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This week was pretty exciting for me because I received printing of my toadstool artwork back from the printers and parcelled them off to Kinsfolk Shop in Guelph!

I am still doing a lot of research about different print processes and options and if anyone has recommendations of local to Ottawa printers please let me know. It has been quite over whelming, that's for sure and a little frustrating at times! 

Kinsfolk Shop heard about my toadstool artwork when it was shared on Instagram by a relative who loves their shop! Thank you Ariane! They contacted her and in turn me to see if they could purchase some of my prints. Needless to say I was thrilled. The toadstool is one of my pieces of art that I quite like! Those of you who know me well, know that I am very critical of my own work! It was the beginning of a small series of toadstools! 

The Kinsfolk Shop is a lovely Canadian owned family business from Guelph. You can read about their store here. They care about the environment and where and how their merchandise is produced! A visit to their website will surely delight you if you are a lover of all things made from natural products. 

First and foremost, welcome and thank you! As many of you already know, I have been drawing for quite a few years in many capacities! I have taught art classes to all ages, from pre-school to seniors and have always enjoyed my time watching others create. I strive to take the fear out of paint and art techniques and teach my students that it is all about the process of creating your art that matters and not necessarily the final product. Enjoy how you feel and be in the moment and never throw out art that you are not happy with! It is these pieces that are the building blocks to improvement and show you how far you have come along in your art journey. Some people say to me that they wish they could draw like me. Well! You can! For me, art has been a learned process and not one that has come naturally. I never drew as a child or teen or even young adult. Something I have done though has been to immerse myself in art. I have coloured many colouring book pages and doodled on countless pieces of paper and turned to others who share their knowledge! I have not been afraid to experiment and to this day still love to use Crayola crayons and anything that will leave a mark on the paper! 

It has taken many, many years of friends and family repeatedly telling me that I should be sharing my art. Those lovely people have been the ones to raise my confidence and believe in me when I really didn't believe in myself and still sometimes don't! I thank you from the bottom of my heart! Thank you Diane, my sister who has literally told me over and over that my art is good enough to sell and pushed me to do so! Also, to my daughter Olivia, an artist her self who I know without a doubt will give me her honest opinion and constructive criticism. Olivia can point out to me the things that are wrong in my art and that are blatantly obvious that I am not seeing, until she shows me! My dearest friend Lesley! You have also been someone instrumental to getting me where I am today! Yes, I am finally listening to you! I also hope that my art has given you the gift of finding your artistic side and love of miniature watercolour painting. This makes me so happy! Many, many of you are all a part of my journey too, from lovely messages on Instagram to reassuring comments and feedback on my work to recommendations of art supplies and tutorials! 

I started this post to tell you something that I did recently that thrilled me and got a little off track! A week or so ago Olivia (my daughter from Riverscape Studio) taught a beginner Lino printing class. Lino printing is something that I had never done before and certainly fell in love! The feeling of gently gouging the knife into the lino was so relaxing! 

First we either transferred a design onto our lino or drew one with pencil. I chose the latter, literally because someone else chose the design I would have picked!

We then cut out all the Lino that was surrounding our design. There are several ways to do this. For the sake of not confusing you as this was difficult enough for me to figure out, I will just say that there are options ie: if you want to design to print or the back ground to print or just a line drawing printed! 

It took a while but eventually everything was cut out nicely.

The next step was to use a tool called a brayer to spread the ink on the cardboard. It is very sticky and thick. The ink was then rolled onto our design, paper put on top and flattened down to adhere to the ink. Next was the 'reveal' ! Pulling the paper away from the Lino pad was the best part!

Each design come out slightly different to the next and has little imperfections that give it character and uniqueness. 

Lastly our prints were hung to dry for a few minutes before we got to take them home! 

It was such a fun class and definitely something I would like to do again!