21st Century Farmer Exhibition at Unit Twelve Gallery

  

Somehow Jennifer Collier managed to fit all my folk tree screen prints into her gallery, Unit Twelve, for the 21st Century Farmer exhibition. She even squeezed in a few of my 3d card folk trees. It's great to finally see everything together and so beautifully displayed. The little details like farmyard toys perched on frames and Duplo blocks with name labels make it all the more special. Added to which it's also a really well curated group show and I'm very lucky to be included with so many talented designer makers. One of them is Melanie Tomlinson, many years ago we were on the same degree course at BCU and both of us stayed to do an MA in Visual Communication.

21st Century Farmer is on at Unit Twelve from 5th Sept until 30th Nov 2013
Unit Twelve Gallery
Tixall Heath Farm
Stafford
ST18 0XX
www.unittwelve.co.uk
Gallery Opening Times
Thursday - Saturday
10.00 - 4.00pm

21st Century Farmer

This September some of my screen prints will be in the 21st Century Farmer exhibition at Jennifer Collier's wonderful Unit Twelve Gallery in Staffordshire. I've been looking forward to this all year because I know the gallery is professionally run, my work will be well presented, taken care of and returned in good condition. The exhibitions at Unit Twelve are always beautifully curated with lots of attention to detail and they feature an exciting mix of different designer makers. They are also very well promoted, I couldn't ask for more.

It goes without saying that this has been a great excuse for me to draw more chickens, roosters and folk trees. I've finished two new screen prints just in time for the exhibition though there may not be room for them as well as all my other folk trees. I'm more than happy to leave the final selection up to the gallery and I'm excited to see how they display the work whether it is new prints or favorites like these from last year...

Girls Who Draw present Masquerade

Summer has been very busy because, as well working on a new series of screen prints, I have been putting together the fifth Girls Who Draw postcard book. The theme of the book is Masquerade but I left this open to interpretation so the 12 illustrators involved have all done something completely different. There are some masks but also  theatrical characters, traditional costumes, animals in disguise and even camouflaged insects. 

Initially I wanted to produce a series of mask designs but after seeing some vintage stamps featuring Bulgarian and Romanian costumes I decided that was what I wanted to do. My original designs are A3 but because they are quite bold they also work at A4 for screen prints and even smaller for postcards. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it is very difficult to do my own work as well as manage a group of illustrators and get a book to print. I don't get paid, I don't really know what I'm doing and it takes up alot of my time an energy. In the end it is worth the effort because I get to work with some very talented illustrators. I'm really happy Sandra Dieckmann agreed to contribute two new postcard designs for the book. But even better than that she also illustrated and designed this beautiful cover for the book.

More Bulgarian Folk Costumes

This is my favorite Bulgarian folk costume so far, I really enjoyed doing the research, drawing and printing. Working from images of actual costumes and trying to retain some authenticity pushed me to use colours and colour combinations I would have previously avoided. Printing four colours was also a challenge as I normally only use two but it wasn't as difficult as I expected and I'm happy with the results. It seemed fitting that she should have a male companion but he was more of a problem mainly because the a lot of the men's costumes are either black and cream or black and red. I try to avoid using black because to me screen printing is all about colour. After trying out a few different combinations I mixed red with a bit of purple and decided to go with that.

Bulgarian Folk Costumes

Over summer I wanted to challenge myself and push both my drawing and printmaking as well as continue to develop more folk art themed work. So I have been working on a series of new screen prints inspired by traditional Bulgarian folk costumes and also Bulgarian wooden dolls. There are many different costumes, all of them are colourful and very ornate so to begin with I found it difficult to make sense of them. Looking at the simple wooden dolls made it much easier for me to interpret the folk costumes. I was able to identify the key elements, simplify them and produce black and white artwork for four colour screen prints. Although I have already printed this design it isn't finished and as well as redrawing some parts I will probably add a fifth colour.

More Mythical Creatures

Much of this year has been taken up with creating, organising and installing the Mythical Creatures exhibition. In April the exhibition finished at Here Gallery in Bristol and then there were just a few weeks to get it ready to go to Hereford College of Arts in May. Alot of the work had sold including some originals and the exhibition space at HCA was much bigger than at Here so it meant framing more prints and in some cases even making new work. I had screen printed card mobiles to hang in the windows at Here Gallery but there were more windows to fill at HCA. It was a real challenge and quite daunting, I spent hours screen printing, folding, gluing and cutting recycled card to make sure I had enough mobiles. I also created a series of simple floral designs which were cut from vinyl to make colourful wall and window decals. It took about a day to hang the mobiles in the windows so there wasn't enough time left to install as many of the vinyl decals as I would have liked to. I also forgot how difficult it is putting decals in windows and on a hot sunny day it is especially torturous.I'm looking forward to doing more large scale installations combining screen printing and vinyl decals, but perhaps not quite as big in future.

Folk Tail Cat and Kittens

First of all I reworked my original Folk Tail Cat drawing, rescanned the artwork, reprinted the acetates and then at last was able to print an edition of the finished design. Next came a litter of kittens, actually just mini versions of the Folk Tail Cat on A4 Fabriano paper. Some of the kittens have already been packed and posted to shops so I hope they find new homes soon.