Artist journal 1.5.22

I read recently about someone who did their newsletter in seasons, like a TV show, writing every week and then having a break of a few weeks. I think thats the way its going to be here; not intentionally, I had things I wanted to write about; the swallows have returned, first one, cold and lonely, and a week later, a chattering in the stables announcing the safe arrival of the rest; the tadpoles are growing legs, and I have been busy on the art front. There is news, but its also been the holidays, and a quite protracted holidays because my husband and my son are out of synch and I have been without my usual routines for five weeks. Its been lovely, but also hard to keep up with everything that needs doing, so the newsletter just sort of fell to the bottom of my priorities, sorry. Hello to you new subscribers though, I’m not usually this bad.

On instagram, there are often motivational challenges with prompts, and I’m sure you’re going to be very shocked giving my amazing ability to maintain regular posts no matter what, but I have never completed a single one. Things like march meet the maker and inktober encourage you to post everyday for a month. I do not have the stamina to post everyday for a month; I’ve tried several times but it’s too much work, and the popularity of these tags leads to the dreaded spam which isn’t very fun. Block party (with Gina, ridgeandroots) asks for five printing blocks in five weeks, though, so  I joined because it sounded a lot more manageable.  Let me assure you it is NOT.

The process of carving and printing a block usually takes me a lot longer than a week, because I usually dither several weeks on the design and sketches. Then I trace it meticulously on lino, spend a very long time carving it and need several days to prepare the paper, proof and print, so it may come as a surprise that I have not yet failed on block party yet and I am now on week four with four prints despite going to Devon, and having people to stay, and having many adventures. I am chuffed to bits.

I think one of the reasons we do challenges is because we learn more about our practice and ourselves, when we face adversity, even mild adversity like time pressure. I started optimistically with a usual multi block print, but quickly changed tack to a single colour. To save time, all the subjects are familiar to me, and so already in my sketchbooks in some form or another (the mandrake is a painting, you might recognise it) and I’m really pleased that I finally got round to making them all into prints. I also improved my carving skills quite a lot.

The mushroom is red because to get it done I had to bribe my son with lino and he made a crab, which he insisted needed to be printed in red, not black, so that was the colour I was using that day.

All the prints are listed on Etsy, except the swifts, which are waiting on paper, and need to dry a bit.

For my final block (and I really, Really hope I get it done) i intend to do a very small hare. It’s a bank holiday, though, so I better get on with that. Take care,

Dx