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By Kate, 14 March 2010 12:30 am

Ok. I’m already getting bad at being more or less consistent with the posting, but I do have an excuse. I’ve been considering, slightly more seriously than usual, the possibility of embarking on the whole etsy thing. A very small side business would seriously up my vacation and new computer funds. (And pay for my freaking visa, which is another post altogether.)

In any case, I’ve been looking at money. I know a few friends who do the etsy thing, but they’re all American, so I can ask for advice til I’m blue in the teeth, but none of them are going to know a lick about UK income tax and VAT and the way business accounts work over here and all that. Plus all the books I’ve read on that stuff are American as well. So I’ve been trying to do the research here and there while also redesigning the design part of my website in my brain, because it’s going to need an update and an overhaul.

If anyone cares to weigh in on what sort of things they’d buy, that would rock. I’m doing a lot of screenprinting practice runs. I’ve got some plans for posters and things, and I like printing stationery. But I’m also thinking I’ll refine my yoga mat bag and various other simple accessories. I really want to start printing my own fabric, but I think I need to have my own screen to do that because it requires special inks that EP probably don’t let you use on hired screens. And my hired screen just split last week, so any money I had thought about putting towards my own is now going to the repair. Lame. But that’s how it goes. I consoled myself by pointing out that these things could soon count as business expenses.

Anyway, that’s what’s happening around these parts. I’ll try to post something more exciting soon.

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By Kate, 21 February 2010 5:29 pm

How I managed to get all the way through WAC without ever taking a studio art course completely baffles me, especially considering I very nearly went to art school. But instead, I ended up at a liberal arts school, became consumed by theatre and publications, and practically forgot about the fact that a studio course was even an option til it was too late.

It’s not like I didn’t do anything arty in college. Designing, building, and painting sets plus laying out all kind of campus publications fed my need for creativity. I even got to squeeze in Dr McColl’s Art History 101 class when I was a senior (it was pretty much a freshman class), and that made me wish I had started a bit earlier.

In any case, my art education now continues through my job, where I see priceless works of art on a daily basis and have access to curators who would probably be happy to talk my ear off about any particular painting in a period they specialise in, so I am not deprived. And perhaps it makes sense then that the beginning of that job coincided with me finally taking a studio class. At the end of last year, I finally did what I’d been meaning to do since I graduated college. I took a studio course. I learned how to screenprint at Edinburgh Printmakers. And it was awesome!

Since then, I’ve been taking advantage of the free 6 month associate membership to the workshop I got for taking the course. I’ve been going in pretty much every week, bumbling along trying to get better at printing. Nothing I’ve printed yet is terribly high quality, but I can see myself improving in little ways, which is satisfying. I think I’ll definitely be joining with a full membership in April so that I can continue making stuff. A lot of the other members print amazing art, but I’m really more interested in craft and making practical things like stationery and gifts for people. I like to keep it simple. But if I reach the point that I can support some kind of etsy shop or sell my stuff in the Edinburgh Printmakers gallery shop, I will not be complaining. The workshop also offers other types of printmaking like lithography and block printing, so I may try out some of that stuff once I have a member discount.

In any case, here are some of my first attempts at art in too long a time.

I printed this artichoke in class, so it’s the first thing I did. Since it was supervised, I think the print quality is actually better than some of the stuff I’ve done on my own, but that’s to be expected I guess.

I made about 50 of these snowflake cards and envelopes in a marathon session the Saturday before I flew to the states for Christmas. They made good presents for a few people.

For the first proper print I did on my own, I wanted to give myself some kind of art project-like assignment, so I decided to do something with maps. This is called ‘The Street Where I Live’ and it’s basically a google map of every place I’ve ever lived (at the same zoom level) twisted around and strung together so that the red line covers every street I’ve ever lived on. The aim was for me to be able to recognise each place by the surrounding streets and features, and I sort of can in most places. I may try this again sometime though, because it’s not printed very well at all. There are all sorts of lines and spatters and the ink hasn’t stayed put in some places. I don’t mind too much though. It kind of makes it look like scratched film or something.

Finally, to recover from all the screwups I had with the map, I did this really simple elephant print. Still not printed perfectly, but I like it anyway.