Bloom and Grow

Every summer I run a summer school for Horsley Printmakers. This is probably my favourite printmaking teaching of the year as the luxury of 4 days really allows the students to achieve a huge amount of work and explore many techniques. This summer's course is called Bloom and Grow and runs from 9th - 12th August.  There are still 2 places left so if you are interested CLICK HERE for a link to Horsley Printmakers site. Meanwhile here are some images from my sketchbooks on a loosely floral theme.  However hard I try in my drawing styles I always refer back to surface pattern techniques ( my degree was in International Textiles and Surface Pattern) and these paintings and drawings look as though they are a starting point for something else - fashion or interior prints maybe.

Red

I've been going through a red phase....

Towards Abstraction

Printmaking brings out a completely different side to my artistic output. With rollers and brushes in hand I love to make gestural and instinctive marks. These monotypes are abstract but are also based loosely on two themes.  The  warm palette relates to an obsession with taking photographs of weather damage on boats and the cooler blue tones refer to research into traditional japanese architecture. I'll photograph some pages of the sketchbook to which the images relate soon and post them up.

Precious Memories

I am still taking bookings for  "Precious Memories" on Sunday July 8th. In the last few years this has proved to be my most popular course. This is  probably because participants can bring things which have a personal resonance for them and learn to collage them into a resolved piece which they can treasure. There is more information about the course on my web site CLICK HERE for more details and if you want to book then please contact me through the web site contacts box.

Les glaneuses

An attempt to work into an old piece of needlepoint, not sure it works really...

Alice Pattullo, Illustrator and Printmaker

Check out today's ( May 29th 2012)  Spitalfields Life for a feature on my talented daughter. Click HERE for a link.

I have had a wonderful day going by Rigid Inflatable Boat to the Isle of May out in the Firth of Forth. Blue skies and wonderful bird life to be seen there and on Bass Rock. Puffins are cute but I think guillemots and gannets have a bit more style!

I was completely taken with a story I extracted  from our female skipper about events at this very old lighthouse. There is always a story! The lighthouse was built in 1603. In 1791 George Anderson, the lighthouse keeper and his wife and eight children were living there. On January 23 1791 a great storm hit the area. The family went to bed as usual but the coal brazier at some point in the night was extinguished and the family all died from carbon monoxide poisoning. The next day, a Monday, people on the main land noticed the beacon had gone out but due to the storm no one could reach the island till the Wednesday. Rescuers found the perished family but nestled under the covers, barely alive and still at her mother's breast was baby Lucy Anderson. She was brought back to the mainland and eventually married one of her rescuers and emigrated to America.

On the way back we stopped to see some sculptures which I have been longing to see for some time. They commemorate the East Coast fishing disaster of 1881 and are by artist Jill Watson.