Printing for Peru

It continues to be a busy old time at GraceInk HQ with printing for several projects including this one...friends of mine are heading out to Peru on a mission trip later this year with an organisation called Latin Link and to help them on their way I've been providing them with plenty of t-shirts and hoodies, to sell (so they make some money) and keep (so they look like a team). It has to be said the hoodies were stressful and I might have been put off printing them for life (or until the next time someone asks...I have a very short memory in that respect). The t-shirts were alot simpler to print and I've been wearing mine out and about in a very fetching postbox red. You can see what they are upto as a team on their Facebook page, you can read what I've been upto by reading my blog...I guess if you've made it this far then you already have done, well done to you!

Creative Residency Exhibition

Way back in June 2011 I took part in a Creative Residency tutoring a group of wonderful students in screen-printing and textiles. Last night the organisers of this amazing opportunity held an exhibition of the completed sketchbooks, fabric. and prints and to say I was a little proud would be a hugh understatement. It was great to see how they had changed and progressed, hear what their plans are for the future and know that a week of being creative can send you on a journey you might not expect (for me and them). Check out the great work below, I wish I had been this good when I was in my mid teens...Enjoy!

Above: Sketchbook work, this student had an amazing eye for combining different found and bought materials and adding in his own sketches too.

Above: Another great sketchbook, getting the students to record information quickly, add notes and not be afraid if something goes wrong to carry on were some of the key points they learnt in just 5 days!

Above: Printed works inspired by Oban, the students weren't afraid of a bit of colour...great!

Above: And not everyone just printed, it was great to get them to manipulate and have a play with textiles too, this was looking at recreating ropes found at the harbour but using lots of fun colours.

Above: Work inspired by Oban, different students created these pieces but they compliment each other perfectly...loving the anchor.

Above: And some wonderful hand painted onto screen seahorses, which were printed onto paper and fabric. Don't they look impressive framed too...very professional.

WASPS Open Studio Update

Finally (I can hear you all sigh), I'm updating on the WASPS open studio which happened a couple of weeks ago now. I have a good excuse in the fact that I took a little break away straight after the event and since coming back have been a busy bee producing Christmas stock! So here is some images from the event, the first two aren't my own doing (as you can probably tell from the quality and that I appear in one of them!), a lovely lady called Christine popped along with her very glam camera and I asked if she could pass the photos onto me, which she kindly did. All these very talented people. The one below is the lead into my little space, I had screens, squeegees and portfolios on show so people could see how my textiles are made.

The weekend was very much a success; I chatted, I ate (far too much yummy home-baked goods), I listened to brilliant music and I even sold some work...which I guess is the whole goal of the show! Thanks to everyone who turned out and took part in the fun and frolics. There was live music throughout the weekend and this year Selkirk WASPS was supporting Children 1st with their charity wall.

And, check out the cool cards that were produced on the craft table by the kids, teenagers and adults of the Borders...the man with moustache makes me smile everytime I see him...amazing!

Art Trail...Last Day Sunday 11th September

It's the Crossing Borders Art Trail this weekend, it also happens to be Saturday already so this is a little late to be letting you know about it, but I thought you might forgive me if I posted a few pictures taken of my screen-printing demonstration/s; what started out as one demo at 1pm turned into 3 demos throughout the day as lots of people were very interested and I do like to please!

I have set up my temporary studio in Julia Cunningham's kitchen, a textile buddy who let me camp out at her fabulous abode over the weekends activities. And I managed not to get dye everywhere...very pleased with myself!

Thanks to everyone who has made it along so far and hopefully see some of you there tomorrow...

Hoorah! Russian Dolls finally make it to print...

It's been a long time coming but the first of my new Russian Doll pattern has been printed onto canvas bags in a pretty purple colour, just got to decide what colour ribbon to accessorise with. They'll be making their debut at next weekends Crossing Borders Art Trail, where artists and crafts people in my local area (Scottish Borders) open their doors so you can see where the magic happens! I'll be taking residence at a friend's house for the duration as a few weeks later my studio will be opening its doors for the WASPS open studio weekend extravaganza.

Long time...No See

It has been a while since my last update, about a month and a half, however this hasn't been because I haven't been doing anything worth writing home about but more that I've been so busy I haven't had time to update you on what GraceInk has been doing! So a quick update, I did my stint at The West End Fair in Edinburgh at the beginning of August (what a busy run up to that one) which was with a couple of textile friends (we're named the Borders Textile Trio if you're wondering) and then I ran a workshop at the Fringe Conference in Doncaster last week. See picture above to catch some screen-printing action!

And then I had myself a little holiday back in my home town, which was great. I got the chance to catch up with friends and family and not do any work, which was just what the Doctor ordered after a very hectic 2 months. (I also squished in an appearance at the craft fair at Harestanes and the Morningside Makers Market since last we talked). Check out above for a cool stencil one of my lovely participants created at my workshop in Doncaster. And I promise that it won't be as long again until next we talk...

Creative Residency 2011

I've been away all week teaching screen-printing to a wonderful group of fifth year students in Oban. The picture above is just to give you an idea of how beautiful and sedate the area is that I was lucky enough to find myself working in. (it has to be said that all things sedate pretty much ended there...but what great fun was to be had)!

