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Exhibition: Perthshire Creates Designers and Makers

My latest series of monochrome linoprints will be on display in this group exhibition at Perth Museum & Art Gallery. Work from over twenty creatives represents the contemporary nature of artwork currently being inspired and developed within Perthshire.
The series of linoprints is based on the museum’s collection of photos of lost buildings of Perth. The atmosphere and the old traditional architectural details captured in these images appeal to me and I have translated the mood in these old photographs through the medium of linocutting, applying my style of transforming through condensing and accentuating.

Old Post Office High Street, Perth
linoprint, 21 x 30 cm. 2016

 The exhibition runs from 6-23 October 2016, entry is free.

Perthshire Open Studios 2016

The exhibition of artwork and crafts in Spittalfield, Perth & Kinross was a resounding success. In early September our group SEVEN welcomed over 400 visitors to the charming village hall. Paintings, linoprints, bronze sculptures, ceramics, hand turned wooden bowls, pebble/driftwood pictures and fragrant organic beauty products garnered admiring comments, sales were made and commissions placed. We put a lot of time and energy into this event - interesting conversations and the satisfied faces of our visitors made it all worthwhile.

Painting: oil

Another one of my paintings prepared for Perthshire Open Studios 2016. It is a still life, called Candlelight Dinner. I don't place items for a still life in front of me when I paint, I remember or invent them and arrange them so that they tell a story. The viewer is invited to find their own stories when looking at the image.

Candlelight Dinner. Oil on canvasboard. 2016

Printmaking: linoprint

I'm working on a series of linoprints for Perth and Kinross Creates, a group exhibition at Perth Museum and Art Gallery in October 2016. 
Artists were asked to submit proposals for work they wanted to show, preferably work based on the museum's collections. I decided to take a look at a series of photographs featuring Lost buildings of Perth, pictures of long demolished houses, taken between the 1880s and 1930s.
Apart from liking the traditional architecture of these buildings I am interested in how it would be possible to translate the often desolate mood in these images into linoprints with a similar feel.
To prepare I went to study the framed photographs at the museum, took my own pictures and made detailed sketches. Here is a page from my sketchbook:

The first finished linoprint shows the General Post Office at the corner of Tay Street/High Street in Perth, after a photograph from before 1891. 

Post Office on Tay Street. Linoprint, 2016.  30 x 21 cm

I've used clouds, shadows and a distorted perspective to add something morbid to this image of a classical public building.

Studio materials

These are all the erasers I could find in my studio. Some of them are really ancient. Usually I just use the ones nearest to hand, and quite often I notice that they don't do their job well. 

Jackson's Art Materials have just published a blog post that explains everything about erasers, the different kinds and what materials they work best on. Take a look here.

Printmaking workshop

Are you interested in learning how to create linoprints? 

I'm holding the next workshop in my studio in Kettins / Coupar Angus

Tuesday, June 28, 11am - 3pm. 

You'll learn how to prepare the linoplate, develop a design in black and white, carve the image and print it. Cost: £35, including materials and refreshments, plus a comprehensive hand-out containing step-by-step instructions, tips and tricks and a list of suppliers.

To book a place please contact me before June 26 on cwdesign2@btinternet.com.