I have been meaning to get a kind of shop on my website for the last few years.  This comes under the category 'when I get a moment', which, as all artists know, is never.  However, what lockdown means for me is that I have run out of excuses and need to get on with all those tasks that keep getting shoved to the bottom o the pile.  First on the list is the web shop.  I have spent a great deal of time trying to work out how to do this and what sort of budget I should allow.   I have come to the conclusion that I won't go for the all singing and dancing web presence, with a shop that virtually packs and send the prints for me, until I have tested the retail water.  If I do get sales on a regular basis, then I will spend the money, but if not, I will continue with the slightly clunky website I have, where it is difficult to add shipping and so on...

As a result of doing this, I have been foraging through drawers to find and photograph older prints.  It is an interesting experience and I have found a couple that I wasn't very keen on at the time I printed them.  Having sent them to rest in a  plan chest for six months to a year, I now am pleasantly surprised by one or two of them.  Most of us are our own worst critic, so it is a lesson for me that it is worth holding on to artwork for a while, it might improve with age!

I am in awe of those printmakers who keep immaculate records of what, where and how much.  I do keep records, but they are scruffy things, one up from the back of an envelope.  I am resolved to create a page for each print, detailing any sales, which galleries they might be in and so on, the kind of things that grown ups do to avoid scrabbling through drawers to find the print that you think you still have left, but you can't be absolutely certain.  In addition to this, I will tidy my studio, organise all the plan chest drawers and get my paperwork up to date.  I suspect that if I do all this, however, not a print will get made, so on second thoughts...........

This form of printmaking was developed by a group of 6 artists in Provincetown, USA in 1915.  they wanted to emulate the style of the Japanese woodblock prints, without the need for separate woodblocks. Using pine, they cut grooves into the wood to separate each colour, which was painted on and printed on to fine japans papers.
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Notable artists of the time include Blanche Lazzell, Agnes Weinrich and Bror Nordfelt,  Modern artists who use this technique include Joseph Vorgity, Lynne Huber and Kathryn Lee Smith, whose work is shown below.

I came across a post on the excellent Linocut Friends Facebook group recently.  A relative newcomer to printmaking was asking if it was okay to hand colour her black and white prints.  There was plenty of positive feedback, but one or two people felt that such a practise was not 'real' printmaking, or indeed 'cheating'!

I have met this attitude often over the years and it bothers me a little.  I believe that the most important think for any artist is to make an image that is the best that they can achieve at the time and given the circumstances.  How they get to that image is not the most important aspect, assuming that no animals or humans were harmed along the way.  

There are, and have been, some really excellent printmakers who make prints with the intention of hand colouring them.  Margaret Preston (1875 - 1963) was a well respected Australian printmaker who made some really lovely prints, and enthused future generations of aussie printmakers.  

I think it is good to be open to all ways of making prints.  We may not choose that particular path ourselves, but it is good to respect work that is made sincerely, to the best of the artist's ability, whatever the method.

Have just returned from Batsford Arboretum, where Christine Felce and I have been doing a giant lino project with members of the public of all ages.  This was lovely to do, so many people got really involved and I am sure some of them will become lino printers in the future.  the project was to highlight Batsford's role in the conservation of tree species.  They are a seed bank for the monkey puzzle tree from Chile, which is under increasing pressure in the wild.

As soon as I decided to start writing a blog, my world filled up with all sorts of things to use up my time, so its not going to happen this week - hopefully next week...

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