Continuing

This has been a good year, for which I am very grateful. I haven't sold much of my original art, but I have had several exhibition opportunities and my cards have continued to sell well. As I posted last time, my linocut In Limbo was my first exhibited piece as a member of the Society of Staffordshire Artists (SSA) at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-Under-Lyme.

In Limbo, in orange, on the wall at the New Vic

Dolby Mills linocut had been accepted for the Three Counties Open. I'm happy to say that it sold, which was a massive and lovely surprise! It was also a great experience to have my work exhibited between that of Gary Eite and Ian Mood, the three pictures worked well together. I'm still pinching myself...

My work statement with a red 'sold' dot!

My Dolby Mills linocut in auspicious company

The SSA had arranged an exhibition in the autumn at Stone Heritage Centre, with all artworks to feature scenes within Stone and its immediate area. I had driven through the town a a few months previously and seen the beautiful Christ Church, and was also aware of the old stone-built railway station building, so I decided to use both as subjects. The station lent itself to linocut, while I decided to go out on a limb and attempt my first colour pencil drawing in a very long time, using Derwent Graphitint pencils which have a very particular colour range suited to stone and brickwork, and are slightly water soluble.

Christ Church, Stone

Stone Station

My work in one of the display cabinets.

The Stone Station linocut is now up for sale on this website in the shop, and the drawing of Christ Church, Stone will be on show again soon, but in Leek this time - more on that in a minute.

My Mother-in-Law liked my Christ Church drawing very much, so I decided to make my in-laws a drawing of a church local to them, St Margaret's in Ifield, Crawley. She was able to see progress photos as I worked, but sadly her health deteriorated (she had been ill for a while) and she was unable to see it. My Father-in-Law has had it framed and now has care of it.

St Margaret's Church, Ifield

As a complete change, I have finally cracked Gelli printing - I find it counterintuitive as in a way it's reduction linocut in reverse. However, I managed to get my mind to figure out how it works after watching a number of video demonstrations and joining a useful group on Facebook! Here are my first tentative steps:

Gelli print 1

Gelli Print 2

The SSA stage a Christmas exhibition every year at the Foxlowe Arts Centre in Leek every year, and I'm looking forward very much to taking part. We're delivering our work this coming Sunday, and it will be on throughout December and into the beginning of January.

Next year, there is hopefully going to be a show at the Spode Museum in Stoke, and I'm planning a couple of Spode site pieces. Watch this space!

Catching up again

Well, somehow it's July, and the linocut that I was working on when I last wrote became a double edition. For the Thoughtpress 'Sound and Vision' project for Edible Rotherhithe this year, meet "Colours and Sound" and Sound and Colours"! There are still some available, at £30 each, with all proceeds to children's charities.

Dolby Mills has been in Derby for the Print Open, which has just finished, and I will be collecting it this week - its work is not yet done this year though as it will be exhibited in the Three Counties Open this year, at Fenton Town Hall, Stoke-on-Trent, throughout August, and I can't wait to see all of the other work that's been selected!

I applied to join the Society of Staffordshire Artists earlier in the year, having seen a couple of their exhibitions recently. I thought it was worth asking, and I'm very thankful that after a brief adjudication I was accepted. I will be joining them in an exhibition for the first time at the end of this month at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, and this time it will be "In Limbo"s turn.

Linocut "In Limbo"

So, much to look forward to - I'm also working on a couple of new linocuts too, more of which soon I hope!

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!