Blog

I’m a big fan of constraints and I have a feeling most printmakers are (secretly or otherwise). Printmaking has a built in set of constraints (some techniques more than others), that you immediately need to work around and with, maybe even learn to love, sometimes finding something new by pushing against them as far as […]

‘There is no such thing as a copy really.  Everything is just a translation of something else.’ David Hockney Three things influencing this blog post:  Reading ‘Spring Cannot be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy’ (by Martin Gayford), visiting the Royal West of England Academy Open Exhibition and having to choose a piece of art for

I quite often go to the studio and feel… well flat and at a loss.  But one of the best pieces of advice I ever got (from an older artist), was that you have to keep on keeping on.  Even if it’s rubbish, even if it’s not ‘good’, even if you don’t feel like it.

I have long felt that two threads of my life- art making, and action taking around environmental issues (albeit low key), have been separate, compartmentalised.   I recently attended a symposium on art and environmental and climate change at The Burton at Bideford in Devon.  It was based around the work of Bristol printmaker and

As an illustration student and then a printmaker, I’ve almost always been surrounded by good draughts-people, and some that are frankly amazing at drawing. It can be intimidating. The received wisdom during my student years (and beyond) was that drawing was the foundation of all that was good in the art world and that it

…to skate away on. So says the Joni Mitchell song, ‘River’. As a native Canadian Joni obviously thinks of rivers as frozen entities (and I love the idea of skating full pelt through a snowy wilderness, when I want to escape the world- my skating skills pushed aside for the moment!). But I want to

…teach. That’s the saying anyway, but I’ve never believed this. For a start comparing creating and teaching is like comparing apples and oranges- they are completely different mindsets and disciplines. Sometimes you find an artist who’s a good teacher, sometimes a good teacher who’s creative in what they do. Very rarely, you come across someone

I’m a big advocate for DIY, low-tech and home printmaking, but it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.  I’m enjoying mixing home and studio practice- not least because of all the lovely people I get to meet at my local open print studio. Most of my printmaking practice, since graduating in 2001, involved mono-printing

Poetry has always been part of my life- I vividly remember holding my breath when I read or heard certain poems, they often move me more than visual art. But this year I want to intentionally make it a regular part of my life. For me it’s one of the most emotive arts.  I’m also

Having just finished Olivia Laing’s excellent ‘A Garden Against Time’ (last month’s recommended book) and in the next breath, so to speak, visited the Van Gogh exhibition at the National Gallery, my mind is full of gardens and Edens and paradise, but also what gardens might mean to artists and gardens AS art. ‘A Garden