Frozen seaweed

Urban Igloo

My prints are now available at Urban Igloo, the most gloriously named shop given the current climate! Appropriately enough I delivered them by sledge.

Portobello Organic Market

Despite the snowmagedon Portobello Organic Market is still happening tomorrow. I will be there 'pedalling' my wares (get it!). It should be pretty special in Brighton Park with the snow.

Renvyle Beach

This is my sisters favourite beach in Connemara. To get the brooding West coast sky I reversed the normal rule of doing light colours first and put the bright blue over the grey.

Bass Rock Revisited

So here is my latest offering. It is a view of the Bass Rock from the John Muir Country park at Tyninghame. I have been mulling over a 'pebbly' scene for a while. I love how the pebbles have turned out.

I started out using a blend of brown, blue and greys to set the background. Then I set out the Bass Rock and highlighted the breaking waves with the green. Next came the brown and blues of the rocks.

The first 2 proofs used a dark blue on the base Bass Rock but stopped after the first 2 as I wanted the Rock to receed more.

Christmas (or not) cards.

Having now absolved myself of the blog guilt I can now blog my latest creative activity. Combining my twin loves of chine-colle and trees, I designed a wee card. After initial reservations I am now v. pleased with the results.

Blog guilt!

I have been having blog guilt! but have been seriously busy. Firstly I was back in Ireland for half term, where I paid homage to THE 'Windmill Stump'. So watch this space for a moody Irish linocut!

Secondly I have been trying to sell some prints which takes more time than you would think. I did the Portobello Organic Market to day which was good fun. I have spent the best part of this week packaging and framing prints.

groynes finished

Here is the finished groynes image. The jury is still out as to whether the 'proper oil based done in the studio' version is actually any better or in fact not as good as my home grown proofs!

It does look more finished but I quite liked the painterly quality of the waterbased inks. Maybe I should just have done some watercolours and saved my hands?

Piggy!

So I had booked a studio session this morning to finish off the groyne picture but I knew it wouldn't take very long. I spent ages yesterday mooning about trying to find inspiration for something else to do.

I sketched a wee piggy on a lino block but then decided it was daft. My husband found it later and said he loved it. So I cut it out and am very pleased with the results. The image shown is a rough proof done last night in the add break on grand designs! My inability to remain monochromatic led me to create a background block.

It was so much fun to do. I kept giggling to myself in the studio each time I made one.

So here is that tree print finally printed up on lovely Fabriano paper using oil based ink.

I am reconsidering my colour obsession. Here is a simple wood cut I did at the start of the summer. Maybe it is time to go monochromatic for a while.

Groyne action!

I have been mulling this image over in my head for a few months and finally sat down on Friday to cut it out. It is looking from Portobello beach towards East Lothian. I then did a VERY rough proof that evening. I am hoping to work it up properly this week.

I am using japanese ply instead of lino, cos a change is as good as a rest. It is harder on the hands than lino but then you don't have to be constantly hopping up and down to warm it on the hotplate. Swings and roundabouts! Also if anyone is reading this, it would be good to have comments before I start printing it up properly, please.

Reduce, Reuse ,Recycle

So here is the fruit of all that kitchen floor cutting that went on earlier in the week.

I had the tree silhouette left over from a reductive lino cut. It seemed a shame not to use it again, so I recreated the back ground using 3 different blocks.

The first block i have cut in half and jigsawed together so i could do the sky and path colours in one go. I love wee cheats like that. The sky is created using blending which gives a nice graduated effect. The second block is the green, then third is brown. I think this one is too dark and I would use a more yellow colour next time. Lastly is the trees in a dark brown. The final print is good but I think i will head up to the studio and try and do it properly with oil based inks. I haven't quite got the hang of the water based inks and doing it at home.

Marvelous marmoleum

Today I am cutting up the remnant from my kitchen floor. As you can see I have already used a bit for the Grey Mare's Tail print.

First stall

Here I am at my first stall! It went really well. It was a beautiful sunny day, there was a great band playing. I got lots of great responses from folk and even sold a few prints!

Look at these wee elephants! I love them, probably not robust enough for a small child but they do very well on my bookcase. I have an absolute ton of old embroidery fabric to recycle and this seems to be a good use of it. Hopefully they will get a good reception tomorrow at the Portie Village fair.

Chine-collé

I had booked a session in the studio but finished my Renvyle print earlier than expected. So with nothing else to do I beavered away at cutting out this image of the Gray Mare's Tail. I love love love the spontaneity and speed of using chine-colle and think it really works for this image.

Craft fair excitement!

So I decided today to try and get a stall at the Portobello village fair and low and behold they have space! I am very excited

Hollyhocktastic!

Here is a print I have been fiddling with on and off all summer. Normally I use the reductive method of linoprinting which gives a certain frisson of russion roulette to each cut. I decided to experiment with creating 3 separate blocks for each colour. The benefit is that I can experiment with colours and fix mistakes, the down side is the difficulty in registration of the different colours. I am really pleased with the results and will definitely pursue this method.