Ciao!

February started with my brand new print. I am very proud of it as I spent a lot of time to make it.

At the beginning of the month it was Matilde’s birthday. We all wanted to make something cute for her so we made book artist, where everyone had to draw Matilde’s portrait. Unfortunately, I don’t have photo of the whole book, but here is the portrait of Matilde, which I made.

We continued having workshops at Scuola. One of the workshops was a collage making with Deirdre Kelly. It was quite interesting as people get to make their own pictures. I like making digital collage so it was interesting for me to listen to this lecture. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to make my own collage during the class, as I had to help with cleaning.

February was a month of guests. My boyfriend came for a week and after that my parents decided to pay me a visit.

While my boyfriend was in Venice, I decided to show him Gelateria near my house where I always buy ice cream. The owners doesn’t know English but at the beginning of my practice, with my basic Italian language skills I could explain to lady, that I would like to have pistachio ice cream in a cup and every time I was coming to that place, she would remember me. Though, when me and my boyfriend came to buy an ice cream, we were speaking Russian and the ice cream lady suddenly started speaking to us the same language as well. We were very surprised. She said that her name is Nadia and she is from Russian city Orenburg. She moved to Italy 17 years ago and married an owner of this ice cream place. This was very unexpected but now I always say hello to her when I see her on a street.

When my parents came to Venice, I didn’t go for a walk with them that much. Though, one Sunday I went to Florence with my father. It was a very beautiful city. My favourite activity in every city is to look for something hilarious and out of order. For example this small crane which was placed wrong and uneven.

Or this statue of buff man with old and small head.

Or also this interesting wall. We were walking on an empty and narrow street when I heard a car engine. I could understand where the noise was coming from as there were no cars on a street. But then we saw how small Italian car was trying to squeeze out from another street. It is funny how you can see hopeless tries of other car drivers not to scratch their car against the wall.

In general it was a great trip. Florence is amazing and 7 hours was enough for us to see this beautiful city.

Before I start talking about February, I would like to tell you about he print which I made at the end of January. It is my first serious print which I made in Scuola. First of all, because it is a big matrix and secondly, because I made an edition of 6 signed prints.

This print is dedicated to one of my favourite TV series called ‘Endeavour’ by ITV. Season six got released in February and I thought that it would be a great idea to make a print with Endeavour Morse etched on it.

Also, this was my first ever attempt making etching on aluminum as well as using open bite technique on metal plate.

Preparing aluminum matrix is similar to zinc matrix. After you covered it with hard round and put your drawing on it, you put your matrix in copper sulfate.

At first, I made some test prints. To see if all the lines got etched well. It was fine but I wanted more depth for this print, so I decided to do open bite. Here is the first atempt of making this print. I didn’t clean my plate that well but I like that you can see every line, making it look very rough and dirty.

As I said, it’s an edition of 6 prints and one artist proof.

I came back to Venice on the 8th of January and oh boy - what a month it was! I did not do printing but I did a lot of things for a studio but let me tell you everything in order.

The first workshop which we had was watercolour. This month we were drawing people so for me it was something very fun. We had statues and different figurines which we were trying to redraw. Of course Master Sergio is amazing at watercolour so all his paintings looked like masterpieces just as he started to draw.

Me, on the other side, couldn’t work with my hands. At least Matilde (Scuola owner and master of every art technique) liked it a lot. Here is my example of live drawing.

On other watercolour class people were drawing self portraits. You had to sit in front of the mirror and try drawing yourself. It was way harder to draw with watercolour so I was using pencils and crayons. The result did not satisfy me but I love this awkward photo of me multitasking. Haha.

In other classes people were folding paper,discussing art and etc.. I like this panorama so I decided to share it with you. It is always nice to see people work on something.

Remember Scasca exhibition? The time has come to name the winner. It is not like I remember who won, but I had to pack diplomas in a beautiful way, so Lorenzo (Director of Scuola) could bring them to Milano as prizes for artists. It is such a big responsibility for someone like me to pack it all up but I think I managed to deal with this task.

One of the most important tasks which we were doing in January was - covering walls with gesso and painting them white. Since artists like putting something on the wall, those needles leave wholes in there. Our task was to cover the walls as best as we could and even paint the walls when we finished. It took us a lot of time. In some places we were just putting big sheets of paper on the wall since artists are not careful with ink.

I get to walk around Venice a little bit. I usually don’t go anywhere as I am very tired on weekends and I just want to stay at home. But this time I get to see prison in Venice. I never thought that there is a prison on such a small island!

I didn’t make any prints in January but on the last day of that months I started working on a plate. I think I would talk about it in another post. Here is my aluminum plate, which I put in Copper Sulphate.

December started... and Suddenly I got sick. I have never felt that bad. I probably had some kind of virus as Venetian woman told me that her son had the same symptoms. At least my sister came to visit me that day from Latvia so she helped me with food and medication. I had to take one day off but I returned back to work on Tuesday.

As I mentioned before my sister Sasha came to visit me for one week. Since I was working all day she had to explore the city on her own.

Back in October Acqua Alta destroyed big package in which Scasca exhibition had been delivered to our studio back in September. Because of that, after the exhibition ended, we had to think of a new package, so me and other girls managed to pack everything so it could get to the next destination nice and safe.

