Lovely Bear - lino cut print

A Lovely Bear lino cut ready to send out for Valentines Day this month - lots of my lino prints include retching dogs and fighting cats so this one is a little on it's own in terms of cuteness!! Also very happy to send secret messages in a little card along with the bear :) It is in my online shop just HERE if you would like to take a peek...

Lino Prints for sale - and Artist Support Pledge news...

Three Foxes at the Disco - lino Print

Lino Prints for Sale

Thanks so much to everyone who has been browsing and buying my lino prints via Etsy and Folksy - it has been fantastic to be able to send them out by using our local Parcel Post Box and know that they are turning up at front doors around the world!  I can't offer any Tracking services at the moment, but everything has made it through so far (with a little patience as shipping times are now longer than we are all used to).

It has been fab to be able to send lino prints directly to people with birthdays or who need a bit of dancing animal cheer too - so I have been writing cards with messages from the sender too...sometimes cryptic, sometimes just really lovely...in a little hand printed card.  What fun.

Artist Support Pledge 

Artists Support Pledge is a great initiative that has been set up recently by Matthew Burrows (mostly on Instagram) which is well worth taking a look at if you are interest in art and craft and want to discover some amazing artists from around the world...and maybe even make a purchase!  I have made a couple...

The idea is to help artists and makers replace the income that is being lost due to the current shut down of art galleries, art fairs, makers markets and also lots of art and craft teaching that artists usually undertake.  Artists pledge works for sale for up to £200 $200 etc and when they have reached £1000 $1000 in sales they pledge to spend £200 $200 themselves on another artists work.  It is creating a small but really dynamic art market and helping lots of creatives get through this tough time.

I have been lucky enough to make sales through the initiative and also therefore some purchases to help other makers navigate this tricky period - really worth taking a look, even if you aren't in position to buy anything as there is some really inspiring work being pledged.

Lino Print postage update

I am still sending out lino prints to wherever they need to go - I am lucky enough to have a Royal Mail Parcel Postbox really close to my house, so I can buy online postage and then feed the into the box - so still sending out lino printed tapirs, dancing dogs and lines of hares ready for birthdays, cheer up post, sprucing up your home office or just because you fancy a golden Pilea in a Pot...


...thanks so much for all recent orders, it has been great fun writing birthday cards on behalf of friends and family and sending them off into the world!

Ink Paper + Print at the Towner Gallery

I am so excited to be heading off to Ink Paper + Print on 21-22nd September - being held at the Towner Gallery  in Eastbourne the line up of illustrators, print makers and artists is amazing (and me, gulp!)

I will bring along my usual basket of lino prints, including a few new ones - like these Baby Tapirs - and also tea towels, tote bags, fabric, handmade purses and lampshades - would be lovely to say hello if you are passing by.

Greetings Cards

Great to get another delivery of my cards from ARTPRESS recently - including the new Christmas Card, yipee!

I'm so happy to have my lino prints on their lovely cards and it is great fun looking out for them in shops/galleries/museums as I travel around the country.  Do let me know if you spot any out in the wild...

Half term art work factory....

What a treat - half term!
I've forced children to spend hours wrapping pictures in cellophane and then brown paper and sticky tape...so now we celebrate with an outing to the post office.  They don't realise yet, but this is FUN.

Maybe I will let them out at the weekend, as there is a big family bonfire planned and there will even be sparklers...

New lino prints about to hit the shop!!

I've been having a marvellous month of lino cutting and printing and in two weeks time I'll be filling up my Etsy and Folksy shops with the results.  That makes me feel like a proper shop-keeper!

I just want to do a couple more first - really keen to make a lino print of some bladderwrack, because it's such a lovely word, so maybe I'll do that this week.  (and it would surely make a fantastic christmas present??!!!  who wouldn't want a lino print of bladderwrack on their wall???)

Above is one of my faves, 'Feet in Shoes', but you are welcome to have your own fave....

The dogs are back!!

I've let some of my dog lino prints loose in my Etsy Shop again!!  They are well house trained, despite appearances I promise :)

...and if you are a dog owner I am sure you recognise the odd bit of dog behaviour here!

New Bristol lino print

Work in progress...

A little skyline of Bristol has been emerging this week...
Hopefully a local would recognise a couple of the buildings, but that handy bridge is all you need to make it 'Bristol'!!

Tomorrow will be editioning day - I've stocked up with paper ready - nothing will stop me....

Three new lino prints..

....well, new to you - in my totally driven state of achieving at least 100 hours of solid lino cutting every single week I often forget that I have got a pile of new images that no one else has seen yet...

These have been seen by a few people who dwell in the real world though, and some people who flit around on Twitter will have seen corners and bits of lino blocks, but now they are here too, in blog world for you to see.

