I count myself as fortunate to live in a beautiful, uncrowded part of the country, already set up for working from home, but this year has certainly been difficult and challenging for us all. And now we are heading into winter! 

November is not my favourite month. As the days grow shorter, more cold, wet and dark, I become gloomier! So for enjoyment, fun, distraction and to make life for my family more bearable, I have decided to challenge myself to make 30 different original prints in 30 days, from 1^st – 30^th November.

I will be working with a range of subjects and in a variety of printmaking techniques, some tried and tested but I also hope to use this as a chance to experiment. I will probably be taking inspiration from things close at hand, since at present we are again being asked to stay at home. I’m aiming to make work that is positive in feel and I hope to bring a bit of cheer to others too in these dark days.

An image of each work produced will be emailed to my mailing list by the following day and I will also post on Instagram/Facebook and at regular intervals, on my website too. Those on my mailing list will get first view; Instagram/Facebook posts will be later, after 5pm. I’ll share the back story and also something of the process of making each print.

Would you like to be included in the daily emails? If so, please use the website contact form and I will be happy to add you to the mailing list for this project. I will include all names on the mailing list by the end of November in a draw for a free original print.

The prints will be for sale and I will be donating 25% of the proceeds to Cancer Research UK.

Other ways to follow this project are through my Instagram page @ruththomasart and Facebook page Ruth Thomas.

I hope people will find it interesting to see how this project unfolds. I’m excited and actually now looking forward to November!

I’m so pleased to be included in the 40th Mini Print International exhibition in Cadaqués, Spain. With so many exhibitions and events cancelled this year from necessity, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s very exciting to have some work on display again! Well done and many thanks to the organisers for continuing with this show despite the problems they must have encountered this year.
Exhibition dates: 27th June – 30th September 2020 in Cadaqués and then the exhibition tours to other venues in Spain and France.

All the prints on exhibition are 10 x 10cm or less.

Taller Galeria Fort
Carrer Hort d'en Sanés, 9, 17488 Cadaqués, Girona, Spain

miniprint.org/the-exhibition

I thoroughly enjoyed the Varnishing Day reception at the Royal Academy yesterday. Very pleased to have my print ' There are Rooks Flying, Blowing in the Wind' included in this year's Summer Exhibition - though it would be useful to have a ladder on hand! So much interesting work on show, by both well-known names and unknown artists. My work is in Room V, curated by Barbara Rae and Hughie O'Donoghue. The exhibition runs from 10th June until 12th August.
No evidence of any varnishing! This day is for the exhibitors to see the exhibition for the first time. The Service for Artists beforehand at St James's Church on Picadilly was an interesting experience too! Beautiful building inside.

Delighted to be having a solo exhibition at Editions, Liverpool. This is my fifth exhibition at the gallery but the last one was in 2012, so I’m excited to be back here. It was good to see some familiar faces and meet some new people at the opening on 4th April. The show continues until 11th May.

Double page spread with Dan Snow in today’s Daily Post! No doubt he is as excited as I am! OK, you’re right, probably not, and OK it’s not exactly ‘with’.

I am delighted to be showing recent work at Mostyn Gallery in Llandudno at present, upstairs in Gallery 6. Mostyn is a beautiful gallery. The buildings themselves are wonderful, with very high ceilings and good natural light. There is always a variety of work on display including contemporary art in the main galleries and a great selection of art and craft in the retail galleries. Thank you, Mostyn, for this opportunity.

‘Last Words’, my exhibition of sixteen original prints, opened on 6th October and will continue until 27th January 2019.

Many thanks to North Wales TV and interviewer Alice Oliver for kindly featuring my exhibition at Mostyn Gallery, Llandudno, in the North Wales Live news programme. I’m very pleased to be showing work at Mostyn, a beautiful Victorian gallery known for its contemporary art programme as well as the high quality of art and craft shown in the retail gallery. The exhibition, which is called ‘Last Words’ is in Gallery 6 and is open to the public until 27th January 2019. Admission free.