On 5th of December Eva, the Spanish girl, had to go back home as her experience in Venice had ended. It was a very heartbreaking moment but I am really happy that I got to work with such an amazing and professional printmaker as Eva. So now it is only me and Marie. We still keep in touch and as I said in my previous post, Eva is planning to come to Venice.

After my sister left another person came to stay at my place - my boyfriend Nikita! And he helped me to do something what sounds insane.

One day Matilda, the owner of the studio, asked us to help her to move some furniture around her house. She asked me to come with Nikita as it is better if there are more people to do that thing. Her house is very beautiful and old. As crazy as it sounds but we were moving the mirror... from 18th century!!! No one will ever believe me for the first time, if I tell them that I helped moving mirror from 18th century in Venice! Crazy!! On the photo below you can see me taking a break and the mirror on the right near the wall.

Since it was Christmas season I was eating panettone every time I had a chance as it is traditional Christmas cake in Italy and I did not want to miss this chance.

As usual we had our workshops in the studio and we were helping people with their projects. At the end of the year they already had a lot of skills to create something beautiful so all the students from our studio finished 2018 with fresh prints and drawings.

The only unusual thing which happened in the studio was a very awkward moment when glass ink jar exploded in Roberta’s office since there was too much pressure inside. It also exploded when we had a lot of students so I told Roberta that I would take care of it. There are still few green spots left everywhere but I think that I did pretty good job.

In general December was quite short in terms of my experience in Venice since I stayed there only for two weeks and then I flew back home to Latvia.

Oh! And the best news is that I got internet at home! But still if I didn’t ask Roberta to give me day off than probably we wouldn’t have gotten it. The appointment was at 16:00 but master came at 14:00. But at least... finally!

These are some prints and matrixes which I made in December.

These two prints I made specially as a gifts for my family.

Its November! Cannot say that much happened at the beginning of the month as I was going to work most of the time and doing my usual routine. Roberta was still in America so me, Eva and Marie were working without her surveillance.

Acqua Alta happened again but not as big as the one in October. At least my rubber boots arrived which I ordered from Italian Ebay. Ironically, they are made in Lithuania. I left them in the studio so every time we have high water - I can just put them on and continue working.

I got a message from Adobe that I no longer have access to Adobe Apps which I got for free from my university. It made me very mad. Apparently I am “no longer student” as the university did not help me with anything regarding this question. Well, what can you do...

I continue cleaning screen printing studio. I had to throw away a lot of ink as it got dry while being in the jars for a long time. Also I noticed that some people does not clean their screens as they finish the work so I decided to clean them as well. Could not find the right liquid to take off the emulsion at first so I tried a lot of liquids with different smells.

This might be one of the reasons why my skin became so bad. I always had problems with my hands but this time I could not stop scratching my eyes. Because of that they became very red and swollen. It is very unpleasant feeling.

In the middle of November I had few days off as I wanted to come back home to celebrate 100th anniversary of Latvian Republic. Here is the song by Nicky Miles dedicated to this event. I love it!

While I was home I went to dermatologist to check on my skin. She did not check any analyses but she said that the reason for that are the chemicals we use in our studio. I do not believe her because as I said before, I had similar problems in the past when I was studying in school.

Eva and Marie had their own exhibition in cafe Noir which they called “Noir”. I helped them with installation of the prints as the space which they chose for exhibition is quite dark and it had never been used for exhibition. It was very successful as many people showed up.

Later that month Roberta came back from America and she brought some gifts. Now I have amazing socks which I just love.

As Roberta returned to the studio, we started to work harder as we were slacking off while she was away. Haha.

There was Eva’s birthday at the end of November but unfortunately it was also the last days of Eva’s internship in our Studio. I prepared a small book where I included small notes about her stay in Venice and about her friends. She was very happy to get it but it also made her cry. Luckily Venice left some very nice memories for her so Eva is planning to come back in March to find a job and live there.

Hi!

This is a blog which i created as part of my university project about my experience during year abroad. I am doing work placement in Scuola Internazionale di Grafica Venezia and I am an assistant of printshop manager Roberta Feoli. My work started on 26th of September and I have been coming here every week since then. I am not the only Erasmus student here - there is Eva Martinez Souto from Spain and Marie Dann from Germany.

This month was quite stressful for me as I had adjust to my new house and transportation system in Venice. I live in Mestre and I have to take a bus every morning in order to get to the Isle of Venice. Also, I take a small boat which takes me to San Marcuola - a stop which is only few minutes away from Scuola. In order to safe money I made season ticket ‘Venezia Unica’ which cost me 50€ for the card itself and 25€ monthly payments for the unlimited trips (This is a special price for students) It is way more expensive what you can get in my country but at least I do not have to pay 7.50€ every time I need to travel by boat.

As I already said my main duty is to help Roberta with her job. She runs the printshop where resident artists and other students can come and use facilities provided by Scuola. It means a lot of cleaning. A lot of cleaning!

On working days there are different workshops: printmaking, watercolour, book artist and others. these classes are in Italian but if there is someone who does not speak English (We have a lot of people from America, Canada and Australia), then Roberta translates everything in English. We help to organize those classes, like putting the tools on the table or mixing the ink.

While staying here I already had a chance to make few prints using technique which i have never heard about. I made matrix out of cardboard and applied ink like people do it with metal. The result is wonderful and it takes less time then etching (+ you do not have to use to acid to prepare your matrix).

And I also tried few etchings with hard ground.

Hopefully I will make more prints in the future.