Another year has nearly passed...

This year has been a very slow work year. I have managed to finish a complicated landscape linocut, and complete another - both were a challenge and rewarding to make.

The format is deceptive - both of these are the same size - A5, and each had their unique challenges, one with form, colour and longevity (the landscape took many months and suffered slightly from paper shrinkage), and the other with geometry and lines, cutting fine detail is always nerve-wracking! The landscape had its first outing to Derby's print open, and has also more recently (along with its Derby partner the Gladstone decorating kiln) been accepted for the Brampton Museum Open exhibition in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, which is at the time of writing in its final week. I'm very happy to say that the new bottle kiln print, Dolby Mills, has just been accepted for the Ryal Cambrian Academy Open exhibition which will open in January 2025.

Both of these limited edition linocuts are currently available for sale from my shop .

I managed to get a drypoint made at last, which was my contribution to this year's international print exchange run by Green Door Printmaking in Derby. I am going to try Tetrapak printing, and have got a very small one made - I just need a bit of time. I have also got hold of one of the Open Press Project mini etching presses which I am hoping to use to print it SOON!! (can you feel the impatience!)

I am trying hard no to have too many ambitions in the near future for making, as I need to do more to try to sell my work, hopefully 2025 will be the year that a gallery will accept some work and find homes for my creations. We shall see... meanwhile, Christmas is approaching and hopefully a short period of rest and relaxation. May you have a blessed time, and all the very best for the year ahead!

Another print discipline entirely

I have been solely making linocut prints for several years now, with an ambition one day to be able to produce etchings again. I kept on seeing printmakers using craft presses (such as Sizzix) for budget etching presses, and I already had a selection of potential plates to use for a design - from copper and zinc to Tetrapak and drypoint /collagraph card. I still have my steel point and burin from art college, and a few tubes of intaglio ink. I found that a local craft shop had a Sizzix press so decided to take the plunge. It sat on my desk for a long time but I gradually collected relevant things towards printing (small felt blanket, piles of mount card off-cuts to pad the plate out under the roller). I decided to make my exchange print for this year as a drypoint, so found a gap in the busy schedule to start drawing a local stone wall onto the 10cm square copper plate with a chinagraph pencil, then to draw carefully into the plate with my steel stylus.

I proofed it when I was happy - unfortunately with the inks that I have, and maybe the pressure still not being right on the Sizzix, I can't seem to get the deep black that I want for the shadows.

However, I was inspired to try green instead of black, this made perfect sense as the wall is mossy and surrounded by leafy plants and trees, and it is this version that is in this year's International Print Exchange in Derby and all over the world.

Over the last couple of months...

I've been working on a new landscape linocut for a year, it kept taking a back seat for various reasons but I finally finished it. I've written a long piece about it on my Substack, which you can find here. I submitted it, and the alternative version of the decorating kiln at Gladstone Pottery Museum, to the Derby Print Open and I'm happy to say that both got accepted! They have been delivered to Banks Mill Studios (using a local train service again which I love to do!), and the exhibition will be on throughout June.

I've been trying to think of ways of making my working practice easier this year. I've already produced a sub-par linocut for a challenge, it was a waste of time in the end I think, but I'll be very glad indeed if anyone ever takes a shine to it. I give in to these challenges far too easily when I don't really have the time to do them. However, there are three things that I have already made in some sense that can be used for three events over the next few months. One will involve fishing out the blocks for my only multiblock linocut, another will involve sticking my neck out and getting an existing large linocut framed, and the other will make me figure out the packing for my craft press so that I can finally print a drypoint plate that I made years ago for the Green Door Studios International Print Exchange, and at last send it in! More news on all of these soonish, hopefully.