The group of students I had produced some amazing work throughout the week, pictures of which you can see above and below. My first year of leading a course during the Creative Residency was last year, where I had a fantastic week and thought it couldn't be beaten. However when I was asked to run the course again this year, I couldn't have said YES fast enough and I had just as much fun, if not alittle more sprikled on top.

The first couple of days the weather was rather pitiful and meant we were cooped up inside trying our best not to spill dyes onto the beautiful clean floors or burst any screens by accidently standing on them. By the third day the sun came out...whoop...and we moved outside sharpish where we could make as much mess and chaos as we wanted. Check out the screen-printing taking place above. (and the t-shirt being worn by my assistant, designed by me for the event. If you have a look in the blog archives you can see the one I did for last year too).

Here is one of the students painting onto a screen to be printed later. If you check out the washing line picture above you can see some of the finished t-shirts and fabrics that the students printed. A selection of the work is presented at a wonderful exhibition which will be taking place in early 2012, which I'm really looking forward to seeing and also the opportunity to catch up with my wonderful group.

Here's a sketchbook being created, on day one/two we headed down to the harbour where the students had an opportunity to do some first hand drawing. It was important to get the students out of their comfort zone, they didn't have months to make finished pieces of work, they had days (which happens all the time in Industry and at University). The 'days' aspect was the first hurdle to get over, we started them off doing some pretty unusual ways of drawing making sure we collated as much interesting and unusual information as possible and hopefully instilling in them possibilities and ways of working for the future.

Here is a finished sketchbook page, it was great to watch the students 'get it' as the week went on and produce some superb work. I hope to lay my fingers on some images of the finished pieces of work and hopefully let you all have a look sometime soon. I'm now back home and have spent much of the weekend recovering from a full on week, I had such a wonderful time and look forward to maybe going back next year!

Quilts and Crochet

It's been over a month since my last post, how time flies! I've been crazy busy getting ready for two events I'm doing this Christmas, one in Newcastle and one in Wales (more on those later) but I thought I would update you on a little project I helped with back in October. I produced a piece of fabric with my Chinese junks, scribbles and Indian shoes (I had free range to do what I liked which was great fun)! The fabric was used for the back of a crocheted baby blanket which was for a present, the crochet was made by a mother and her daughters, so it became a unique hand-made beautiful present for it's recipient.

Craft Residency Masterclass

Back at the end of June I headed off to Oban to teach screen-printing techniques to a group of pupils from schools across North Lanarkshire. As a follow up they came over to Heriot-Watt University in Galashiels to do a two day masterclass within the fantastic facilities there with two wonderful technicians and me (of course)!

The students got the chance to print images they had created while in Oban, including textures created from seaweed and slate picked up from the beach and images inspired by the shoreline and terrain around our base in Oban. The fabrics created will be cut into pattern pieces and made into shirts to be showcased at an event in November alongside a range of shirts from Heriot-Watt's campus in Dubai.

They got the chance to use a whole range of printing inks, dyes and adhesives including devoré (which burns away fibre), foils, hand-painting, pigments, opagues and puff binder. There were some amazing colours and patterns created which will go onto to make the coolest skirts.

And if you pop back to my original post on the Craft Residency back in June you'll see a picture of this artwork of boats (above) being drawn, which the student turned into the prettiest hand painted silk scarf.

Arrows at the ready...

What a busy month September has been so far...my feet have hardly touched the ground. The weather has been a bit up and down of late but just over a week ago the sun shone for the annual Archery Competition happening at Abbotsford House (home of Sir Walter Scott) near Galashiels in the Scottish Borders. As well as the usual bows and arrows flying about there was a lovely little craft fair taking place which I took part in.

As well as my usual bits and pieces, I've just recently finished an old/new design (old as it was originally for digital, new because it's now on screen), which I have been using on tea towels in duck egg blue above (it's the birdcages). More of the tea towels along with a whole host of other bits and pieces will be making their way to Pushing Print in Margate at the end of this month...check out www.qingart.co.uk News and Events for more information on that or check back to my blog in the next few days for a separate blog all about it!

I also had to include a picture of the fantastic birdie pegs one of my sisters brought back from France while she was on her travels...they will be making theie rounds to all the other fairs I'm doing in coming months because as well as looking cool they also come in extremely handy!

And just to finish, one of the towers on Abbotsford House with it's Scottish Flag flying, it looks like an ugly grey cloud is gathering behind but it stayed dry all day, just the way I like to exhibit my work!

Here comes the Bride...

One of many projects I have been involved with recently has included a commission for drapes to hang inside a marquee; 100 metres of hand printed fabric incorporating a butterfly motif designed and printed by me! I was really pleased that it all worked out so beautifully and I was commissioned to produce such a special piece of work. Thanks to Best Intent Marquees for all their help with logistics and getting them in-situ. After many days working out measurements, ordering fabric, creating designs and then finally printing I was pretty amazed at the finished result. Even though I had been with the drapes throughout their creation I just couldn't picture how they would look inside the marquee...so it was such a sense of achievement to receive this picture and know that it all looked pretty good!

