Treats at The Water Tower: Artist Residency Begins!

Recently I was lucky enough to be offered a 2 week artist residency at Fermyn Woods Water Tower. After much consideration, Ros Stoddart (The owner of the Water Tower), and I agreed on a date for me to start the residency: 4th January 2013.

The Water Tower

The Water Tower

The stunning view that greets me in the morning

I arrived here on Friday afternoon and have been making the most of the studio and the beautiful surroundings. I have been out exploring taking photographs and gathering inspiration. Its a great feeling to be submerged in an environment where I can completely indulge and get lost in the creation of the work.

The Studio

Inside the Studio

Inside the Studio

The materials I had ordered from Intaglio Printmaking Supplies appeared yesterday! I was delighted to unwrap a magnificent new roller! I just had to post a couple of snaps of it as I am thrilled with it's arrival!

Its first use will be in a project centered around themes of faith, belief, hopes and dreams, which I will complete at the end of the residency. I have just finished cutting the final lino blocks to be used in this today. More details on this project to follow shortly, so watch this space.....

Ten finished Lino blocks to build a visual language

Winter Sun and Fabric Fun

I have started experimenting with printing lino on to fabric. Using the blocks seen in my last post I decided this would be the ideal way to build large prints and still be able to store the pieces efficiently. I had also bee looking at the long thin prints, seen in the previous post, and thinking I would like that as a scarf so was intrigued to see what results I could achieve by printing on to some thin textiles. I decided to use my favorite colours to start off and really liked the different shapes, forms and movement that the material created throughout the printed pattern.

The fabric hanging in the studio after printing

 It was just before Christmas time when I printed this piece and the weather was cold and crisp with a beautiful, bright winter sun so I thought I would take advantage of this and photograph the fabric outside. People who saw me swooshing around in the fallen leaves and bushes must have thought I was crazy but I quite enjoyed myself snapping up these photos on such a gorgeous morning!

For my second fabric I used more aquatic colours as they are my mum's favorite. It served as an ideal Christmas present for her, which she was delighted with and took great pleasure in sowing off to all of her friends!

A section of the scarf in aquatic colours, made for a Christmas gift