I am currently working on combining impressions from natural objects with drawing. The drawings are in the form of cut paper stencils of birds – gulls and rooks. I have been inking feathers and printing them onto fine Japanese paper – Maruishi – but with the stencil in place the feathers form the background to the birds. Several layers are combined to make the image. You can see the finished layers working together to form the final image on my Instagram page. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bes4jA-BeYP/?taken-by=ruththomasart https://www.instagram.com/p/BhzXMLUDHtH/?taken-by=ruththomasart

The photographs here show the stencils at various stages of printing.

I’m excited to be working on a commission now, for someone who wrote her PhD on rooks!

The first workshop of 2018! A new Criw Celf group of 10, 11 and 12 year olds from Wrexham. This is the first time I’ve worked with Criw Celf in Wrexham. A lovely group of twelve children made some super collage printing plates, inked them with a roller and printed them on my portable press.

I’ve been working on a commission recently for a friend who bought ‘Messages II’ earlier in the year and has asked for another similar piece. When printing the Messages series I placed individually inked envelopes carefully on the bed of the press, followed by the feathers, followed by the damp printing paper. It was all too easy for one or two of the parts to become misaligned during this process, so I ended up with a fair few prints that were perfect except in one or two places where an envelope had been nudged out of line! For the new piece I decided to use the same approach as in ‘Messages IV’. I have taken the good parts of some of these prints, carefully cut them up and combined them in a collage. Finished work below.

I thoroughly enjoyed Saturday’s workshop with five people here printing from natural objects including bracken, acer, grasses, lavender, horsetail, feathers and sweet pea. Beautiful work everybody – well done!

Some lovely feedback:

“I had a fabulous day. Something so refreshing and so different. You do a great job of making people feel relaxed and free to experiment.”

“I thoroughly enjoyed your course and would like to thank you for making it informative, fun and productive. My husband was very impressed with my work and so two pieces will be framed as a permanent reminder.”

Another Helfa Gelf Art Trail has come and gone. More new faces in the studio as well as some familiar ones. I was surprised to hear from one of my visitors on the last Saturday, that an article on Helfa Gelf and photographs of a number of the participating artists, including me, was on the BBC Wales news! I had to look it up. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-41366467

I made monoprints while Helfa Gelf was on, this time using Everlasting Sweet Pea, Horsetail and Bindweed. Horsetail and Bindweed are not welcome in the garden but they make great prints!

I’ve been working with feathers again and taking impressions onto a very fine Japanese paper called Maruishi, beautiful paper. The intention is to build an image in layers. I’m making use of paper stencils in the work as well, for instance, a circle, a ripple, a wrought iron gate and images of birds in flight. This is one of the cut paper stencils and I love the way the feathers leave an impression on the birds. This is the bit that gets thrown away! Here are the colours rolled out ready for inking the feathers: turquoise, dark violet and black.

I spent the day at Tate Britain today, with my daughter who is studying the Pre-Raphaelites. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is not my favourite group of artists but it’s interesting to look closely at something that you might not otherwise have made the time for! This is ‘The Lady of Shalott’, 1888, by John William Waterhouse. Although the overall impression is one of great detail, the brushwork is actually quite loose, as you can see from these details.

Also saw an impressive new installation by Cerith Wyn Evans: ‘Forms in Space… By Light (in Time)’. It has given me some ideas for new work!

Good to have Sheila, Julia and Lesley in the studio today, making monoprints from natural objects. Here is one of Sheila's prints, first and last stage.

I went along to the opening of the new exhibition at Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Mold, this evening – I have five pieces in this show, which is selection of work by artists who took part in Helfa Gelf Open Studios last year. I was pleased to have an image of my work on the invitation. The title of this piece is ‘Their Edges Disintegrating into Dust’, which is a phrase taken from my mother’s writing. The image is also taken from her writing, her handwriting, a fragment of the word ‘edges’.

More beautiful birds produced today, this time by members of Flintshire‘s Criw Celf Group 3, at Deeside Leisure Centre. Wonderful work! What calm, thoughtful, creative young people.