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Nepal Earthquake Appeal

Nepal Earthquake Appeal

The RSW (Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour) is an artist led, Scottish Charity that exists to promote the art of watercolour painting in Scotland and beyond. Our Royal Patron is HRH The Prince Charles, Duke of Rothesay. Many of our members enjoy working on Khadi papers. Shortly after the earthquake hit Nepal in April 2015 one of our members suggested we raise funds by producing a body of work for sale at our Annual Exhibition. This way, we can try to help, in the best way we can, support the people who make the paper we use and the wider community. We are delighted to have 40 paintings, all produced on A5 cotton rag Khadi paper. This year will be our 135th Annual Exhibition. As well as showcasing works by leading and emerging Scottish watercolour artists we will be presenting a selection of paintings by artists from Italy, Spain, Belgium and USA. Our invited artists are Stuart MacKenzie RSA and Peter Randall-Page. RSW Winter Annual Exhibition 27 Nov-12 Dec 2015 Upper Galleries, RSA Building, The Mound, Edinburgh The images below are courtesy RSW, copyrights the artists. Note from Khadi "Khadi Papers have been working with papermakers from Nepal and India for more than 25 years.  The Nepalese papers are made from the fibre of lokta, a plant that grows above 3000 metres in the Himalayan forests.  Lokta is a renewable resource and its cultivation provides much needed employment in the hill areas.  The people of this region have endured incredible hardship - ongoing political unrest, a decade long civil war, and this year a catastrophic earthquake.  Here in the UK we have much to learn about resilience and fortitude from the people of Nepal." Nigel MacFarlane   [gallery ids="2626,2567,2627,2628,2629,2630,2631,2632,2633,2634,2636,2637,2638,2639,2640,2641,2642,2643,2644,2645,2646,2647,2648,2649,2571,2564,2570,2569,2568,2566,2565"]

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‘Waterproof’ trailer by Graham Dean

‘Waterproof’ trailer by Graham Dean

Graham Dean has sent us a link to a trailer of his new film 'Waterproof'. He says: "My intention was to make a new type of documentary film which is a hybrid - a dialogue between painting and film , sensuous, haunting, visceral and revealing which echoes how I work with watercolour and paper in terms of layering, assembling and jig-sawing images together. I hope this will be of interest to you as much as my work might be. I’m very proud of it, and we are currently working on part two which is the interview section and are half way through the edit. I have made the film with what you might call a skeleton crew. I have filmed and edited one day a week for a whole year with Joe Murray here in Brighton. My long time collaborator, David Rhodes, has composed the soundtrack (David is currently performing with Kate Bush in London ) and the sound has been done by Tim Oliver at Real World studios. Tim has worked with everyone from Goldfrapp to Sinead O’Connor and Robert Plant. As usual, I have exchanged my paintings with all the above for the enormous work and time for this project –‘Waterproof’. I consider it as much part of my work as my paintings – an extension , where I’m creating new images out of existing ones but these only exist in film form. Hope you enjoy it." Link to YouTube: http://youtu.be/wf01Uiv47KA

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Welcome to the Khadi Post September 2014

Welcome to the Khadi Post September 2014

Just arrived from India, our new range of section stiched book blocks. All books have a deckle edge oposite the binding. The pages are Khadi 210 gsm watercolour paper in either smooth or rough surface. You can use these sketch books just as they are, or for bookbinders you can add your own cover. Available Book Block sizes: (40 pages, 210 gsm) BB5: 13 x 16 cm BB4: 21 x 25 cm BB3: 30 x 35 cm We also have Long Books: (16 pages, 320 gsm) BBL4: 20 x 52 cm BBL3: 31 x 52 cm All books are available at our webshop

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Welcome to the May 2014 Khadi Post

Welcome to the May 2014 Khadi Post

For a long time Double Elephant was the biggest size we made – and the biggest handmade paper made anywhere in India.  This measures 1 metre x 70cm. We were constantly being asked to make an even bigger size - double double elephant.  And about eight years ago we did just that, introducing  Atlas, at 140 x 100 cm (54"x39").  Then a year or two later we had a phone call from David Hockney’s studio assistant.  He said David was painting on Atlas and wanted to know if we could make a paper double the length, 200 x 80cm (79"x32").  In India our partner Vasudevan took this up as a challenge and we introduced Great White.  All the technical difficulties in producing handmade paper in these sizes have been overcome and we believe these were at the time the two biggest handmade cotton rag papers made anywhere in the world. Now we have made a new cotton giant.  This one is called Banyan and it is 25% bigger than Atlas but similarly proportioned at 160 x 110cm (63"x43").  This is the new world title holder.   Our first shipment sold out before we had time to load the details onto our web shop.  Our new shipment will be with us in July.  All of these giant papers are tub sized with gelatine, the traditional – and still the best – method of preparing cotton papers for the rigours of watercolour, inks and mixed media.  For painting in oils you can prime them with gesso. And how do we ship them out?  We roll these papers loosely in giant size tubes – 26cm (that’s nearly a foot) in diameter. Go to our webshop - Extra Large Rag Papers Find out more how our rag papers are made.

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