My statement displayed alongside the work in the gallery:

My brothers and I scattered our mother’s ashes in May 2012. We stood looking out over the rape fields of Lincolnshire, having walked up the lane towards the ‘Cliff’. It was a place that meant a great deal to our mother and she had written about it on many occasions. Throughout 2003, she had used her daily walk with the dog as a way of focusing her concentration, as a walking meditation. Every day she would walk at the same time of day, on the same route and try to absorb everything she saw around her until she got home, when it would all be written down in minute handwriting… in order to fit it all on one page, she said. She wrote about the passing of the seasons, the sky, the weather, plants, trees, fields, crops and all the birds she saw, including rooks, swallows and gulls.

Nine years later, she was terminally ill and had still not finished transferring her notes to the laptop in order to edit them, and so I persuaded her to let me help. The task of transcribing the tiny handwritten words was extremely difficult and we agreed that she should read the notes while I typed. In this way she relived the walks and our time together during her last months had an added purpose.

In some of the pieces on display here I have used a fragment of my mother’s tiny writing blown up very large to produce an abstract gesture. In many of the pieces I have borrowed phrases from her writing for titles.

Other works, the pieces involving envelopes, were inspired by hearing that some people believe that a white feather is a message from a loved one who has passed away. While I remain somewhat sceptical, this idea provided a starting point for new images.

All of the work here has been created using printmaking techniques, including relief printing, stencil and collagraph. I have long been working with found natural objects and in these pieces I have used feathers and grass. The latest pieces of birds are made up of around five layers of printing on fine Japanese paper. They mark a move towards combining drawn image with direct impression.

I was excited to get a telephone call earlier in the week to say that I had won second prize in the North Wales Open at Clywd Theatr Cymru, Mold. I went along today to meet the other prize-winners and receive a cheque for £500. The exhibition is held every summer and is open to artists living in Wrexham, Flintshire, Denbighshire, Conwy, Gwynedd and Anglesey. I had entered two pieces and the one below is the piece that was awarded the prize. I made a cut paper stencil of rooks in flight and combined this with impressions of feathers printed directly onto layers of almost transparent Japanese paper. The exhibition is on until 24th August.

'There are rooks flying, blowing in the wind' 2017

There was a great atmosphere in the studio today with four people taking part in a relief printing workshop: Cut and collage – creative printmaking. This is a really simple process involving line drawing, cutting and collage (as the name suggests!) but as you can see, the resulting prints can be very striking.

Kelly

Elin

Nia

Betty

I was pleased to be a small part of a community consultation recently, led by Lorna Jenner, regarding a new piece of public art to be situated near Flint Castle in North Wales. The consultation took place largely in an empty shop on Flint’s Church Street, which was completely and wonderfully transformed by Lisa Heledd Jones of StoryWorks into the ‘Story Shop’! Local residents came in to give their views, memories and stories of Flint and its residents. My involvement was a drop-in workshop at the Story Shop, in which I provided ready-made printing plates for visitors to print on my portable press; two workshops with pupils from Ysgol Maes Hyfryd and Ysgol Pen Coch; and a workshop with residents from Greenbank Villas, Flint, and The Quay project, Greenfield. An exhibition, which includes prints made during these workshops, is now at Flint Library until August 2018.

Photograph by Lisa Heledd Jones

Photograph by Lisa Heledd Jones

I have just delivered work to Mostyn, a lovely gallery in Llandudno, for the new showcase ‘Into the Wild’, which celebrates the great outdoors and the flora and fauna that inhabit the countryside. Hope these look wild enough! Two pieces with positive and negative impressions of feathers, called ‘Feathers Floating IV’ and ‘Feathers Floating V’, together with a couple of the monoprints made during last year’s Helfa Gelf, ‘Sweet Pea’ and ‘Convolvulus’. They are all beautifully framed in limed oak, particularly appropriate for the feather pieces I think.

The exhibition runs from 3rd February to 3rd June 2018. There will be a host of other work to see too: original prints, artworks and contemporary crafts.