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London Printmaker Nikki Braunton Chase, Drops by on a Splendid Summer Morning

Posted in Maureen Booth, Maureen's World, Nikki Braunton Chase, Pomegranate Editions, Printmaking Courses Spain, Printmaking Granada, tagged Maureen Booth, Nikki Braunton Chase, printmaking Spain, printmaking workshops on August 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Nikki Braunton, on holiday in Órgiva at the foot of the Sierra Alpujarra (the seaward slope of our Sierra Nevada) with her husband, John Chase and their two girls, came for a visit the other morning. We had only known Nikki through Facebook, so it was lovely when they showed up en persona. I made a chocolate cherry cake–which was still warm from the oven, but they didn’t seem to mind–and we had coffee and tea on Mike’s new table out under the grapevines.

Nikki and John wanted to see my studio so we spent some time down there. John and Mike are both photographers, so they got on like a house afire. The two girls, ages 8 and 12. seemed interested in everything–studio, prints, cats, Cuca–and withstood the boring conversations of older people admirably.

Both John and Nikki work at the Museum of London, he as a photographer, she in the photo archives. “I only do three days a week,” Nikki says, “so it leaves me time for printmaking.” She works at the Greenwich Printmakers open studio. Nikki and John have fallen for Órgiva and have spend their last few summer holidays there. So, we hope to see them back here next year. Happy printmaking, Nikki.

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Karen Urquhart–The Joy of Getting Serious About Printmaking

Posted in Coaching for printmakers, Karen Urquhart, Printmaking Courses Spain, tagged Karen Urquhart, Maureen Booth, printmaking courses Spain, printmaking Granada on August 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Karen Urquhart is an Australian girl who arrived at my workshop via London, where she has lived for eight years. Shortly after arriving she declared that her objective with this workshop was to enable her to fill out her printmaking skill set in order to set up her own studio when she got home. That’s a pretty big order for a 10-day workshop, but we set to work systematically using solarplate and liquid metal techniques.

Karen, who had done summer printmaking courses previously, had some grounding in printmaking, but more important than that she had a willingness to work long and hard. We would work mornings from 9:00 until 2:00 and after lunch she would go back down to the studio by herself and work past 9:00 p.m. I think that dedication shows in the work she produced while she was here (see photos below).

Karen has a lot of good ideas of her own, which made our creative time together very interesting.She liked very much the liquid metal technique and found ways of combining it with solar plates to achieve some surprising results.

It’s been great working with you, Karen. Come back and see us when you can.

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Getting to Know Our Village, Then and Now–II/II

Posted in Fiestas Pinos Genil, Maureen's World, Pinos Genil, Printmaking Courses Spain, tagged Maureen Booth, Pinos Genil People, printmaking courses Spain on July 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Pan_Velerda1

You’ve seen Pinos Genil in the old days in the previous post. Here’s what Pinos and its people look like today, summer and winter.

Here are a few links to Somos Pineros posts on contemporary Pinos:

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Brenda’s Back! II/II

Posted in Grabado Granada, IB Bremen, Maureens printmaking workshops, Pinos Genil, Printmaking Courses Spain, Printmaking in Spain, tagged Maureen Booth, printmaking courses, printmaking Granada, printmaking Spain, printmaking workshops, solar-plate printmaking on June 22, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Here’s the second half of the photographs from the IB Bremen printmaking workshop 2016.

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Brenda’s Back! I/II

Posted in Coaching for printmakers, Grabado Granada, IB Bremen, Maureen Booth, Maureen's World, Maureens printmaking workshops, Printmaking Courses Spain, Printmaking in Spain, tagged IB Bremen printmaking, Maureen Booth, printmaking courses Spain, printmaking workshops, solar-plate printmaking on June 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Brenda Eubank-Ahrens returns to my studio for the fifth (or is it the sixth?) consecutive year with a new group of students from her art class (two of whom were here last year) at the IB School of Bremen, Germany. We both look forward to these visits. It gives so much satisfaction to see young artists blossom in a new setting with new techniques. And the results can be surprising. (You will be able to see the display of their work on Tuesday’s post.)

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A Summer Evening in Plaza Nueva

Posted in Grabado Granada, Granada people watching, Maureen Booth, Maureen's World, Printmaking Courses Spain, tagged Granada, Maureen Booth, People watching Granada, Plaza Nueva Granada, printmaking Spain on June 15, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Words and pictures by Mike Booth

A couple of times a month I take Maureen to Granada to restock the prints she sells in a couple of gift shops who cater to mainly tourists. While she attends her clients I wait for her in Plaza Nueva, and practice my street photography. Plaza Nueva is one of Spain’s–and the world’s–finest people-watching spots. Yesterday was one of those days.

