Little surprises ...

I've selected some delectable little morsels of print

 carefully packed and prettily wrapped

 ready to add to each and every order 

from my Folksy and Etsy shops 

between now and 23rd December. 

Because we all like surprises don't we* :-)

And don't forget there is FREE UK shipping in both shops for orders over £60.00.

(have a peek at my @a_deegan twitter timeline if you must

but note these surprises are random and varied!)

Upcoming event - The Art Market - Saturday 29th (eve) & Sunday 30th (day) November

I will have a stand at this event on Weekend Two. 

Do come by and say hello!

The Art Market

Holmfirth Indoor Market, West Yorkshire

www.artmarkets.co.uk

Weekend One:

Saturday 22^nd November – buying evening & art auction – 8pm -10pm

Sunday 23^rd November – main show - 10am – 4pm

Weekend Two:

Saturday 29^th November – buying evening & art auction – 8pm -10pm

Sunday 30^th November – main show - 10am – 4pm

Different artists each weekend.

£2 entry on the door – free entry for children under 14 accompanied by an adult.

end of #printoctober giveaway

Friday's print goes to

@MelanieWickham

thanks to everyone who retweeted :-)


Finally Friday's little print ... on gampi tissue and mounted on a slither of pacific driftwood.

Like this print the rules are simple, either hit the tweet button at the bottom of this post or, if you landed here from twitter, just retweet the original tweet. All entrants from Monday- Wednesday will be added to the Thursday pot but tweet again and I'll give you an extra chance !

Thursday's print goes to

@lp_lisa

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Thursday's little print has a silvery moon.

Thursday - Winter Moon #3 lightly embossed lino print on heavy white Somerset paper with silvery moon

Like this print the rules are simple, either hit the tweet button at the bottom of this post or, if you landed here from twitter, just retweet the original tweet. All entrants from Monday- Wednesday will be added to the Thursday pot but tweet again and I'll give you an extra chance !

Wednesday's print goes to @myblueshed 

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Wednesday's little print is on my all time favourite paper - Somerset Black.

Wednesday- Winter Moon #4 lightly embossed lino print on heavy black Somerset paper with silver accents

 
Like this print the rules are simple, either hit the tweet button at the bottom of this post or, if you landed here from twitter, just retweet the original tweet. All entrants from Monday & Tuesday will be added to the Wednesady pot but tweet again and I'll give you an extra chance !

Tuesday's print goes to  @laanduk .

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Tuesday's little print ...

TUESDAY - Winter Moon #2 lightly embossed lino print on heavy buff Somerset paper

Monday's print goes to @madeinbradley . All entrants from Monday will be added to the Tuesday pot but tweet again and I'll give you an extra chance !

PS I'm also happy to post overseas :-)

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MONDAY - Winter Moon #1 lightly embossed lino print on heavy white Somerset paper

To round off the month of October and in particular contributions to the hashtag #PRINTOCTOBER over on twitter I am giving away one of these little prints (just 17cm long) every day this week.
 
Like this print the rules are simple, either hit the tweet button at the bottom of this post or, if you landed here from twitter, just retweet the original tweet.

Not on twitter? Just leave a message in the comments box below.

I'll post up a new version of this print each day this week and send them out into the real world the week beginning 3rd Nov (assuming I have postal address for the winners by then).

Finally please do go and take a look at all the prints posted under the #PRINTOCTOBER hashtag.

'Cutting ley on the Rhins' - new lino print

'Cutting ley on the Rhins'

This print captures a moment in time on a late summer day on the most southerly tip of Scotland. The farmer had just cut the ley and the cutters had laid it out in big fat stripes up and down the fields.Within hours the ley was hovered up and taken back to the farm and the scene had changed again.

I am fascinated by the way farming practice impacts on the colours and textures of our landscape - from the most intensive arable cultivation to the most sensitive grazing regimes.  Some changes are instantaneous and dramatic - turning pale golden stubble to rich brown clods with the turn of the plough. Others develop gradually like the fine brown till that slowly becomes the vivid green of germinating cereals. I am always thrilled to see the silvery blue of a flowering linseed crop and (for the first time this year) phacelia.

'Cutting ley on the Rhins' is a five colour lino print created from two different plates, one for the sky and road grey and the other for the yellow through to dark green. The yellow/green plate was gradually cut away so each print had to be inked and pressed four times.

