Summer is nearly over and it's been a hectic one this year.
I've had a really great time working and exhibiting. Folk in the Forest in Sheffield was a great weekend despite the weather and The Pop up Shop at the Winter Gardens in Sheffield was an especially nice experience exhibiting alongside my fellow Octo Works group members, a small group of eight makers who have joined together to take part and support each other with exhibitions and events.
Now the dust is settling a little I'm concentrating on Christmas orders for galleries and starting to develop new plates for my printed book covers and notebooks working along the theme of English hedgerows with intertwining thistles, nettles and grasses, elements that are featuring a lot in my recent collagraph prints. I have been developing the ideas in my sketchbook and am really looking forward to getting back into the studio to make the plates and start proofing the images. I really want the covers to be like mini prints that you can carry around with you and hopefully inspire people to open the covers of their sketchbooks and get creating.
We've been lucky to have Nigella an old cottage garden favourite growing in our garden this year, its self seeded itself from a neighbours garden as we haven't planted it but the seed heads that follow the flowers are beautiful and have made perfect sketching specimens. I've collected seed so hopefully we will be able to enjoy them again next year.
