Tale of the Folk Tail Cat

I decided to combine my interest in folk art with something else close to my heart and this is is the result, a new three colour screen print inspired by my little ginger cat. Of course a ginger cat means there has to be orange and lots of it, but this time I've also included my newest favorite colour, buff titanium. 

A Cornucopia of Cards

This year I've been working hard to add to my collection of cards and these are some recent designs. There are more to come but hopefully no more orange, it's definitely time to try out some different colour combinations.

What's New Pussycat?

Do you like pink? Do you like Cats? And do you like Tom Jones? If so it's your lucky day because I've printed this card especially for you, yay!

I Only Have Pies for You

Do you love someone who loves pies? Me too, so I made him this card as well as a few hundred others. Once I've drawn my design, tweaked it in photoshop and printed the artwork for each colour onto acetate, the rest of the process is fairly straight forward. I usually only screen print around 100 cards at a time and then print more as and when I need them. It's a little bit easier to print two cards together onto A4 sheets of 280gsm recycled card, then use a bone folder and guillotine to fold and cut them by hand. But it still is a labour of love and not something I would recommend!

More Folk Trees and Birds

I actually drew this Folk Tree last year, it was originally only intended to be for Christmas cards but it's still one of my favorite designs, perhaps because of the patterns and symmetry or maybe because the lines look so crisp and clean. I'm always striving for perfection and working by hand means this is probably unobtainable but for now I'm happy to keep trying. I like to work as large as possible and then reduce the size of my drawings because it helps makes the lines look smoother. This Folk Tree is A4 but the birds are both actually A5 and when reduced the lines became very fine so I'm amazed at how well they screen printed. 

I was hoping to print an edition of these Folk Trees on 300gsm soft white Somerset Satin printmaking paper. Unfortunately when I went to buy more paper from Cass Arts in London they had almost doubled the price of Somerset Satin from £3.50 to £6.50 which seems a bit excessive. I've printed some of the edition on Fabriano paper and the rest will have to wait until I've found some reasonably price Somerset Satin.

Hello Spring!

It seems like we've been waiting months for spring to arrive but it looks like it's finally here, just in time for summer! I'd almost forgotten what sunshine and warmth were like. It's so nice not to be cold all the time and it's great to see leaves on trees and flowers in gardens. Inspired by this I've drawn and screen printed two new card designs for spring, Hello Flower and Cluck Cluck. I love orange and yellow at the moment though probably should use other colours for a change so will be making an effort to try something different in future.

Obviously I like drawing flowers, birds and animals, but if I had time I would definitely draw more bees. They might look cute and furry but these little insects are also very important so it's worrying that they are under threat and that their numbers are declining. Because bees pollinate plants we are dependent on them for many basic things we need to survive, not just fruit and vegetables but also cotton for clothing. Apparently Albert Einstein even said 'If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.'