi friends

You may have seen on my social media feeds last week that I was very much looking forward to being in attendance with curator Dorothy Smith at the Droichead Arts Centre in Co.Louth for the talk and tour of the selected group show "Printworks".

I have mentioned before how good this show is, how phenomenal the work is, how wonderful the curation was, Dorothy's eye for pulling creative exploratory printmaking works together and turning it into a cohesive and impressive show has to be applauded.

The breadth of work and techniques simply have to be seen, works in stone litho, linocut, screenprint, woodcut, drypoint, etching, monotype, monoprint, even dimensional and mixed media exploratory printmaking, all selected from this North East region simply proves the depth of interest in printmaking is alive and well.

For details of the artists involved and other information concerning the show please visit website here

https://www.droichead.com/show/873599277?fbclid=IwAR2rE3co15CW-9oCRJQjgyvIf_-6ayAYt0tVSAChqcf44et_kdfH0rZqjN4

​​There is always something interesting (and quite special in fact) about meeting the artists involved in the creation of work at any good exhibition and to hear Dorothy speak about how she selected the works was very interesting.

To have members of the public there to put questions to the artists in attendance is also of the upmost importance, we artists have a tendency to live in a little bubble amongst ourselves, we understand or at least have familiarity with some of these techniques and the processes involved in the creation of these works, to hear the answers to the questions asked in a room with a mixed audience of this type was both informative interesting and entertaining at times, and it definitely enhances the viewers understanding, and dare I say it, the appreciation of the work on offer.

Of course as photographer for this blog I have no photos of myself with my own work but I will update this page if one becomes available through the gallery.

Earlier that morning still at the Droichead in Co Louth, I had been invited to teach and Encaustic monotype class to a group from Navan Youthreach as part of the outreach program connected to this exhibition. the small group of graphic design students along with their tutor joined me in the newly reopened print studio called "the yard" found to the rear of Barlow house.

This is an old studio space, two rooms in total with excellent lighting and a printing press the size of a double bed that I nearly swooned at... Not that I would get to use it that day. My process involves using heated pallets, a matrix plate, several mark making tools (both purchased and handmade or repurposed), personal protective clothing and a selection of waxes, some ready manufactuted and premixed others made by myself in bulk on my recent residency in Cill rialaig.

My first port of call on meeting the students was to discuss health and safety always important when working with heat and wax. I gave them a brief introduction to paper selection & the processes involved, along with the use of waxes and how a translucent opaque or metallic pigment suspended in wax may react differently on contact with the plate...I introduced and we discussed the differences between monotype and monoprint. Additive and reductive processes and trace monoprint with encaustic.

Each student was then given a demonstration on how to measure the temperature of their plate and control it, how to apply the medium to the matrix plate, the use of the mark making tools provided with emphasis on them using their intuition and creativity and allowing that to bring them where it may. And then they were off! It was a fun and successful class I do sincerely hope the Youthreach students from Navan enjoyed their day, I certainly did...there is something marvellous about watching people come to terms with the new medium and then start to explore it on their own. It is wonderful to see them come alive with possibility and additionally wonderful to see them leave with several works they are pround of.

The show printworks continue in the Droichead Arts Centre in Drogheda County Louth until march 2nd.

XxN.