Harestanes Craft Fair

I may have moved away from a lovely studio space located at Harestanes just under two months ago now for pastures larger (!), but I was recently invited back to take part in a small craft fair the centre was organising, showcasing a range of crafts people from across the Borders. The weather has been so changable of late, so it was a nice surprise for the sun to make a guest appearance for the Sunday afternoon event.

It's great to be able to get involved with the local craft community scene and small events such as this are a great way of doing so. I just had a few smaller pieces on offer such as greeting cards, purses and tea-towels, but everything was still hand-screen-printed by my own two fair hands!

I shared the space with another fantastic screen-printer who is based over in Selkirk, where my new studio is. Her name is Gina Tebbutt and her attention to detail is spot on with a lovely mix of quirky owls and florals mixed in with some beautiful interpretations of the local borders region which whe creates into greeting cards and framed prints with canvas bags thrown in for good measure.

Me and Gina are hoping to do fairs together in the future as the work really sits nicely together, we both have a passion for screen-printing and want to sell it to the masses! I'm hoping to be taking part in a small craft fair at Abbotsford in the near future, so stay tuned for more information on that one.

I have been forecasted...WGSN

For those amongst us with a membership to WGSN then the news is good as you can now view my work as part of the Interiors Trend Analysis for New Designers Part Two, for those of you without (including me) you'll have to take my word for it...I did get a sneak peek at the article and I get name-checked below!

'WGSN loves Grace Smith's tactile, hand-printed linens featuring birdcages and folk art references'

WGSN is a fantastic trend forecasting and analysis website providing the lowdown on anything and everything design from fashion to product, illustration to furniture as well as the coolest boutiques and exhibitions worldwide.

Craft and Art Residency, Kilbowie 2010

I'm just home after a great week with some fantastic students from around North Lanarkshire, who all took part in a week of intensive art and design training. I was focussed on the screen-printing and what an amazing selection of work we had by the end of it, everyone really got stuck in and got their hands dirty (quite literally)! Check out the heat changing t-shirts we managed to squish in between some more serious work.

The beautiful sunset on the longest day of the year.

Managed to get the students painting onto the screen, as well as the opportunity to draw down by the harbour and collect objects on the first couple of days. Everyone worked from the early hours till late at night and really got a lot of the experience, teacher and student alike I reckon.

I really liked going exploring when I had a couple of minutes to spare, I just love the sea!

There wasn't just screen-printing either, other opportunities included jewellery with Suilven Plazalska which looked absolutely amazing in the next room as well as Music, Digital Imagery, Fine Art and Film/Documentery Making.

Concrete Wardrobe

GraceInk hand screen-printed purses and greetings cards have been dropped off this morning at the Concrete Wardrobe in Edinburgh for the masses to enjoy...check out the shop at www.concretewardrobe.co.uk. They stock amazing art and design by a whole host of wonderful British based artisans which now includes me!

Kilbowie 2010

I've just been asked to run a series of workshops over on the west coast of Scotland towards the end of this month at an event for school-leavers wanting to head into the art and design field at College or Uni. Very excited about taking part and in a part of Scotland I haven't had a chance to visit yet, so double excitement!

T-shirt to your left is one I whipped up yesterday while organising what I would need for such an adventure with the fantastic Tony. I had a great time showing it off to all and sundry yesterday afternoon and now it's even been fixed so I can wear it out in the rain...whooo! (lets hope for none of that while I'm on the west coast)

Hopefully I'll have some more exciting photos to show from the actual event in a couple of weeks time.

Easter Fun at the Dragonfly

The first day of the Dragonfly Studios Easter open weekend has gone off without a hitch, check out the cute easter lambs below! Everyone that has taken part so far has gone home very happy with their cute Easter lamb and I have been named official seamstress of eyes...for my beautiful stitching skills when it came to giving the lambs their peepers.

And I even managed some outdoor screen-printing; to say it was snowing at the start of the week...not bad eh?! I managed to screen-print 9 cards, and I was taking it very easy letting the screens dry in the sun (which was lovely when it graced us with it's presence). Three days to go...lets hope they're just as successful!

The weekend is nearly here!

It's nearly Easter already, where has March gone! Tonight is the start of our studio activities for the weekend including the launch of my studio buddy's 'Felt Club' tonight followed by an exciting mix of workshops and demonstrations taking place throughout the weekend (see below for the cutest felted lambs). I'll be trying my best to demonstrate the art of screen-printing, you'll be sure to see some new greetings cards very soon! I hope everyone has a great Easter, mine will definately be jam packed but great fun too!

New Design Alert: 'Cuckoo Tea Towels'

I've been ploughing on with new work for the Gin Palace Event which is a mere 2 weeks away and have just designed a couple of tea towels, which I like to call my 'cuckoo tea towels' as they're not your usual tea towel design, taking images inspired by a trip to Hong Kong they are based on two different types of markets found out there. One your classic souvenir stall piled high with memories of a fantastic trip and the other the bird market, where chinese men and women congregate with their birds to chat and buy all their birdie supplies and goodies!