Monday 14 December 2015

End of the year speech....

Well, the gap between blog posts has grown bigger. Very sorry about that. There is a reason, though, explained below;

Before this, though I'd like to thank everyone who has supported me this year. It has been a crazy twelve months, with exciting exhibitions, commissions, events and more. It means a lot to me to hear that people appreciate my work, and I'm truly grateful that I'm able to do this for a living. So yes, a big THANKS to you all, and a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!





LANDSCAPE ARTIST OF THE YEAR 2015

 As I mentioned in my last post, I have taken part in the Sky Arts 'Landscape Artist Of The Year 2015' TV series. I actually did a little better than I expected, winning my heat, and getting to the semi-final (but sadly not making the final). This was an awful lot of fun, and a great experience, and since the series has been aired, things have been very busy indeed (far more than I had expected!).

I have written an article for the Folksy blog on my experience, and you can read it here. I also decided to create an edition of the print I produced during the semi-final, a view across the Thames, of the city of London. Some copies of it are available in my Folksy shop.






 






















COUNTRY LIVING MAGAZINE FEATURE
Country Living magazine run a feature every so often about artists and their studios, and for their January 2016 issue they wanted to feature me (which was nice!). The article explores my studio set-up and my interest in landscape and wildlife as subjects for my work. The magazine is available now.

 



 



































'HOW TO PAINT A PORTRAIT' BOOK
Sky Arts have published another book related to the 'Portrait Artist Of The Year' series (which I took part in, in 2013) entitled 'How To Paint A Portrait', and they have chosen twelve artists from the two series to focus on, showing readers how they create their portrait images. Now, I'm not a painter, so a little out on a limb here, but they asked me to demonstrate how I do this with lino. In the book, I chose to create a print of my eight-year-old son Henry, and they document the process along the way. It is a great book, and fascinating to see how different the approach is for the other artists. 































WORKSHOPS
I've had a lot of demand for my workshops of late, so I've arranged a new date for an 'Introduction To Linocut' one, on Sat 20th February 2016, at The Art House, Backfields, Sheffield. Places are £40 each, and all materials are provided. If you are interested in a place (there are 8 available), please email me on jgprintworks@hotmail.com