A lovely class today with a small local community group who did simple white line lino carving. They experimented with plain printing, gradient printing and some even had a go at adding a bit of collage to their prints. As you can see from the photos, they all took to it really well. Thanks so…
On Tuesday I was back at Breathing Space in Witton Gilbert to run a ‘sketch and stroll’ workshop. The workshop was designed specifically for beginners and for those who say they ‘can’t draw’! We started off with a few simple drawing exercises in the church, and then made our way outside to sit in the…
I’ve been enjoying getting myself out and doing plenty of plein air sketching recently, mainly due to watching great videos by Woodward’s Watercolours, Koosje Koene and Toby Sketch Loose – I can definitely recommend those YouTube channels if you would like plenty of tips and encouragement! I made some simple accordion sketchbooks to put in…
This video below shows a selection of the art that I’ve been creating during May 2025. There’s woodcut printmaking, drypoint printmaking, pastels on monotypes, sketching from photographs and en plein air. I’ve always enjoyed exploring and learning about all manner of new things, and this month has certainly been no exception! I think my favourite…
Over the past four Fridays, I’ve had a fantastic time with a community group in Stanley, showing everyone how to make a hand bound journal. We learned a lot of different skills over the four weeks: Week 1: carving a design out of soft lino, which was then printed on to fabric to create the…
This is a recreation of a Thomas Bewick wood engraving, but recreated as a wood cut, and of course at a much larger scale! This was one of the demo blocks I took to Beamish Museum a couple of years ago to demonstrate printmaking during Georgian times, and also to demonstrate the works of Thomas…
After taking the pastel on monotype workshop at PrintFest the other weekend (see that blog post), I’ve been experimenting with the technique some more. The inspiration is the crab apple tree in our garden, that is always a delight with it’s pink buds turning to white blossom at this time of year. It’s such an…
I had an enjoyable afternoon at Breathing Space in Witton Gilbert on Tuesday, teaching a lovely group how to make junk journals. All of these fabulous journals are made out of things that would normally find their way into the recycling – discarded print outs, odd bits of decorative paper and wrapping paper and scraps…
Last Friday I had two lovely people come for a private workshop to make metal embossed hearts. They took to the method really well and made these beautiful hearts. It was such a great afternoon with them both, and I loved what they created. If you would like to learn how to make these, then…
I’ve been enjoying getting myself out and doing plenty of plein air sketching recently, mainly due to watching great videos by Woodwards Watercolours , Koosje Koene and Liz Chaderton Studio – I can definitely recommend those channels if you would like plenty of tips and encouragement! I made some simple accordion sketchbooks to put in my…
I had a fantastic day at PrintFest in Ulverston on Saturday, where I attended two workshops taught by Alex Jakob-Whitworth. The afternoon workshop was pastel on monotype, a really interesting process and apparently following in the footsteps of Degas who used a similar process. I can see so many possibilities with this technique, so I’m definitely going to…
I had a fantastic day at PrintFest in Ulverston on Saturday, where I attended two workshops taught by Alex Jakob-Whitworth. The morning workshop was a drypoint workshop where I worked on a scene local to Ulverston, a view looking towards Hoad Hill from Canal Foot. I have done drypoint before, but I joined the workshop…
