Doing lots, showing little

 There's little point in making apologies for the lack of blogging because it has only crossed my mind occasionally throughout this autumn. Hasn't it been a glorious one here? There's been lots of walking, lots of collecting things on those walks and plenty of drawing and prints ensuing. I have been playing around with drypoint print  ideas and working on a few book ideas, one all about beetles and the other looking at childhood memories of my home town of Bristol. It involves learning to sew with my Mum and my great aunt Lilla and the books are both so different that I am really enjoying working between the two ideas in tandem.

 Using some of my imagery from old patterns bought by my aunt in the old Bristol department stores of Lewis's and Jones's I went up to Bristol yesterday and spent the day learning to expose my photos and create screenprints from them. I did a fantastic one day course with an artist named Simon Tozer who was really generous with his time and expertise. The sewing ideas are all part of the book idea but I also produced a two screen  A4 print from a photo I took of some of my 'Batsford' books.

These great little books were published in the 60's and 70's and have some unbeatable titles. Some of them have become very collectable and are no longer a second  hand bargain price, but others are still there for pennies online and the graphics and the ideas are as valid now as they were 40 years ago. Do look out for them!

I think screenprinting is now firmly  'another' of my favourite things but it's that time of year to prepare for something else... but I'm still not going to mention the C word I promise. Instead I'm going to concentrate on the things I intend to do in 2017 such as finish those beetle and sewing books and prepare for delivering more workshops.

I shall be teaching another book workshop at the Yard Artspace in March and do take a look at Sue's programme for 2017 as she has managed to lure Sarah Morpeth to Cheltenham for a weekend of papercutting and bookmaking which should be really exciting. Before that I start a five week mixed media collage course locally which will be five individual all day workshops run fortnightly through January to March. Can't wait to see that happen and I am preparing samples daily for it. This is a course I've devised from scratch so I hope it goes well!

I'm also working on some prints for a postcard print exchange I've been invited to join. There are six of us but I'm the only one in the northern hemisphere. Everyone else is in Australia and I am really excited about taking part. Given posting times and drying times I am already working on my first set of prints which has to be posted in January. No reveals as I cannot spill the beans in advance but when the time is right......

With the days so busy and posting so infrequent it may well be that it is time to shut the door on the blog. Instagram is beckoning me and I feel like it might suit my needs. Who knows?  But if I decide to take the plunge I'll let you know!