2019 Here I Come! Starting my printmaking year as I mean to go on.

It’s already the end of the first week of 2019. Is it just me or does each year fly by faster and faster all the time?

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged but I’m hoping that this year, I will return to writing regularly to give you a little insight into my life as a printmaker. If you want to be kept up to date with workshops I’m running and/or exhibitions and other events you can join my mailing list here.

Yesterday, being Sunday, my other half and I took the day off. When you’re self employed it’s quite difficult to disconnect from work and in fact, certainly as a creative person it is next to night impossible. Still, we do try to take some time off. We met up with my brother-in-law in Appleby-in-Westmorland. He was going to show us the almshouses in the town followed by a walk by the river. He himself had lived in an almshouse himself in Kirby Lonsdale for 5 years. The background to them is fascinating.

Before we were due to meet, his nibs and I set off early so we could go to Rheghed first – squeezing in a little bit of work/pleasure – to see The Great North Print Exhibition. I am exhibiting there for the first time. I wanted to go before the exhibition comes to an end on February 3rd. What an absolute treat!

Lone Tree Under A Starry Sky 400mm x 400mm image size, 560mm x 560mm framed size

Winter Storm Over Bamburgh, 300mm x 300mm image size, 460mm x 460mm framed size

The venue is impressive. Some of the UK’s the very best printmakers are taking part in the exhibition. I feel really honoured to have my work alongside the likes of Alan Stone, Brenda Hartill and many more that I knew of and many I didn’t. I will admit to suffering a little bit from imposter syndrome to be in such illustrious company.

I am absolutely thrilled to finally see prints by Brenda Hartill, in the flesh. They are exquisite. I have read her book ‘Collagraphs and Mixed Media Printmaking’ from cover to cover and I also own her DVD ‘Collagraph – A sculptural approach to printmaking’. I am now the proud owner of two of her small ‘fragments’! They appear to be parts of collagraph plates that have traces of residual ink and are also painted. They are absolutely beautiful.

If you’ve not been to the exhibition I can thoroughly recommend it. There isn’t just the work on the walls. There is a series of videos from several printmakers talking about and/or showing their individual creative processes. You would never believe how different every one of us approach the same media.

My personal favourite printmakers whose work I had never come across before were Tracy Levine from Arnside in Cumbria whose mixed media monotypes are not only beautiful but also give me permission to use mixed media in my own work. I sometimes feel the weight of ‘proper’ printmaking frowns upon such things but that’s probably my imposter syndrome coming to the surface again. Vicky Oldfield, was another printmaker whose work I loved with her hand coloured floral collagraphs that are quite are beautiful in a very different way. If you have a chance to go and see this show for yourself you really should. The exhibition ends of February 3rd.

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