Borrowby Show Craft Market

Oil Paintings

Oil and acrylic paintings

Spray paintings

Drawings

Screen printed tote bags

Its that time of the year again when all of the local villages in my home town start having their annual horticultural and agricultural shows and tomorrow (29th July) marks Borrowby's 66th. The show is composed of a huge variety of competitions such as horse jumping, dog shows, art and crafts, photography, flower arrangement and home baking. Along side that there is always a bunch of stalls selling their wares from sweets to garden furniture, hook a duck to football shootouts. This year is the first they will be holding an arts and crafts tent for people to rent a plot and sell what they have to offer, and I will be one of those. Above is a selection of what I have to offer and hopefully some will sell. I have plenty of things; drawings, paintings, prints and bags so there should be something that interests everyone. If you are free on the 29th July or are already on planning on coming to the show be sure to come check out my work, it would be much appreciated! Lets just pray the weather brightens so that it's an enjoyable day for all!

Tenderfoot Exhibition

Between the 15th and 20th July ten Chesterfield College alumni came together to exhibit a collection of their recent works at APG Works in Sheffield. All exhibitors are now practicing in their own disciplines which provided for an amazing selection of diverse work ranging from ceramics to painting, print to textiles and performance to photography. The opening night was great fun and was packed with people eager to enjoy some art and have a few drinks amongst friends. I managed to get a few photos, unfortunately not of everyones work, but I thought I'd share them all the same. Sorry about the photo quality, I forgot to clean my camera, doh!

Amy Hodkin

Laura Jayne Hodkin

Belinda Ayres

Lena Peters

Jessica Heywood

Johanna Wragg

Jayne Dent

I loved the exhibition and really enjoyed the opening evening. The gallery is a perfect size and ideal for holding a small collective exhibition. Experiencing an exhibition like that, which is ran and curated by artists of a similar age to me has made me want to do something like it in Leeds. I am keen to get something similar going myself and will look for an exhibition/ gallery spaces to do it with my peers in the hopes of gaining some valuable experience. Overall it was a fantastic exhibition, well done everyone!

Daily Drawing Update - Week Eight

I'm back! for those of you who don't know the past couple of weeks have been very busy for me with moving into my new house, but now the move is complete! Last week all my arty things were boxed up so I was unable to get my daily drawings done, I hope you can let me off? Anyway, my belongings are all unpacked and stored snug in my new, small room which is great as I can now create things again! I also had a short but sweet visit home and found a 'draw 50 animals' book on my old shelf so I decided to draw some of the animals from it, I hope you like them!

#50 - Turtle.

#51 - Otter.

#52 - Otter.

#53 - Pelican.

#54 - Dolphin.

#55 - Lion.

#56 - Gorilla.

Art Journal Review - Crafts

Crafts - The magazine for contemporary craft is a bi-monthly magazine focussing on providing a mix of news, reviews and writings published by the Crafts Council. Crafts desires to be a place where people can make, see, collect and learn about contemporary craft with the belief that it plays a vital role in the society, economy and culture of the UK.

While flicking through the magazine I came across an article called Labour of Love by Stephen Knott that discusses the importance of amateur craft within society against capitalism. He uses an anecdote from the novel Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec to explain how amateur craft is often criticised and compared to professional craft. This is something I believe happens very frequently, especially being in an art college where peoples disciplines are often compared against each other. What drew me to the article though was the accompanying Illustrations by Sophia Martineck, I really liked the style of her work - I can see similarities in style to Grayson Perry's The Vanity of Small Differences. If you would like to know more about the magazine click here for the website and if you would like to see more of Sophia Martineck's work click here.

Finished Screen Printed Tote bags!

After posting my designs a week ago I received lots of positive response which made me really excited to do some screen printing. I managed to spare an afternoon to get into the print room and make my bags and they have turned out just how I imagined them (I did have a huge amount of help from someone, Thanks Amy!!) After exposing my designs on a large screen, it was just a case of printing away to my hearts content and the whole process was surprisingly easy. I have to admit I was slightly scared and intimidated about screen printing as I hadn't done much of it before, but now that Amy has gone through it with me I have become more relaxed about using the facilities. Previously it was a daunting experience for me in the print room as it is usually full of people who are confident in what they are doing, but doing this small project has given me some inner courage. As it is summer, the rooms are empty which means that it is the perfect time to practice and gain as much confidence as possible before starting second year.

Anyway, now that I have them all finished they are ready for sale. I have packaged and labeled each one in cellophane wrap for protection and to make them look a little more professional. I will be selling them on my stall at Borrowby Show on the 29th July along with other things like drawings and paintings so if you are interested then please come along. If you can't attend Borrowby show then feel free to send me a message if you are interested and I will sort something out for you!

Screen Printing Designs

Summer seems to be the time to gain as many skills in the arts as possible with all the 'free' time available. As College is pretty empty with all the missing students it means I can go in and use the facilities without being scared or intimidated by the mass of other students. I have already got better at photoshop, I'm learning some photography and I've utilised the computer rooms. Now I just want to get better at Screen Printing. I need to remember I am in the painting and printmaking strand and I don't want to leave Uni having never done any! To give me a reason to do it and to give what I print a use, I have decided to design some canvas tote bags so that I can practice and make some money from it (in theory anyway!).

I have produces five designs; a dog, a turtle, a parrot, a rabbit and a chicken (just in case you couldn't tell from the drawings haha!). I planned to only make the three most popular into actual printed products so I used Instagram and Facebook to create a poll/ voting system to get a consensus. The dog, chicken and rabbit were the most popular, therefore they are the three designs I will print onto the bags, which I am happy about as they were my favourites too! The next step is to go into the print room and get them made. Hopefully within the next few weeks I can make a start so keep an eye out for when I post the finished bags! 

University Of Leeds Degree Show

Unfortunately I didn't manage to attend the opening night of the University of Leeds Degree Show because I had had such a busy day I was so tired! (I know, excuses excuses, I don't normally cop out so I really must of been tired, please let me off?). I did however get to have a flying visit the day after but because of an open day I didn't stay long. I lost count of how many times student ambassadors asked what subject I was there to see - at least I know they take their jobs seriously. Just like the other degree shows it was packed with all kinds of art in a range of different disciplines so there was something for everyone. Here are some of the ones that caught my eye...

Kate Mottershaw

Georgina May Birch

Jessica Bennett

Megan Smithson

Xiaofan LIU

Olivia June Bambrough

Laura Wend

Emma Webb

I only managed to look around one building (there was three) but I enjoyed what I saw. My favourite was Emma Webb's 'Chance' drawings using gunpowder and thermal-reactive paper. I loved the accompanying video performance as It gave more context to the large centre piece. I really like the idea that the drawing will change over time due to the oxidisation happening with the chemicals of the burnt gunpowder. I also enjoyed looking at the paintings by Georgina May Birch and the drawings by Laura Wend as they were well made and presented. Overall it was a good show and hopefully next year I will make it to the opening night!