Wednesday 22 December 2021

2021 and all that..

Hi there

So another weird year is about to end... As my last (semi-regular) blog of the year I thought I'd try and sum up how the last 12 months have gone.

I shall try and focus on the positives, as no one wants to hear about the bad stuff, especially at the moment!

I've had a lot of fun making new prints this year, from giant crows to intricate landscapes to psychedelic landscapes. The new 'Happenings in donkey world' prints have kept me very entertained, and it has been really interesting experimenting with brighter colours and transparencies.





Likewise it has been interesting getting back into landscapes, and I finally plucked up the courage to take on 'Saltaire' in West Yorkshire. I had been meaning to make this print for a couple of years now, but had procrastinated a fair bit as it is a really complex view! So finally, I plucked up the courage and make the print, and was pretty happy with it!










Birds have been a frequent visitor to my sketchbook too, with Swifts, Swallows, Housemartins, a Hooded Crow and a giant Crow all becoming prints! More planned for next year too...












One of my highlights of the year has been my collaboration with The Stitch Society, designing and making smocks and aprons! I have known Charlotte of TSS for a while now, and always admired their artisan workwear. I have designed a few t-shirts over the last few years, and created textile patterns, but never combined both things until now! I was very lucky in receiving a grant from the Freelance Fund in Sheffield to finance this project, and they were launched in June 2021. Each garment is made to order and available either from my Folksy shop or their website.


The other main highlight this year has been the return of events. I hadn't realised how much I would miss them until there were pretty much no art/craft fairs for 12 months or more. They all started with the mighty Craft Festival at Bovey Tracey, Devon, in early September. I love this event. It is really more like a cool music festival, except the music is swapped for the best art and craft in the UK (there is some music too). There were lots of visitors who had clearly missed connecting with craft and it was so nice to see so many art and craft friends I hadn't seen in such a long time. Big-ups also to the brilliant Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair in Manchester and Craft Fair Contemporary in Nottingham for putting on brilliantly curated events with great atmospheres too! I'm very grateful indeed to have good pal Ben Partridge (of The Owlery) as my travel buddy for most of these events. We have travelled many miles and had so many daft conversations.

Thanks to everyone who also came to Sheffield Print Fair 2021 too (the event I co-organise). after a year out, and a new venue (The Millennium Gallery) we couldn't have asked for a better and busier event!


My final exciting 'thing' has been building a new studio, in our old garage. It was a smelly, damp spider-den for many years, and I decided this year to convert it into a screen-print studio. I still have my lino studio, but this new one will be just for screen-printing. It has taken quite a while, with some serious damp-proofing and building work (not done by me, obviously!), and some of the equipment I needed has taken a while to arrive, but I'm pretty much there. Thanks to Studio Waterhouse and Hunk Print for their help. I just need to put up a load of shelves and I'm there, I think. So I'm really looking forward to a very productive 2022!













Thanks for your support throughout this year. It is really appreciated and never taken for granted.

Take care, and a happy new year to you! x

Friday 18 June 2021

JG vs The Stitch Society!

 Yes, it is war! Not really, I'm simply trying to humorously trying to introduce my latest collaborative project. Sorry...

A few months ago I got talking with my friends Ben from The Owlery and Charlotte from The Stitch Society about doing some kind of textile collaboration. I have done a couple of textile projects before (designing fabric for baby carriers for Sleepy Nico, and t-shirts for Hunk Print), but I was hungry for more!

The Stitch Society produce artisan workwear, bags, masks, aprons, smocks and all sorts of lovely garments. Their pieces are really well designed and are clearly not just 'workwear'!

They both encouraged me to go for it and before too long I had designed a repeat pattern that could be used on fabric. I wanted to create two different garments, both workwear, but perhaps one that could also be used in a non-work setting too, so a smock and an apron were settled on!

