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…
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 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…
Here’s a very quick recap video of all the sketches that I created for Inktober this year. Each sketch is just 6cm square, and was drawn in 15 minutes or under. Each sketch was drawn from life and is a glimpse of my day – either home life, workshop preparation or venues, and places I…
Yesterday saw the end of the Inktober challenge (read more about my initial thoughts on the challenge here). I thoroughly enjoyed creating these 6cm square sketches of glimpses of each day. I will be reflecting a bit more on the challenge and what I learned from it over the next week or so, but for…
The month is flying by and week three of Inktober is already over! Above are my sketches of daily life for this past week. See my week one blog to read a bit more about the project.
Week two of my Inktober project saw a lot of crafting tools and a couple of days out. See my week one blog to read a bit more about the project.
I am currently taking part in the annual Inktober challenge, where participants are encouraged to create a sketch using ink every day during October. There are ‘official’ prompts given out by the organisers if you are stuck for ideas, but I have decided to go my own way and concentrate on what I would like…
That was fun! I’m enjoying getting out of my comfort zone in this sketchbook and am playing with acrylic and watercolour paints, rather than my usual pencil work. I have so much to learn about using both of these mediums! Anyway, I’m quite happy with this spread, which was inspired by a recent walk along…
If you have seen my traditional Celtic knotwork then you will know that it is created using geometry and grids, and drawn in pencil, and is quite precise in nature. Recently I have been craving a bit more looseness and so I decided to use one of my many hand made sketchbooks to play around…
