Linocut Workshop - Springing into Nature

Lovely morning workshop with Zoe and Clair carving and printing their lino into a beautiful bird and a leaf. Spring is definitely on its way! : ))

Zoe and Clair chose grey / blue linseed oil based ink to print their carved blocks on different coloured card. Lovely to see how the different colour backgrounds affect the colour and mood of the images.     

Next Workshop

Rubber stamp workshop @ Salt Cafe

16th May 2017

10am - 12pm

£25

Maximum 6 participants

An introductory workshop for anyone wanting to have a go at rubber-stamping and hands-on printing. The opportunity to make time and space to create your very own personalised hand carved stamp and hand stamped mini journal. 

An Artist’s Date with Adela Breton

Celebrating Easter Sunday with a walk around Bristol in the sunshine. I usually travel everywhere by bike so today I decided to slow down and just walk. I stopped and looked at things a little more closely than usual. The bees in the flowers. The ripples on the water from boats passing. Signs on buildings I’ve never seen before. Dogs walking their people! It was a quiet Sunday but I still managed to bump into a familiar face and we walked together. We walked and talked along the docks and parted as we reached the centre of town. I made my way to Bristol Museum to see their latest exhibition.

Adela Breton: Ancient Mexico in Colour

In the late 1800’s, archeological artist and adventurer, Adela Breton, travelled around Mexico with her guide Pablo Solorio making copies of the wall paintings in temples in Chichén Itzá, Teotihuacan and Acancéh. She painted the copies with watercolours which still hold their vibrancy today as the original wall paintings begin to fade over time. 

"Adela Breton always carried a sketchbook with her, giving a 'diary' of her travels. This one has sketches of landscapes, flowers and ruins of Mexico and Canada. It includes sketches made on her climb up the volcano of Iztaccihuatl, in snow and across glaciers, up to 15,000 feet above sea level - Adela Breton also carried a notebook at all times, and made notes of lectures, objects she saw in museums, and books she read." Bristol Museum

I was especially drawn to Adela’s sketchbooks of the places she visited on her travels. I have kept sketchbooks for many years and am mostly inspired to draw when I’m travelling and sitting in cafes. In the last couple of years I've been sketching antique netsuke from museums to make a collection of mini woodblock prints. Today after walking in the sunshine and looking through the sketchbooks of Adela Breton, I was eager to sit down, open my own sketchbook and take in my surroundings. The cafe where I was having lunch was the perfect spot. 

When I finished my lunch and my sketch, I walked home remembering the paragraph from Julia Cameron’s book Walking in this World.

“Walking and talking humanize my life, draw it to an ancient and comforting scale. We live as we move, a step at a time, and there is something in gentle walking that reminds me of how I must live if I am to savour this life that I have been given.” Julia Cameron

Clockwise from top left: Landscape from Adela Breton's sketchbook. Landscape from Adela Breton's sketchbook. Adela Breton's notebook of the Maya calendar. All three from Bristol Museum. A sketch I made today at Pinkman's Bakery, Bristol. 

Hot off the 8 x 5 press!

Enjoying printing on my Adana 8x 5 again. It’s been a while as the last few months I’ve spent most of my energy developing my new website. So with a new website I thought it was time to make some freshly printed business cards.

eightfivepress - woodblock letterpress linocut

Typeset with Univers lead type. Printed with grey /blue linseed oil based ink.

I printed these while listening to the wonderful Debbie Millman (designmatters) in conversation with writer and adventurer Caroline Paul. 

"Debbie Millman is a is a writer, educator, artist, brand consultant and host of the radio show Design Matters”.

Debbie interviews artists, writers, educators, designers, musicians, poets, film makers, bloggers including Seth Godin,  Alain de Botton, Eileen Myles, Tim Ferriss, Alison Bechdel, Krista Tippett, Maira Kalman, Oliver Jeffers, and many many more. 

"And remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both." — Debbie Millman