I’ve just completed two days of children’s printmaking workshops at Gladfest, a literary festival held at Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden. www.gladstoneslibrary.org. Gladstone’s Library is unique. A Grade I listed building, it is a residential library founded by William Gladstone, and amongst the 250,000 printed items housed there are 32,000 of his books.

This is the fourth year for this annual festival - and the first time I have been involved. It rained all day yesterday but it didn’t prevent the children from getting stuck into some printing. (We were in a small marquee.) The group of six girls in the afternoon got on together so well! We began with some descriptions of characters from Roald Dahl’s stories - Mrs Twit, the enormous crocodile and the roly-poly bird - which the children drew and turned into collage printing plates.

Today we have been printing letters from a title of one of Roald Dahl’s books and then using the letters to make other phrases. One seven year old boy picked out letters to spell ‘MY TAID’ (grandfather).

The Annual Summer Exhibition at the Royal Cambrian Academy, Conwy, ends one week today. I think it is a lively exhibition this year, with a lot of variety. I have three pieces on show, including ‘Messages IV’. This has been included in a selection of RCA members’ work to go the Attic Gallery, Swansea, for an exhibition from 15th October – 12th November 2016. Hoping to get down to visit it at some point.

www.atticgallery.co.uk

I called in to a hotel in Llandudno recently. It was the Escape Boutique B&B, Llandudno, which had a few pieces of my work on display. I needed to collect one piece to take it to another venue and while I was there, the owner drew my attention to the ironwork at the front of the hotel. It was very intricate with some lovely circular motifs and being a fan of circular imagery I said I would make some prints! Today I returned with said prints and left some at the hotel, with the possibility in mind that guests may want to purchase a reminder of their stay at Escape! Sam, the owner, bought a set of five in a frieze for the hotel dining room.

I had a great day in London yesterday! First I went to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and enjoyed looking at the printmaking section in particular. Some fantastic work. Favourites included Hughie O’Donoghue’s carborundum print  ‘Moonlight Marine’; ‘Fagus II’ and ‘Ilex aquifolium’ by Emma Buckmaster & Janet French, etchings on beech leaves and holly leaves respectively; photogravure etchings by Cornelia Parker; and ‘Sanctuary – Spring’, ‘Sanctuary – Autumn’ and ‘Sanctuary – Winter’, three pieces of work in etching and collagraph by Barbara Rae. There was also a beautiful etching by Katherine Jones, ‘Clear Surface’.

I met Katherine for the first time recently and one of the main reasons for my trip to London was to visit her studio near Elephant & Castle. I have looked at reproductions of her work but it was great to see the originals and to discuss with her how she makes her work and arrives at the imagery in her subtle, atmospheric pieces. We share a love of the collagraph! www.katherine-jones.co.uk.

I also called in to see Jason Hicklin’s exhibition at Eames Fine Art. www.jasonhicklin.com. A beautiful set of etchings, monoprints and drawings based on his recent trip to St Kilda.

‘Feather Circle I’ has gone to a new home! It was made in 2010 and in order to create it I inked feathers individually and printed them onto very fine Japanese paper. There are five layers of printed feathers on paper in this piece and one absent spider. The new owner of ‘Feather Circle I’ saw it in an exhibition four years ago but only recently contacted me to ask if it was still available.

Beautiful light this evening… the studio seen through Crocosmia in the garden.

I’ve just completed a small commission for a friend who is leaving her job for another career. She loves the poem ‘The Good-Morrow’ by John Donne and asked an elderly friend, who is very good at calligraphy, to copy out the second verse of the poem

My job was to make a wide printed border for the poem and set the writing within this. I decided to use words and phrases from the poem and layer them to make a visual image. I cut out words in paper and used them as stencils.

I’m currently exhibiting work at Aberystwyth Arts Centre with American artist/photographer Linda Alterwitz. www.lindaalterwitz.com. We’ve known each other for a long time - thirty years – and have exhibited together before in London, Las Vegas and Liverpool. (We’re looking for more venues beginning with the letter ‘L’!) We gave a talk in the gallery on 3rd May and one of the people attending wrote a review, which has appeared in an online publication, Wales Arts Review. You can read the article by following this link. www.walesartsreview.org/24985

There’s another brief article about the exhibition in Buzz magazine: www.buzzmag.co.uk/art/ruth-thomas-linda-alterwitz-inside-vegas-wales

Had a fantastic time in Trefnant today working with the Denbighshire Criw Celf Year 8 group. What amazing work they produced! They had lots of choice in terms of theme, hence the wide variety of subjects in these prints. The printing plates were all made from card, either a collage or simple stencil. I particularly love the beetles!

The Criw Celf art groups are made up of children who are either very talented, very interested or both!