Good news to start the year!

I'm very glad to say that I have had the linocut Dolby Mills accepted for the Royal Cambrian Academy open exhibition this year. It's a fantastic and varied collection of art and I'm very thankful to be a part of it again! You can see all of the pieces on show here and many are for sale.

Some of the work for sale on the website - much better in person though!

I'm taking part in the Thought Press Project again this year, which raises funds for Edible Rotherhithe every year plus one guest charity, which this year is the Children's Book Project

The theme this year is "Sound and vision" and I'm going to work on a print based on a rock concert photo that I took a couple of years ago. It has to be delivered by the end of April so I shall get cracking soon.

I am gradually listing my prints for sale on my website shop, this should be complete soon, but other prints on the website have links through to my Folksy shop where you can buy them too. I still have plenty that are looking for loving homes!

I have some more bottle kiln work that I am looking forward to. I'm also hoping to get some other work done, some experimental fun stuff hopefully. Good things often come out of trying new methods, hopefully there will be some positive results. I'm looking forward to making good use of my Open Press Project original press, I've tested it out and it works brilliantly. So far, these are the only two that I've been able to print, but soon I'll be getting it all set up again and will have another session with it.

That's it for now, thanks for reading!

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.