Christmas cards

Hi everyone, I 've been on a long walk; but more of that in my next blog. This is about my lino cut designs for Christmas cards that were accepted by the RSPB and are now on sale in their shops and available in their catalogue. It was all by accident as well. Someone who has bought several of my prints turned out to work on products for the RSPB; she saw my card designs last year and asked to take samples to show her boss. Here are the two designs they accepted and printed in gold and red.

Here they are in the catalogue - I still can't quite believe this has happened; it's exciting....apparently I am now a freelance artist!!!!

I called them Snowy trees and Winter trees, the RSPB renamed them Winter silhouette, as you can see.

 I have recently submitted some designs to be considered for 2012; they work a long way ahead.





Artist's book course

I went on a great 2 day course last week with Gillian Hand  http://www.gillianhand.com/ at Art van Go in Knebworth. Gillian lives in Oz and has been over here for a few months sharing her book making skills.

Work in progress on a concertina book made with origami paper.

The finished book  (I will probably add some decoration to the covers), it was fun to make.

This flag book has a lovely sculptural look to it. On the 2nd day we tackled this one....

I used part of one of my prints as the cover with off cuts of somerset velvet paper as the pages.

 I love the spine of this book. It was tricky to make as my paper was really thick.

This one took most of the morning and I think we were all worn out!! However the final book was fun. We made the hard cover with a spine and stitched in 3 folios (a group of pages) using a linen thread with 2 needles to make the rope pattern down the spine.

Again I used a not so good lino print for the cover with some hand made paper pages. This was my first time at book making and took lots of concentration; so two tiring but enjoyable, successful days.

Herts Open Studios

Last week I was getting ready for my open studio weekend with Herts Open Studios event, which takes place from September 10 to October 2nd. I was also baby sitting for my cute grandson, Barney, who decided to lend a helping hand.....

He delved into my box of paperwork waiting to be shredded.....

...........just checking a bill!!.......

.................what fun he had playing with a pile of paper, he brings lots of joy to my life.... and how great to be 15 months!!