Wet Sparrow
Flock & Cat
Lots of Birds in Pyjamas

These are quite big (by my own personal scale of big, which finishes at 45 cm) and if I produce any that are even bigger I will have to start hand delivering them to galleries and customers....


I'm planning to lino cut a puffin looking out at an immense stormy sea for the rest of the month, should keep me mentally occupied for the remainder of February!!

PIctures in an old pickle factory

Some of my armadillos, cats, starlings and assorted friends have gone off to The Bedworkshop in Bristol for a few weeks - I just know they are going to enjoy being there...such an amazing building and really fantastic furniture, so warm and cosy!!

Do go and visit them if you are in Bristol and time soon :)

Lino Prints, looking like real pictures in photos of themselves...

 Girls with unusual pets

A lovely person who is not me and knows about photography and how to do it, even when taking photos of black and white things on a grey background, has made my colour-free work look colourful and lively and very much improved!!   Thank you Jo!

 Thirty-three starlings

Cat in a bubble bath

Purple

After two years of blaming the cloudy weather for my non-existent photos of artwork I've had to pretend to take an interest in taking some.

As I am sure is the situation with most people/artists there are only three places in my house which could be considered suitable for photographing and these places are usually covered in piles of important reference material/paints and inks/cups of tea and work in progress.

The only place available today also has a purple wall.

Not the subtle grey/purple of the magazines....

A film of a Printmaking show - whatever next...

If you like films of galleries and printmaking then this one is for you!

Some really great prints by some amazing folk in the current show at RBSA Brook Street, Birmingham, click here and you will see...


http://vimeo.com/101179034

Print Biennial in Birmingham...

Print Biennial exhibtion

On now — 23 August 2014

Hilary Paynter Hon RBSA

At the lovely Royal Birmingham Society of Artists gallery on Brook Street right now is their fantastic Print Biennial - with evert type of printmaking and many amazing artists it's well worth a visit - oh, I think they may have a couple of my prints up too....this 'Big Cat on Stilts' is there...

lots of printing, it's Autumn and two new stockists - phew

It's time for the Autumn flurry!

I've been printing and printing and printing.  Lots of packages are going out to galleries and online customers and it's all getting very exciting, because that means it really is the end of summer and it really is time to get on with it and stop thinking 'La la la ages and ages to do everything, la la la too sunny to work...'

I will update my list of stockists properly really really soon, but two new ones this week are:

 Dotty Dog Gallery in Shrewsbury, who are having their big official Launch Day on Sun 27th Oct (but they are open already so don't wait if you can't) and they have got some great printmakers showing as well as 3D work, so very excited to have work there...

...and West Yorkshire Print Workshop in Mirfield have got a set of my prints too - hurrah - how I wish I could pop in, but alas too far to manage it this month, I will have to send other people on my behalf, so go now please!!

I've also topped up several of my regular galleries and have a couple more to go in the next couple of weeks, phew.  Then I can play in the leaves and drink hot chocolates all day.

last months art trail

That was a long time ago!!

Our local art trail has faded into a distant memory, but it was a lovely sunny weekend and so many friends and neighbours and people I'd never met before came and visited my little stall and chatted and nattered and told me what they thought of my work (with their body language if not their words!).

I loved it and spent a very happy two days sampling cakes and trying not to buy art (that 'trying not' failed, as I did buy art, but hey, it was an arts trail...)

Here's a photo of part of my display, and it's not a black and white photo, it really was very monochrome with a lovely shade of greeny-grey on the wall behind me setting everything off so well.

February Studio Sale

I'm having a sale in my Folksy shop - lino prints that need a new home.

Lots have been hiding at the bottom of my print draw, ends of editions, some printed long ago, not in my current range of prints in galleries, experiments and old favourites - time for a great big clearout and a February Sale!  

I've got more to add, but only so much computer staying power, so have a look at what I've added today and then I'll remind you to pop back in a week or so...

...I need those drawers emptying...so grab a bargain print while you can.

bird lino prints

I've been cutting out birds again...

I started with this small flock of starlings - they have flown off for their first outing to Ginger Fig in Taunton who are having a 'Birds and bees' exhibition at the moment...

...and I have now become somewhat Starling obsessed - after all they do appear in vast numbers, they need to be in huge flocks, thirteen is just not enough and I've given every single one a name as I carve it too!

So far there have only been tens of starlings on each piece of lino - I wonder if I could manage a hundred without going cross-eyed??

just time to buy a print!

You know there is still just time for you to buy a print from my Folksy shop  if you live in the UK don't you? - or a tea towel, or a canvas bag - it really would save a trek around the shops in the rain listening to Slade and fighting your way through a jungle of tinsel and mince pies...just saying...although you may well have got all that sort of thing organised already... I haven't - eeeeek!