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.

bird art on Etsy

Yipee - Etsy are using my Animated Birds as the example of lino prints on their 'Art' browse front page this week.

Each art form is represented with a bird picture this week, because really, you can't have too many feathered friends can you?

https://www.etsy.com/uk/browse/art?ref=fp_ln_new_art

I promise in my next post to bring you lots of much, much older news (rather than this current up-to-the-minute stuff.  Lino cutting is meant to be about going slow and things taking as long as they take or even slightly longer than that, rather than keeping up with the internet and letting people know about things as they happen).

latest lino printing news

I've been really busy - sorry blog.  (I imagine a blog to be similar to a goblin or some other creature from fairy tales, maybe something from Labyrinth, that's why I am addressing it directly.)

Art trails, new prints, lovely commission, cushion printing, new stockists -  but the very, very small lead that feeds the computer from the camera has been missing for a while and so none of these things have been able to be transmitted to blog...

...and it has also been sunny for more than two days in a row, so I'm afraid I spent zero time looking for the very, very small lead and a lot of time 'checking' things in the garden and wandering up the road on errands.

The very, very small lead has now been found, so I'm afraid that there may be some 'old' news coming up in the next few days as blog posts that I had in mind a couple of weeks ago may resurface.

sunny allotment days

Currently growing at our allotment (unless they've been eaten by slugs/deer/pigeons/rabbits since we left today):

Peas ( a lot - can you overdose on peas in a pod?  We'll hopefully find out soon)
Mange tout
Borlotti beans
French beans (my faves)
Broad beans (no black fly yet)
Runner beans (from John, every year, they are a hundred years old these beans)
Onions
Shallots
Lettuces
Carrots (in three places, surely the rabbits aren't clever enough to find them all?)
Parsnips
Beetroot
Radishes (I always plant hundreds at once and most of them get too chewy - I've done it again this year)
Garlic
Potatoes
Salsify
Scorzonera
Raspberries
Gooseberries (these are getting eaten by small humans already - yuck and leave them alone, I want big ones)
Chard

and then there are the cucurbit family, fighting their way out of our bay window and soon to be planted if the weather stays good...

...today we also saw several frogs, a steam train and five hot air balloons, so all hobbies were catered for in full.

Arts Trail weekend

This weekend is our local Arts Trail - sorry for going on about it as you probably live miles and miles away, but I'm really excited!  If you are local, I'm going to be at the Southville Centre this year and would love to see you.

I've been getting lots of new things ready for it, framing up pictures, packing up tea towels and making pocket mirrors too and I'm looking forward to finding out what people think of the prints I've made in the last couple of months - there's nothing like watching the looks on peoples faces as they look at your work to tell you if you've got it right!!

new prints and old prints...

Spotters Guide

I had donned my summer plumage and decided to spend the next three months playing outside on my allotment, but I've changed my mind now.  I think I'll stay indoors with the stove burning and draw pictures of animals instead.

I've made lots of new prints in the last few weeks, and they are all off to my real life galleries this time - not website ones - although I might keep a few here for our local Arts Trail in South Bristol, which happens this weekend.

I'm also thinking about using images from old print editions and having some cards printed from them - partly because I just can't say goodbye to them.  How do painters who only have one image part with them??  I think printmaking feeds my hoarding instincts...

mousetrap

blue sky

I've been printing a lot recently - ready for our local Art Trail in a couple of weeks and also for a couple of new little projects I've been working on - but now that it is blue sky time of year I've thrown it all to one side and starting pottering about outdoors instead...and it feels so good!

I'll show you what I've been printing soon, but I can't stay talking to the computer any longer...