PRINTMAKING PANIC

I have had some very exciting news, I have been selected to show at Printfest. This is an exhibition of printmaking in Ulverston, Cumbria, Saturday 31st April to 1st May,www.printfest.org.uk for more details.
It has put me in a bit of a panic as I have been neglecting my editioning duties and stocks of work have got a bit low.

So this weekend I rolled my sleeves up and set too. I now have available supplies of Two Winter Birds and Three Winter Birds.

Maran II

Lakenvelder

Leghorn

Light Sussex

and Guinea Fowl

Three Coots is a new image in my portfolio,

so is Mute Swan. They are all collagraphs, tile cement, card and wood glue are some of the materials used to make the plates. But after this weekend I can safely say that my career as a nail model is well and truly over!

ENAMEL IDEAS

Less is more, keep it simple, advice I hear myself offering all the time. Do I take my own advice...very rarely. In this case I think I might. It is tempting to add moths or crows to these screen printed enamel transfers, but I like the clean lines and the image continuing on the spoon. I am fighting that little voice that is saying it was too quick to make. But I have to remember that I took the photograph, I made the screen and printed it onto the transfer paper and it has taken me months to learn how to apply a smooth thin layer of enamel onto a steel surface. So half an hours enamelling, months of preparation to get there! Too quick?

ENAMELLING EXPERIMENTS

I have at last found time to complete this enamelled concertina book.
I set myself the challenge of combining transfers with drawn images and experimenting with a variety of contemporary enamelling techniques. The construction was also a challenge, making the hinges and riveting the black moth onto the piece.

The copper is first etched in ferric chloride and the wings are cut with a piercing saw.

With so much going on with the shapes, textures and drawing I thought it would be best to keep it all simple and keep to black and white. I am so relieved that it all folds flat on itself.

It is the little triumphs that keep me going!

SKETCH BOOK EXPERIMENTS

Finally I have found a couple of days to work through some ideas in my sketch book.
When I am really stuck I start the blank page with a gum arabic transfer,

then using acrylic, ink and pencil work into the surface.

Metallic oil pastels add glamour, but tricky to photograph.

I have also spent some time creating enamel work to show in the Cheltenham Open Studio event at the beginning of June. It seems along way away now, but time soon passes so the more I can get done now the better.

A FLYING START

For a couple of years now I have had a strategy in place to beat the post Christmas blank page. In the build up to the festive season making plates and deliberately starting work that needs to be finished goes hand in hand with my mince pie and decorating routine.
I am pleased to report that it still seems to work. I timetabled days in my studio leaving family to do creative things with left overs.

This left me time and space in my head to rework and resolve these crow collagraphs.

A family trip to Slimbridge Wildfowl Trust fired me up to create more bird compositions.

I even had the energy to do some experimental enamel. I received some eBay purchases of pocket watch parts before Christmas, so I have been itching to make things with them.

With steel moths and an etched copper disc I experimented using my new riveting skills.

I am finding if I look at something long enough ideas pop into my head, so using small but powerful magnets I attached this moth construction to a previously enamelled fork. If I add text to the cutlery and do a little more work on the moths I may have a set of work I could use...can I hear you saying spoons?

With a brisk return to college in the first week in January I have been able to start a new enamelled concertina book. Very much a work in progress, but again all the components were prepared before Christmas, so I just have to continue rather than try to start again, psychologically it works for me.

Happy New Year everyone and here's to a creative continuum.

FOR CAROLYN

Happy Christmas to everyone and here's to a creative 2011.

DECK THE HALLS

Every year I start to decorate for Christmas gradually, I like to enjoy the camp glamour for as long as I can. I will always start with table decorations and paper lanterns.
This cake stand I made gluing vintage plates and charity shop glasses together. I did not make these cakes though.

The lanterns get hung around the 10th, these are vintage and have been collected from charity shops for years. They remind me of the ones that never got hung when I was a child, Mum was into the new foil decorations and these looked too old fashioned.

Most years I make an advent calender for my offspring, this year each envelope holds a chocolate coin and a reminder of what is to come. To give it that wintry feel I hung the crocheted snowflake I made last year.

These go back a few years. I got sacking from the local health food store and Father Christmas would mysteriously fill them on Christmas eve and yes they will still get filled this year.

In a former life I painted objects made from birch ply, I made several of these wreaths to sell and put up the prototype every year.

I have a penchant for vintage decorations and this Father Christmas was given to me by a dear friend last year.

This little chap however is from my childhood, a proper 1960s Christmas object.

In the past I have taken part in Christmas sales and never quite had the confidence that pictures sell, although they did, so I would always make some Christmas items for my table. One year I made a load of stockings from old jumpers, no knitting required. I now hang it every year in the hope that Father Christmas might notice this one...?

Last but not least, a new tradition in our house is our macabre decoration. Rudolf now comes out every year. Surreal, humorous or just scary...you choose.

Happy preparations.