Patterns

Since becoming a full time mum (2 yrs ago) I’ve been taking a bit of a break from printmaking but a few months ago I started to find time for a slightly different kind of art. And I quickly became addicted to digital pattern making. As an art form it doesn’t need too much space, or make much mess, or need long periods of time devoted to it. So it is much easier to fit into my life at the moment.

So far I’ve created quite a number of patterns and uploaded some of them to Spoonflower (a fabric/wallpaper site) and some to Redbubble (who do T-Shirts, mugs, phone cases and art prints etc). I’m hoping to develop some pattern collections in the future. And I’m planning to re-imagine some of my linocut print designs as patterns too. 

My Spoonflower shop is here – http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/ceccaI’ve only got 4 designs for sale at the moment but lots more show up if you click ‘Designs not for sale’.

My Redbubble shop is here - http://www.redbubble.com/people/cecca-designs I’ve set up a number of patterns plus a couple of my linocuts and a watercolour on there so far.

Here are a few of my patterns so far:

Elephants (green & blue) 

 Fish (work in progress)

 Natural forms

 Ducks and frogs in the garden (Teal)

Striped Pigs & Ponies (Peach Melba)

Dorset Art Weeks 2014

Dorset Art Weeks (DAW) is one of the largest open studio events in the country, with nearly 300 venues showing the work of almost 1000 artists. It starts this Saturday and runs for two weeks until June 8th. I'll be sharing Ruth Oak's studio which is above Poole Printmakers, who are also having an open studio for DAW.

Ruth is a painter and printmaker whose work has a strong element of drawing: "I have always been inspired by landscape, while much of my current work takes inspiration from poetry and works with words, sometimes taking the form of artist’s books. The “vessel” is a subject which frequently emerges in my work and I see it as a symbol of myself, a person making a journey, a life or a view of the world, the self in relation to God, the inner and outer world. It is a personal but also universal symbol to which I hope all can relate. I use a wide variety of painting and printmaking media and techniques"

Ruth has recently been working on a series in wood engravings to illustrate “Step in Anywhere” a book of poems by Jane Wilson. The original engravings will be on display along with the finished book during the open studio.

I will be showing prints and paintings from three main series that I have been working on over the past couple of years. The first is linocuts of Dorset views including Gold Hill, Poole Quay and the Red Arrows flying over Bournemouth pier.
My second theme is illustrative animals, from milkshake drinking monkeys to crocodiles nibbling on cucumber sandwiches. And lastly I will be showing a small selection of the portraits I have painted, many of which were the result of my membership of the inspiring international portrait artist's group JKPP.

Our open studio for Dorset Art Weeks runs 24th May – 8th June 2014, open daily (except Tuesdays) 11am – 5pm. To see details of our venue and all of the others visit the Dorset Art Weeks site.

Tiger tea time - edition of 33 linoprints

Yey, I've completed my first ever relief print edition!

I decided to base the print on a quick sketch I'd made using 'MS Paint' a number of years ago:

After redrawing the design I thought it might be nice to stick him in a jungle setting (I didn't realise how much work that would mean at the time!). I used 3 lino blocks for the image - one for orange, one for black and one for yellow & green (I used a reduction technique to cut into the background yellow block to create the green block). Here are a couple of images of the print in progress:

And here's the final print:

With a handful of slightly imperfect prints, I ended up with just 33 finished prints in the edition. Not too bad for a first attempt and I've learnt a lot along the way. Here are some of the things I'll be trying to remember for my next print:

• Reduction should improve registration (i.e. all the colours will line up more easily if each colour is printed from the same lino block.
• Cut the full picture before testing. It's much harder to see where you're cutting after it's been inked!
• Use paper cut outs to mask big areas of the lino that shouldn't be printing (i.e sometimes the cut sections of lino pick up ink that you don't want to print, cover these up with clean pieces of paper before printing).
• Plan carefully! - Make sure you know exactly what you need to cut away at every stage.
• Wear gloves - printmaking is a very messy business but wearing gloves whilst inking up means that you should be able to keep the print edges clean. And it will cut down on repeated washing of hands.

I'm hoping to enter my little tiger into a couple of printmaking exhibitions later in the year, but until then he's available to buy online from my Etsy shop:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/98769525/tiger-tea-time-signed-original-hand