Cracker cars

Prototype illustrations for a collaborative book project in response to a fantastic collection of cracker toys. Rubber stamps on top of scans of back-drawn monoprints.

Words about books

'Turn Over Darling' – Ron King, Circle Press

'Aplphabeta Concertina' – Ron King, Circle Press

A Made Up True Story' – Sam Winston, Circle Press

A Made Up True Story' – Sam Winston, Circle Press

A fascinating weekend spent at a conference at Cardiff University – ‘Livres d’Artistes – the artist’s book in theory and practice’. Marking the donation of a large collection of artists’ book by Ron King from the Circle Press, it was a real treat to see and handle some of these books. Particular favourites of mine were books of beautiful embossed wire prints and alphabet pop-ups. So inspiring also to hear from Ron King about the development of the Circle Press and his various collaborations which have led to such a rich and varied output. Other highlights of the weekend included a talk by Imi Maufe about translating her travels into book form, Jay Young talking about his work with pop-up books, and an amazing talk by Sam Winston about his approach to working with books and words. Lots to think about, but most of all it just makes me want to make more books… which can only be a good thing!

One white beast

Working on a companion book to ‘Ten White Birds’… ‘Ten White Beasts’. 

Stamping sampling

Interesting to see the different results from using the same tiled stamps as a base, and then ‘accessorising’ with other hand-cut rubber stamps.

Lots of lovely books

Carol Wood

Cathey Webb

Olga Fear

Katherine Stevens

A real pleasure to attend an exhibition of student’s work from the Hand Printed Artists’ Books course at Spike Print Studio. Having taught some sessions on lino printing on this course back in the Spring, it was a great to see those concertina books finished, but also the dizzying array of other handmade books on display. So many different formats and styles of working - and all completed since January. Really impressive stuff. The books will be on display in the Tom Trusky exhibition cases at UWE (Bower Ashton campus library) from 7 December to 31 January.

A Short History of Shoes

Carving lino blocks for a companion book to ‘A Short History of Hair’. Hats are also in the pipeline...

Seasonal production line

Gearing up for the annual production line of Christmas card stamping...

printmaking + animation

Inspired to investigate basic animation after a brilliant talk by Joshua Gaunt and Catherine Cartwright at yesterday's  'Redefining Print' symposium organised by Double Elephant Print Workshop in Exeter.

Forest

The first set of 'Forest' double concertina books have sold like hot cakes, so I've made up a new batch. Available now in the shop...

Pattern pimping

Using rubber and photo polymer stamps to add pattern to Paperchase blank notebooks.

Unimagined Treasures

A rather belated post on the wonderful Mark Hearld exhibition ‘Unimagined Treasures’ at York Art Gallery. I only had half an hour before the gallery closed to spend at the exhibition, but could easily have lost the best part of an afternoon. Mark Hearld has created a Lumber Room – “a room of miscellaneous stored objects and artefacts” curated and created following two years of visiting the stores of the Yorkshire Museum, York Castle Museum and York Art Gallery. Many of the objects and artworks in the exhibition have never been on display before. The eclectic mix reminded me of the folk art exhibition by Barbara Jones ‘Black Eyes and Lemonade’ with shades of the bizarre collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. In addition to the curation of this collection, he also commissioned pieces (including the stunning seahorse sign above by The Brilliant Sign Company) and created his own new work: “Works made by me in paper, pot and paint respond to the collection and celebrate its richness and delight to be had in looking on it.” A real visual treat.

Autumn leaves

A seasonal experiment in stencil printing...

Sheffield International Artist's Book Prize exhibition

Left to right:
• Leci Bohn – Fole XYZ
• Jack Oudyn & Helen Malone – Paper, Scissors, Uluru
• Mehr Javed – Object-Book I

• Islam Aly – Orientation Cube

• Kate Castelli – Razzle Dazzle

• Dizzy Pragnell – Of Cabbages and Kings

• Cathey Webb – On the Radio

A trip up north was a good excuse to visit Bank Street Arts in Sheffield to see this year's International Artist's Book Prize exhibition. There was a selection process this year, so it was considerably smaller than the last exhibition in 2013, but it was still a very eclectic and interesting mix. As my selected photos show, I have a definite preference for folded books. Really excited to see Cathey Webb's book 'On the Radio' - the linocut book she made for the project I set when teaching on the Book Arts course at Spike Print back in April. Very impressed with how she finished it off and brilliant to see it selected. Ironically, my book in the exhibition ('A Short History of Hair') was made as a sample book for that project, and we're even alongside each other in the catalogue as two W surnames. The exhibition runs until the end of October...

Last but not least

My final stencil print from the evening course. Very quick to cut and print… a nice bit of instant gratification to round things off. The most successful prints were the ones with lots of roller textures - not quite like a relief print and not quite like a screenprint. I can now see how I can use this process with other techniques. Many thanks to the excellent tutor, Sophie Rae, for a really inspiring course.

Stencil swan

Final week of my stencil evening course and I’m finally starting to understand how I can use the process in my work. Even though they are technically monoprints, I’ve found myself naturally gravitating back to printing an edition. This is useful to compare slight differences though, like density of ink, roller direction and colour combinations.

RWA Annual Open Exhibition 2015

A very inspiring visit to the Autumn Exhibition at the RWA… a really strong year, and great to see a lot more printmaking selected. Especially impressed by the inclusion of a delicate potato print by the very talented Sally Muir… really worth a visit.

First stencil prints

Four colour stencil print onto plywood

The original stencils before printing

A really enjoyable couple of hours printing at the Folk House stencil evening class… I adapted my 'pot plant' linocut design to make a simple four colour stencil print. Interesting to see how the colour (Caligo safe wash ink) stays saturated on the plywood. I prefer the build up of texture on the paper prints though - it gives the image an extra dimension that's often missing from lino prints. By varying the direction and pressure of rolling, it's possible to differentiate between the foreground and background. The working life of one stencil is obviously limited - I did five prints from these stencils, but I think you could possibly push it to a run of ten prints.

Stencil scamps

Working out stencil print colour combinations for this week's evening class...