When she finishes her work we usually go for a drink to one of our favorite bars–Los Diamantes–conveniently located in the square. The bar was full to overflowing but after just a couple minutes’ wait we spotted two seats at one of their long, community-style tables and sat down next to a couple of adolescent Asian girls. They turn out to be from the Philippines. We started chatting to them and “a drink” turned into half a dozen. We never drink that much any more but the moment was right for sipping white wine and laughing. Oh, and eating the Diamantes tapas, some of the finest in the land.

The conversation was like the ones you have with strangers on airplanes, wide ranging and sincere. I ask one of the girls what work she did in Philippines. “Shopping centers,” she said. I couldn’t decide if she was a check-out girl or a window decorator. I opted for the upper road: “Oh, you are an office worker involved in finance or publicity…”

“No,” she replied, “I have teams for all of that. We build shopping centers. I just direct the teams. Suddenly my 19-year-old student on a gap year was a 31-year-old professional.

As I already had my camera out I continued to make pictures in the bar. Here are the results:

Click on the images to open a slide show

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A New Take on What I Do

Posted in Coaching for printmakers, Maureen Booth, Maureens printmaking workshops, Printmaking Courses Spain, Printmaking Granada, tagged Coaching for printmakers, Maureen Booth, printmaking in Granada, printmaking Spain, printmaking workshops on May 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Mike ran across a video on the web the other day and he immediately called me to have a look at it. It was an ad for Graydin , a coaching service (with offices in New York and London) that advises high schools around the world on ways of empowering their students. According to their website their service is founded on the premise of “Ask, don’t tell.”

As I sat down at the computer he said, “See what this reminds you of.” This fascinating video lasts less than three minutes but in that time it became clear to me what he was driving at. My reply to him was: “This is what I do.”

The truth is I never thought of myself as a coach, nor my work as coaching. I’ve been a printmaker for more than 30 years and a dozen years ago I began offering summer printmaking courses in my studio. As time went by my workshops turned more and more into mentoring for individual artists. It just seemed to make sense. Being able to give my undivided attention to an artist (whether a student, a beginning artist, or a full professor of art) and to work collaboratively for two straight weeks was so much more productive than a group workshop. We advanced so much faster and farther. And my students really noted–and appreciated–the difference.

So, if you look at the top of this page you’ll find a new subtitle under Printmaking Courses in Spain. It says “One-on-One Coaching for Print Artists.”

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What a Triple Fiesta Day in Our Village Looks Like

Posted in Fiestas, Maureen's World, Maureens printmaking workshops, Pinos Genil, Printmaking Courses Spain, tagged fiestas in Pinos Genil, Maureen Booth, printmaking Spain, printmaking workshops on May 25, 2016| Leave a Comment »

May first every year is festive in Granada, but this year it was even moreso. Granadinos, including those of our pueblo, Pinos Genil, celebrated three fiestas on the same Sunday:

Mothers’ Day (Día de la Madre)
Labor Day (Día Internacional de los Trabajadores)
The Day of the Cross (a Spanish rites of spring celebration that they refer to as El Día de la Cruz)

Any one of these commemorations can justify dressing up, going down to the village square, eating and drinking a little too much, singing, dancing, oogling the beautiful young people and generally getting a bit unruly.

What follows is a selection of photographs that Mike shot that day for his Somos Pineros.com (We’re from Pinos!) photo blog.

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Lola Blanche Higgins–A Bright Light from London via Edinburgh

Posted in Maureens printmaking workshops, Printmaking Courses Spain, Printmaking Granada, Workshops, tagged Lola Blanche Higgins, Lola Higgins, Maureen Booth, printmaking Spain, printmaking workshops, solar-plate printmaking on April 29, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Lola Higgins arrived at Maureen’s studio a couple of weeks ago, a timid, uncertain recent graduate from the Edinburgh College of Art, the art department of the University of Edinburgh. She had made a few solar prints there but didn’t like neither the process nor the results very much.

Lola´s plan was to reproduce some of her photographs as high quality solarplate prints. When Maureen suggested going beyond mere reproduction, to start from scratch with freehand drawing in India ink on a laser acetate, Lola’s reaction was: “Draw? I can’t draw!”

With a little bit of encouragement Lola started drawing and never stopped. She went from strength to strength and, with Maureen’s help, turned her drawings into stunning solarplate prints. She finished up after 10 days with a portfolio with which the maestra affirms she should start visiting galleries in London, her home town. (See photos of the prints on the drying racks below.)

After Lola left, Maureen said to an artist friend, “I d0n’t think I’ve ever seen a young artist make so much progress in so little time.”