A brilliant day yesterday teaching a rubber stamp workshop for MA Printmaking students at UWE. The theme was rockets and robots… chosen as an excuse to use the lovely stash of metallic stamp pads acquired by the university earlier in the year. It was also a good subject for looking at building up an illustration out of component parts. Really impressed with the quality and variety of the finished stamps, and thanks to some hard graft and teamwork, we ended up with an edition of seven stamped concertina books. Many thanks to Liz, Sophie, Linda, Rozzie and Vicky for a mighty fine end result.
Rockets and Robots
Preparing for a rubber stamp workshop I’ll be running for MA Printmaking students at UWE next week. Space age stamping - it’s a whole new frontier, with metallic inks and everything!
Pinnable patterns
Had a lot of fun at the last meeting of the Artists’ Book Club at UWE last week - they’d hired a couple of badge makers from Bristol Scrapstore. Great to see some of my rubber stamp patterns transformed into a pinnable format.
A really lovely weekend on the BS9 Arts Trail… the sun shone and we had lots of visitors at the scout hut (an excellent venue!) Exhibiting with a great bunch of very talented artists this year - Sue Pickering, Charlie West and Jenny Urquhart… all very inspiring. Many thanks to the scout hut for hosting us and providing such delicious tea and cakes. And thanks to everyone who came along and made it such an enjoyable couple of days.
Setting up
A full-on couple of hours setting up in Stoke Bishop Scout Hut for the BS9 Arts Trail - running this weekend, 11am-5pm.
New for BS9 Arts Trail
On sale for the first time this weekend will be a new range of hand stamped A6 notebooks - covers were created using a combination of handmade photopolymer stamps and hand carved rubber stamps. Way out in patternsville...
Cracker Books at Large
Great to see the collection of cracker books exhibited together in Bower Ashton library. It’s been a really fun project… many thanks to my fellow cracker collaborators: Rebecca Weeks, Stephanie Turnbull, Alison Sloggett, Kate Williamson and Linda Parr (and Anwyl Cooper-Willis who’s just handed in a beautiful new addition to the collection).
BS9 Bunting
Spare moments in the first couple of months of this year were spent cutting, pinning and sewing lengths of bunting for the forthcoming BS9 Art Trail. The end result was 140 metres(!) of neon, rip-stop triangular loveliness which will be gracing the venues of the trail this weekend. I may have been smiling through gritted teeth by the end, but I was really glad to have taken part in the great bunting manufacture project. It was a lovely group of fellow stitchers, ably led by Fiona Barr, all of whom will be exhibiting as part of the trail: Jackie Johnson, Olga van Rijswijck, Laura Robertson and Franca Douglas. Top teamwork!
Packaging, pricing and publicity
The final preparations for this year’s BS9 Arts Trail. Do come along and say hello if you’re in Bristol this weekend. I’ll be in the Stoke Bishop Scout Hut, and - crucially - there’ll also be tea and cake!
The last batch
After three months of making books for the BS9 Arts Trail, I’m about to bind the final few (phew).
World Book Night 2016
My ‘pleasure is an egg’ rubber stamp - part of Sarah Bodman’s wonderful collaborative project to mark World Book Night 2016. Forty rubber stamp prints Inspired by ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood, ‘Serena Joy’ is a box of forty, eclectic rubber stamp prints. More details on the project, including the production process, can be found here, and also here. With thanks to Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck for expertly printing my egg!
Arboretum
A small woodland has sprung up in my studio as I make up more copies of 'Twenty Trees (as seen from a train)'.
Beetles, bees and moths
From the Museum of Natural History in Oxford - inspiration for a new series of books I've been mulling over for a while...
The longevity of leaves
Made the most of a spare hour over lunchtime between meetings in Oxford to pay a visit to the wonderful Oxford University Museum of Natural History. I usually get drawn into the murky depths of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the back, but the sun was streaming in, making the stonework relief carvings on the first floor look even more impressive than usual. I also spotted this photograph on the stairs showing masons (from Farmer & Brindley) working on the same carvings in around 1911. Gratifying to think their hard work is still being admired more than a century later.
Cracker Book sneak peek
The Cracker Book collaboration with the ABC group at UWE is nearing completion, and early results will be exhibited in Bower Ashton library from 20 April. Participating artists (from the left): Kate Williamson, myself, Alison Sloggett, Linda Parr, Rebecca Weeks (2 books). Having seen early print proofs of Stephanie Turnbull’s amazing lithographic contribution, it’s shaping up to be a lovely set of books. Just need to put my thinking cap on to come up with a good way to package them...
Phew!
Fifty books made in the last two-and-a-half weeks, Building up stocks for the ABC@UWE exhibition at Bower Ashton library, the Turn The Page artists’ book fair in Norwich and the BS9 Arts Trail.
The perils of a momentary lapse in concentration
One silly mistake and a whole book is ruined. Bah.
Letterpress loveliness
Spent a very enjoyable few hours on Saturday at the British Printing Society Fair… over 40 stalls of letterpress and printing paraphernalia. A very generous goody bag was given on arrival containing all manner of printed matter. Picked up a couple of bargains - two vintage boxes of envelopes (£2!) and an amazing book called ‘A Handbook of Type and Illustration’ (by John Lewis, 1956) which includes beautiful reproductions of work by Edward Bawden, Edward Ardizzone and George Chapman. The highlight was a talk by Martin Andrews from the University of Reading who spoke about the life and work of Robert Gibbings. Totally fascinating, and a real privilege to see print proofs of collaborations with Eric Gill from the Golden Cockerel Press handed round.
Over the moon!
Ridiculously excited and thrilled to have my work featured in the latest edition of Uppercase. I have swooned over every issue of this magazine, and look forward to each one arriving in the post to read cover to cover, so it’s a real honour to be included. A very interesting, and - as always - gorgeous edition too… focusing on book arts, folding and paper making. Chuffed to bits!
