New year, new project beginnings…

I decided at the end of 2024 to allocate some time in the new year to work on drawing, printing, developmental work and research. Its always tempting to dive straight into making with clay at the start of the year (the compulsion is always there!), but some time to experiment, draw and gather ideas is important. Without any fixed outcome or commercial objective; this is pretty crucial I think as a creative person. The development process itself is a big part of my practice, and it doesn’t always have to be about making finished pieces.

I’m also going to reflect a little on the last years work, and have put a loose plan together for my professional practice as I like to do at intervals. It was a successful year in parts for selling pieces, mainly from the studio, and I hope to build on this in 2025. Having a small exhibition and selling space has been fantastic and an unexpected outcome from setting up the new studio (nearly two years ago!) The galleries I’ve shown with have been very supportive and I’m keen to find some new spaces to work with too.

Last summer I took a Relief Printing 2 day workshop at Edinburgh Printmakers- I learnt so much from printmaker Sally Mairs. The intensive workshop was so rewarding. I’ve dabbled a little with basic relief printing over the years, and took a year of printmaking during my degree, but wanted to improve my skills. Its always good to keep learning…essential really…It keeps your creative practice moving forwards and refreshed. Its also beneficial for when I’m teaching my students to have a reminder of what its like to be a learner.

So as a starting point for the new year, I’ve been revisiting lino printing in the last couple of weeks, using images I took a while ago at the Royal Museum of Scotland- taxidermied chickens. This is partly as it feeds into my previous project looking at farm animals, and partly as they have some visual qualities that lend themselves to creating marks/practicing skills.

So these are the first experiments. Obviously there’s room for improvement/development especially in terms of printing, but I’m not too concerned with making resolved prints at this stage- its more about figuring out the process and of course just enjoying it. I’m printing by hand rather than with a press. Will test out different inks, paper etc as well as thinking about layering up images. Some of these incorporate layers from other drawing materials such as pens and drawing ink.

Headed back to the museum earlier to get another look at the taxidermy collections…so lucky to have this great (and free!) resource in Edinburgh.