Views of the Isles of Scilly

Work made during the residency

A virtual exhibition if you will, of the work I created during my time on the Isles of Scilly.

Here’s the statement I made for the work-in-progresss show:

Views of the Isles of Scilly

In June I spent a week on the Isles of Scilly on a self-made artist residency. I hired a bike and explored the island of St Mary’s, and took notes of the landscape in my sketchbook. I wanted to capture the colours, the movement, the sense of place. Back in the cottage where I stayed and using the garden and kitchen table as my studio, I created these pieces using the work in my sketchbooks as reference. Being new to gel plate printing, I had a lot of fun (as well as frustrations!) learning and experimenting with the process.

Some of these pieces are single pull prints, building up layers on the plate and printing the finished image in one go. One was made using found objects from the beach such as seaweed and driftwood to make marks. Others were made using a smaller gel plate to print multiple sections of a larger piece - the edges of the plate create a tiled effect that reminds me of a map that’s been folded, and I want to play and develop that idea further. I have also enjoyed using a gel printed background to form the base layer of a mixed media piece - the texture underneath creates a more interesting foundation and encourages a looser character to my subsequent mark making.