'Cutting ley on the Rhins' is available to buy in my Folksy and Etsy shops. 

Phacelia

New Stockist

I am delighted to announce that Rural Arts in Thirsk are now stocking a selection of my mounted and framed lino prints in the gallery.

Click on the logo to find out more about Rural Arts and follow  @RuralArts

Upnor Dinghies

#DRAWAUGUST to #PRINTOCTOBER

#drawaugust sketch based on dinghies tied up on the River Medway at Upnor

drawing transferred to lino, one plate for the boat block colours
and the other for the timbers

Boat colours printed first

First carving of the timbers plate

Test print with markup

Block colour and 1st layer of grey for the timbers

Blog Hop

Midori Takaki has very kindly nominated me as the next leap in an around the world creative blog hop. So in this post I will attempt to answer the 4 set questions and nominate two other blog to take the hop forward (should be three but I missed out on that detail ;-)

So to the questions ...

What am I working on ?

I have print underway of a little riverside scene I observed at Upnor on the Medway in Kent (UK).

Lino marked with pencil, carved and ready for printing (after a quick clean up)

This piece started as a quick sketch for #drawaugust on twitter but I came to like the simplified forms of the dinghies and their uncharacteristic vertical stance and thought to develop it further with colour.

#drawingaugust day 19 notebook pen sketch of dinghies stored at Upnor 

I am planning two different colourways - traditional nautical blues and the other in perhaps orange and reds. There are two separate blocks, one for the colours and the others for grey tones which will cut into twice to bring out the detail of the timber work. I love these types of weathered marine structures and they have featured in some my previous prints including Blue House at Shellness and Morston Quay.

Blue House at Shellness - two plate (one reduced) lino print

Morston Quay - Two plate lino print

How does my work differ from others of its genre ?
Erm, what a tricky question! For me my work is different because it is the work I made. I know and have been in the landscapes I depict. I know or have made up the stories I tell. And I know very intimately the piece of lino that I have chipped and flicked and carved away and the ink I have rolled and blended and pressed. So of course my work feels very different to me than anybody else's, don't we all feel that way?

Little bird houses mounted on timber piles at the edge of the sea in Cowichan Bay, Vancouver Island

Why do I write/create what I do ?

I love the physicality of printing, the carving, the rolling out the ink and the winding of the press. The processes involved are diverse enough to keep my interest. And above all I get a little thrill from seeing twenty or so multiples of a design laid out in front of me at the end of a long evening with ink and press.

Thornborough Henges

How does my creative process work ?

For me printmaking is about capturing a glancing encounter or a moment in a landscape through sketching and design, tracing and carving, blending colours and inking and finally pressing. My approach is organic and flexible. I rarely begin with a fixed idea of the outcome and I often edit and re-work right through to the end.

I take photos, mostly bad ones, constantly when I am out walking, cycling or exploring. Sometimes a particular scene or setting will grab my attention there and then. Others times its only when I have mulled over the photos and perhaps done a little background research that an idea begins to formulate. Some prints come to fruition in weeks, others have taken months or years! 

AND now I have the pleasure of  passing the baton on to my nominees Cinzia Bacilieri and Murgatroyd Hoots.

Murgatroyd Hoots is a blog I have followed for a few years and I am always cheered to see Kathleen's quirky textile creations popping up in my reading list. This blog is such a wonderful melange of story-telling and colour strung together with thread and wrapped in a coat of the most beautiful vintage fabrics. A lovely world to dip into when the real one feels a bit bleugh! 

Vulpini (c) Murgatroyd Hoots

Cinzia Bacilieri is rare amongst the bloggers I follow in that I know her in real life too. We worked together quite a few years ago on a project to map the archaeological remains of coastal Yorkshire from air photographs. Besides being a air photo interpreter, archaeologist, lecturer in her native Italian and History of Art she is also a painter. Oh, and she speaks Korean too. Pop over to her blog to see just how her journey into the Korean language and culture has come together with her art work.

 Aura painting (c)  Cinzia Bacilieri

And do hop back and take a look at Midori's blog, apart from having two of the most covetable dogs on the internet she creates ceramic figures with the most serene and graceful faces and a whole menagerie of witty beasts.

(c) Midori Takaki