Animal prints and tea towels

Spotters Guide

I've been doing lots of printing recently, ready for that busy time of year...

I think in the summer I assumed I was on top of it all and that I would be avoiding the quiet panic of low stock and ideas that really must be done before the end of November.  But a few parcels to galleries and some online sales and suddenly the pile of lino prints doesn't look quite as big as i would like...

That was last week though!
Now I am happily back in charge, prints editioned (some wont be dry until tomorrow, but that's ok), cards in cellophane and little bows happily tied around a pile of tea towels, gift tags printed up ready for packaging up orders and the whole house back to it's happy chaotic state, a sure sign that printing has been happening...

have a look in my shops here and here if you fancy some lino printed goodies...

Today I've used up the last of my big paper stash, so a restock is needed because I've only proofed a couple of new lino prints and now I want to print the rest...I'm sure there is time to fit it in and it wont turn into another last minute rush.

Romans tea towel for Bristol Museum

I've just delivered a big pile of new tea towels to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery - yipee! (and then they tricked me into having my photo taken in the shop - I don't normally allow that to happen)

They are based on the 'Orpheus' Roman mosaic that was found near Bath when Brunel was busy putting the railway lines in.  The mosaic is on display at the Museum until the new year alongside a touring exhibition from the British Museum  - Roman Empire: Power and People and I've had a great time turning a three colour mosaic into a one colour lino print.

If you want to get your hands on one for a Roman loving friends birthday you will have to go to the Museum shop, but then maybe you should be taking that friend along for a look at the exhibition too!

We can't get enough of the Romans in our house this week as it is Romans dressing up day at school too so I really couldn't have been working on a better project...next up a flock of crows..better get cutting...

Maldon - the tea towel

I've had a lovely time designing a tea towel for Maldon in Essex and today the whole boxful are setting off for the tourist information centre in the town.  Maldon has everything - churches, boats, anglo saxons, swans and seagulls - what a great town!!

But wow, what a gloomy week - I really can't get a photo of the whole tea towel - one end is always lost in the mist when I try so I think it will be much quicker if you pop over to Maldon yourself and take a look at them in real life, is that alright?

garden day

I spent this morning printing cards and after reaching 100 I decided that really being outside would be better than being inside.

Sitting outside I am very busy, absorbing all the bright colours and the huge amount of green after all the rain, basking in the warmth from the sun, listening to the buzzing, beetleing and chirping that is going on, watching a tiny spider trying to build a web around my camera cable (is it cruel to let it carry on?) and chomping through a plateful of things from the fridge...this is going to take all afternoon!

Thanks to Folksy too, for putting my A-Z animals teatowel on todays newsletter!  It has been lurking on their 'Gift Ideas under £25' for a week or too now as well, hurrah.