Mid-Winter Hiatus

It's the coldest day of the year so far and I have been busy re-assessing where I am with my work. I ended up taking a very unplanned hiatus from work while I cleared out and reorganised my life. After drowning in paper and half finished ideas I can finally see the wood for the trees and my studio is back in a functioning state.

A Working Studio

Sometimes it pays to take a step back and work out what I should be doing, so with a new action plan in place I am looking forward to achieving goals for the summer.

I have neglected my Etsy Shop so this will be my main focus over the next few months. I am hoping to launch new prints and develop designs for cards, calendars and textiles. 

I have decided to take a break from the Emsworth Arts Trail this year, but for those that want to visit other artists and find out dates here is the link for the web site. www.emsworthartstrail.org.uk/

Of course that doesn't mean there's no painting happening. I have a few paintings rumbling along in the background and when I'm ready I will be re-opening my studio to the public.

Studies of Natural Objects

Experiments into Textiles

There is a storm ragging across the South Coast of England today so it's been a great opportunity to mess around with some printing ideas and try out a bit of textile printing. As I enjoy sewing in my spare time it seemed the obvious thing to try, so inspired by some textile artists and patterns I had seen on the internet I cut some scraps of lino and mounted them on blocks. With some remnants of cotton I set to work using some textile printing ink.

Lino printing blocks

This pattern was inspired by the print maker Jane Walker, who makes bold shapes and patterns in her still life prints. I like the organic shapes and thought it was one of the more successful patterns as I can link it with the art work I make about natural objects.

I had just enough fabric to sew it into a purse with co-ordinated black lining which really enhanced the printed fabric.

Small hand printed purse

As I could only print with black textile ink I decided to have a quick go and printing onto paper in a range of different colours just to see what it would look like. If I decide to print these onto textiles I think I will be  a lot more choosy about my colour combinations as these colours didn't really do it for me but the process was interesting 

Mock up of peg bag

I made a quick mock up of a peg bag and started to think about the possibility of making fabric storage bags and buckets in the future....possible designs for my Etsy Shop in the future?

A variety of colours and patterns