I spend alot of my time designing and printing greetings cards so the range is gradually increasing and sometimes takes over my life. There are boxes of cards and coloured envelopes stacked up in my house and the living room floor is littered with cello bags. Despite this I still enjoy making cards and these are just a few of my favorite designs, or at least the ones I'm not sick of printing, yet.
The 'Love Birds' design was originally part of the Folk Art series of silk screen prints but it was also perfect for Valentine's Day and weddings so I printed a selection of cards in different colourways.
Following the 'Contemporary Printmakers Exhibition' I was invited to take part in the first ever 'Nothing But Navy ' Pop-Up Shop. The shop opened in Stroud, Gloucestershire, during December and was just in time for Christmas. As you can see I spent alot of time screen printing a range of Navy Blue products including mini prints and greetings cards. I also tried my hand at fabric printing and printed my first tote bags and tea towels, hard work but a good learning experience. I don't think it would have otherwise occurred to me to print my designs in Navy Blue so I'm really happy to have been involved in the project.
As well as screen prints I also created a range of Folk Art inspired greetings cards. Because the designs are so detailed the cards are difficult to print and making them is a real labour of love. But I think it has been worth the effort, the Folk Tree designs have been particularly popular and they are now in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park shop, just below Rob Ryan's cards!
Last year I produced a new series of Folk Art inspired designs especially for the 'Contemporary Printmakers Exhibition' at Shirehall Gallery in Stafford. Over the summer I spent several weeks studying and sketching from examples of Polish Folk Art before beginning work on the finished designs in September. The series originally consisted of five different silk screen prints including the three shown here. 'Folk Dancing Girls', 'Folk Tree and Birds' and 'Folk Tree and Roosters' are all limited edition two colour screen prints on 240gsm watercolour paper.