At the same time, I had applied for a grant from the Freelance Fund in Sheffield, who were offering small grants to creatives in the city for new projects. I proposed this textile project, and at a scale where it would be more than just a 'try out'. A month or so later I found out that I had been successful, so the sewing machines could start revving up!

I created a repeat pattern based on my donkey theme called 'The Donkey Woods'. This took some time! I'm not going to explain here how you create a repeat pattern, but it isn't easy, especially working with lino. So, once the design was complete, I had the fabric manufactured (255gsm cotton drill fabric) and took it along to Charlotte's fantastic studio, which is in Salts Mill in Saltaire, West Yorkshire (also home to a Hockney Gallery and the best book shop in the world). I then let the Stitch Society weave their magic and the smock and apron appeared!


So, here is 'Donkey Woods' smock, available in small/medium and large (exact sizes on the Folksy page). It costs £70, plus £5 p&p. All are made to order, so will take 14 days  from order to delivery.


and the 'Donkey Woods' apronavailable in one size that fits sizes 10 to 16 (due to the flexible cross-over strap design). It costs £65, plus £5 p&p. All are made to order, so will take 14 days  from order to delivery.





Oh, finally, I have created an A3 poster-print version of the design, in case anyone likes the image but workwear isn't their thing.



Thanks to Sheffield Council and the Freelance Fund for helping me make this happen, and to Charlotte and the TSS team for working with me, to Ben for his encouragement, and Gem for being my model!




Thursday 18 March 2021

Psychedelic donkeys, and some housemartins too..

Hi there

My blog posts don't seem to be getting more frequent, however much I tell myself and they should be. Perhaps I should just accept that I'm a '4 times a year' kind of blogger, and stop fretting?!

I hope you're all well. Print world is going ok. It is as unpredictable as ever, but I'm feeling good about making new work, and hopeful that things can get back to some kind of normal in the second half of this year. Some events are lined up to be happening, but I'll post about them a bit nearer the time.

I had a bit of a creative block at the beginning of the year, but that has thankfully dissipated and I have new prints to show you!


NEW PRINTS

Happenings in Donkey World No.6



Happenings in Donkey World No.7



I will explain about these two prints together, as they are in some way, linked. Neither of these prints was really planned. I was just drawing away in my sketchbook one minute, and next I'm at the vacuum bed, squeegee in hand! Well, obviously I had to think about the layers and colours, but they all just came together so quickly. I've never worked in bright colours before, and wanted to experiment with colour transparencies. There is something quite magical about creating colours from overlaying other colours, and often with screenprinting, you never know exactly the colours you are going to get! So HDW No.6 came along first, as a 3-colour print (with all the overlays actually creating seven colours!). It is an A2 size print, in an edition of 30. I had so much fun creating this one, that I decided to create a smaller accompanying print HDW No.7. The same colour scheme, just a smaller and more concise landscape, in an edition of 35. 

I think maybe the choice of bright colours was due to the slight hope and optimism in the air with the Covid situation and the news of vaccinations and lowering infection rates.

Both are in my Folksy shop.


Housemartins


Following on from my Swallows and Swifts prints, it would have felt rude not to include the housemartins too! They were also one of my favourite bands of the 1980's too, so it all worked out ok. Beautiful birds. It is a linocut poster-print, A3 size, and in my Folksy shop.


Magic Donkey No.3



Yes, the donkey magic rolls on. As you may know, on the donkey adventures, they are helped occasionally by some mysterious hands. Well, in this print, one lone donkey has stumbled across a whole load of them, all ready and eager to help. The print is an A4 size two-colour screenprint, printed on lovely Antique White Seawhite paper, in two versions, each in an edition of 17. They are available in my Folksy shop.

However there are actually fewer of the red/blue ones available, as I've entered the print into the latest Imprinted Instagram print swap (@im_printed). The theme is 'circle', so this seemed pretty apt! The idea is that you give ten of your prints, and in return you get a print from ten other artists on the same theme. no idea what I will receive in return, but I like a surprise.