Zine Artist Book Fair

Myself, Hannah Fray and Sara Stabb will be having a stall at the Zine fair on the 29th and 30th January just to give you all a heads up come and spend your Christmas money from Santa on some original prints and artist books supporting local artists!

http://www.zinefair.com/

Mini Print Exhibition

I am taking part in the Mini Print Exhibition at Artlink, Hull! Check it out! It will be showcasing some of my Four Colour Gum Arabic Work including Lagoon shown here.



Mini Print website to come soon showing all participating artists....

Carborundum Demonstration

Thank you to all who took part in our expressive Carborundum printmaking demo at Hot Bed Press Open Studios this weekend!
Hope you feel a little bit inspired to come back and try it out for yourself!

I heart books!

Yesterday I found a new love in my life! Artists books! Its was the fourth Manchester Artist Book Fair and the quality of work there was outstanding.

I literally circled the room 3times before I could let myself loose on buying things!

I have now cleared out a specific shelf in my studio for the new books and with a bookbinding order on Amazon I will soon hopefully be producing my own.



A Maze book of Life Drawings

Gum Arabic Four Colour Separations

This week I gave gum arabic four colour separations a whirl at The Bluecoat. I loved the results and decided to experiment further with this and so the next day with guidance from the master of Gum Arabic Justin Sanders myself and Hannah Fray both produced some amazing prints for our first trial of the process. Sometimes referred to as paper lithography, this method of printmaking uses photocopies saturated with gum arabic. The ink of the photocopy attracts the ink on the roller and can then be printed. Four Colour Seperations involves inking up the CMYK layers of an image separately then overlaying them.

I hopefully will be entering these images to the mini print exhibition in York.

Collograph with Ruth Thomas

Again the perks of a studio manager saw me on a course with Ruth Thomas
Ruth Thomas is a contemporary artist specialising in printmaking, whose work reflects a fascination with natural forms. She came to Hot Bed Press and gave a fascinating workshop in Collograph Printmaking.




Its something I have practiced before but never with natural forms. So me and Benji went off into the garden and collected all kinds! Its amazing the detail that will show up. One of Ruth's prints involved dead spiders!



These are part of my Peru series I love the idea of working with natural elements to present natural landscapes.

My first Photo Etching

My first attempt at photo etching!
A landscape of New Zealand - hopefully many more to come - I need them to go in my new box!!

Skill Swapping

Check out North West Printmakers to keep updated on all mine and Hannahs skill swapping antics.

If you are interested in joining us on our next skill swap or would like a 1-1 training session with us then please get in touch.

Carborundum Skill Swap

Carborundum Skill Swap

On Thursday we offered the first of hopefully many skill swapping sessions to Printmakers in the North West. The free demonstration took place at The Bluecoat Liverpool and gave an insight into Carborundum Printmaking.

We had a great afternoon experimenting with various styles of application and the participants produced some great work even with slight problems with little drying time for the varnish!





Thank you to all those that attended if you would be interested in future workshops please send us your details.

Creative Box Making

While you guys were making costumes I was making creative boxes with the lovely Lucy May Schofield!


The perks of a volunteer are beginning to shine as I took part in the weekend course at Hot Bed Press. We had a great group and produced some great boxes each using them for various contents; jewellery, books, photographs prints. A great deal of concentration is needed and be careful of Mary's gremlins hiding things, but the end result is very satisfying.

Its the perfect way to present prints so I am very much grateful for Lucy's workshop and I am hoping to produce Colander boxes on a much larger scale to use as a portfolio to present my prints in.





So all you lucky friends be prepared for Christmas in a box!

This Saturday is The Manchester Artist Book Fair and recommend you all to come along Hot Bed have a great 4 stalls and Lucy will be giving a performance of her Bibliotherapy.