Plates, donkeys and a fox....

Hi there

I'm not going to apologise for the lack or recent posts on my blog, as I seem to say this every time. I think I just need to accept that my blogs are an 'as and when' kind of thing, rather than a monthly missive. Right, I've said it!

I hope you're doing well. Since the start of the year I have had quite a productive time, mostly making donkey prints, but some others too, and I've even delved into ceramics, working with potter Charlotte Berry on some sgraffito plates!

Some of my Donkey Monolith prints from my Sheffield exhibition are still available in my Folksy shop, and there are a fair few new ones alongside them.

DONKEY PLATES

Earlier this year I had a conversation with ceramicist/potter Charlotte Berry. I had been on a pottery course with her last year and really enjoyed it, and had a brief go at sgraffito. It felt a bit like linocut, in that you're cutting away rather than mark making on the surface. I asked Charlotte if she would work with me to make some stoneware plates, and she agreed! We made ten, she making the basic plates, then I painted on the coloured slip, cut away the parts I didn't want, then passed the plates back to her to be fired and glazed. I was really happy with how they came out (no breakages!) and I took the plates to a fair at The Hepworth Wakefield, and they all sold! It seems like other people liked them too. My next plan is make some more for later in the year and probably take them to events like 'The Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair' in Manchester.

NEW PRINTS

I'll not post up every print I've made since I last blogged (you can find them all in my Folksy shop anyway) but here are a few that stick in the mind..

Midnight Fox (A3 poster-print)

I love foxes. Beautiful and rather illusive creatures. I always feel very fortunate to spot one where I live, usually once the sun has started to go down. One regularly trots up and down our garden (probably every day), and very occasionally I see them. This print is actually one of our garden (slightly altered and tidied up!), with the fox on their travels and the moon shining on some of the tree branches. They are usually at this point on their journey where I spot them from the back windows of the house, sometime between 8pm and midnight.

I did create an original edition of this initially, but this quickly sold out, so i have now made a poster-print version.

The Donkey Leap (A2 screenprint)

This is perhaps my most ambitious print, in terms of colours and composition. It certainly took a lot of planning, and I was somewhat relieved when I'd completed it!

The small orange donkey puts all their trust in one of 'the helping hands' to catch them after climbing on top of a strange monolith, and we see them mid-jump. In a way, it is related to my older print 'Red/Blue Donkey Regrets The Adventure', but instead of regret, the donkey is filled with confidence!

Magic Donkey No.11 (A2 screen-print)

The eleventh print in the 'magic donkey' series, this is a continuation of my donkey dreamworld theme. I started experimenting with bright colours a year or so ago, within this series, and it looks like they are here to stay! The inks that I use are very transparent, so you get all these lovely extra colours appearing when the layers are put on top of each other. Like all of my donkey adventure prints I decided to try and create a secret world that only donkeys know about. In many of the prints, 'helping hands' appear, and in this one, the biggest hand of all appears to assist this special donkey! I was really happy with how the colours sat on top of each other, and how the colours 'pop'.

Magic Donkey No.10 (A5 reduction linocut)

Yep, another one! I created this during the recent Open Up Sheffield open studios event, as a demonstration. The print is an A5 size, 3-colour 'reduction linocut', which means that the whole print is cut from one piece of lino, printing layers, and cutting out more areas until the print is finished. This means that the edition sizes are generally small, and no more can be reprinted from the lino afterwards!

Happenings In Donkey World No.13 A3 linocut/screen-print

This the latest in the long-running 'happenings' series in a strange landscape. It started out as a plasticine model, then a linocut, then a screen-print (with the added halftone dots). I then had an idea to print a few on different coloured papers, and rather liked the results! Each one on coloured paper is a one-off (there are some left), but there is also a standard edition of 40 on cream/off-white paper.