Is it too late to wish you Happy New Year? …we are only a third into January…..

The UK is grey, damp cold and in lockdown. But everyday I count my blessings and consider myself so very lucky. I have my family, a warm apartment, a chilly studio and my work to keep me distracted from the world. In addition I have you guys! Thanks for hanging about with me.. hopefully in 2021 I can take you up o those offers of coffee and cake!

Last year was so odd wasn’t it? Of course you know that….you were there too! But I’m grateful to those of you who sailed that raft with me. I hope 2021 brings better world news, and we can get our lives back to a semblance of normality… whatever that will be!

Apart from the project I’m doing for my MA most of my own creative juices have gone into making workshops, I feel I have uploaded my head! I’ve learnt a lot more in the process and made so many new friends worldwide.

Its been a joy to start the year creating collagraphs. People often think of printmaking as a ‘static’ form of creativity, a fixed design or illustration. But for me it’s a journey into the unexpected. That “aha!” moment when you pull the paper off the plate still now, 35 years of printmaking later, fills me with joy and excitement. I think it helps that I have the same approach to printmaking as I do to painting…. It’s a ‘call and response’ approach, responding to the media, responding to what it is doing, what I can do to adjust and refine.

I no longer make editions, I prefer to treat each plate as a ’painting’ and each print as a surface to respond to. That way I am free to add to a print with more layers, mixed plates up, play and explore. The prints often end up as the starting points for painting, both in terms of ideas and physically glued to a panel and worked on with oil paint! I know when I go back to painting after a spell of printmaking my paintings are more informed, ideas have germinated and compositions explored that make my paintings richer for the experience.

Of course, when I teach collagraphy and drypoint printmaking I don’t expect students to create work like mine, or to have the same reckless and experimental approach. I teach how to create prints using a wide variety of techniques and concepts so that students can find their own path, create their own work.

The response to my Discover Collagraphy workshop has been amazing and its fabulous to feel so many of you have started your journey into printmaking with me. Its not an easy subject to teach remotely. I cannot see what you see when you pull that paper off your plate but I’ve made the course as comprehensive as possible, as a result what started as a 1-2 hours content actually ended up nearly 4 hours as result!

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Nd you don’t need an expensive etching press! I’ve been using die cutting machines as ‘etching presses’ for the last couple of years and its fantastic to think intaglio printmaking is now accessible to all at home. I put a video together about them and you can watch that HERE

The next stage course Make Plates Make Prints starts on the 23^rd January and I’m having a ball in my studio creating plates and exploring possible avenues to share with students. As seems the Hirst way, there is way more content than anyone can complete in a 4 week course but its there for lifetime access….and with lockdown extending into March it will keep many folk busy into the Spring!

So……I’m heading back to my studio to tidy up from yesterday and get ready for another week of joyful experimentation! #piginshit

Abrazos

Sally