New things!

These linocuts of Middleport and Smithfield are all now packed and delivered to Josiah & Co at World of Wedgwood after a frantic bit of printmaking at the end of last week. I've also made a bit more progress on my reduction linocut of part of the former Chetam's Pottery on Commerce Street in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent. I got a layer done on the more muted version as I wanted to use the same ink for the light terracotta Middleport. I'm very happy with how it's looking, and I'm hoping to get the magenta on to the brighter version this coming week when time allows!

New year, new work

So at the moment I'm working on a new set of bottle oven linocuts, single colour A5 re-workings of the smaller, very limited edition reduction prints, which I hope will be of interest to people. They'll be open editions (in other words I can re-print them as needed until the blocks break) and will be less expensive. In these tricky economic times, it's still lovely to be able to buy something cheery, but I well understand that art comes way down the list of essentials. However, artists also need to make a living so I'm hoping these will be a meeting in the middle.

In other news, I have a linocut, "Restoration"(below) in the Royal Cambrian Academy Open 2023 exhibition, which opened on the 7th of January and runs until the 25th of February. I am still stunned at having a piece accepted and enormously grateful, it's the first proper grown up exhibition I have ever been a part of and makes me feel that maybe I am a proper artist after all! If you can't make it to the exhibition, all of the work is available to view here for the duration of the show: Royal Cambrian Academy Open 2023

My best nine of 2022

So these were actually all of my completed linocuts from 2022. Top left are the preserved bottle ovens of the Johnson's Sanitary Ware factory to the south of Hanley, top middle is Minkstone pottery's bottle oven in Longton / Normacot, top right is a 10cm square rendition of Caerphilly Castle which I made for this year's International Print Exchange . Middle row left is Dudson Museum's beautiful bottle in Hanley, centre is Fenton Roofscape with three flintkilns known locally as salt, pepper and vinegar, and right is St Bartholomew's Church, Blurton. The Wedgwood site linocuts at the bottom are massive departures for me, as they are both multiblock prints - I normally work in reduction, in other words, gradually cutting away at the same block for successive colours. Last but not least, St Bartholomew's again, as I used the same drawing again to make a Christmas card. I have a few works in progress, so these should be making themselves known soon!