I’ve been on a short holiday, and one of the things we did whilst away was to attend DoodlePlanet. This is an event that takes place every few months at Telford’s Warehouse in Chester. The organisers provide lots of big boards to draw on, great music, plus paint markers to hire for those without art materials to hand. Other than the hire fee (£5 for 6 pens, and you get £2 back when you return them) the event is entirely free, and great fun.

Fellow doodlers: Emilie Hornblower and Ellen & Adam Janman – thanks to Ellen for letting me steal her photographs.

Check out details of Doodleplanet here.

Last Thursday I had the very good fortune of getting a crash course in linocutting from talented and experienced printmaker Penny Berry Paterson (with me in the last photograph above).

Penny has been printmaking for many years, currently living and working in Sudbury, Suffolk. Her husband Roy is my grandfather’s cousin – hence my free workshop, although such is their kindness that I imagine being a relative has little to do with it. Within a few hours we went over basic cutting and burnishing techniques, as well as experimenting with a few more exotic ways of creating different textures.

The trio of prints below were created from a single block using a sketch I had with me. Progessively smaller areas of colour were added by cutting away more and more of the surface inbetween taking each print. This is a slightly nerve-wracking process, since once you have cut away part of the lino there’s no going back!