The Creative Directory: Lisa Stubbs

Lisa Stubbs



In a sentence:



Heartwarming artwork that makes you feel all warm inside from a very down to earth, Yorkshire artist. In her own words: "Hello, come in, I'll put the kettle on while you look around my little shop..."

Sample the goods:

Little One original screen print

 

You're so lovely - hand screen printed blank card

 

You don't know how lovely you are, hand screen printed card



Soul Mate original screen print
 

Seed Thieves original screen print

There's a strong theme of love in all of these which surely appeals to everyone. I really like how not over produced they look. They all retain a very lovely, almost rustic look to them. Each one looks like it could be an original drawing. I've actually bought two since discovering them. I got the 'Soul Mates' card for Ben for our last anniversary and the 'You're So Lovely' mother and daughter card for my mum for mother's day.

She also does gorgeous embroidered fabric pieces which you must check out on her website as well as illustrations for children's books.
She does a lot of her printing and also some workshops at the West Yorkshire Pint Workshop in Huddersfield which is where I went in September to do my three day printmaking course.



 Where you can find her:

 Website

Etsy

Blog

 

 

 

 

 

Snapshots from November 2014

Well I didn't manage to get all my christmas shopping done by the end of November. In fact I got exactly no christmas shopping done. So far I've bought one bit of Ben's present and I've literally just bought it five minutes ago. Spent a hell of a lot on myself though. Damn you Cyber Monday! Only joking I love you really.

November just went so quickly don't you think? I'm excited about December though, it'll be our first Christmas together in our own home. 

Anyway here's November's snapshots!

Finally got myself a new coat because it sure is cold out there now. This one, like all others before, will most likely be worn until it's falling to bits. 

My friend and old colleague from back in the day came to visit and brought as a gift a really cool screen print of.... cacti! We had a lovely day out and about in Sheffield and had pancakes with bacon and maple syrup at Lucky Fox. So good.

Got crazy inspired at the annual print fair! How sweet are these tiny tote bags by the way!? Both Alex and I came away with lots of printed goodness. 

Ben graduated! Frank Gallagher from Shameless was there!

Someone pointed it out to me recently that I have a doppelganger in GTA V! She looks like a badass, I can dig it.

In other news

I'm carrying on a kind of family tradition of sorts. A hobby my mum and aunty used to do. I'll show you all when I've got my first one finished but until then I'm gonna keep it under wraps. It's looking good though!

Oh yeah and I'm also still in the middle of going blonde gradually. More on that later, not got it right yet.

What plans have you got for December?

oxoxo

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Sheffield Print Fair

I don't talk nearly enough about the artists in Sheffield on here, I can hardly remember when the last one was, but I'm here to make it right!
It was the Sheffield Print Fair on Saturday and me and my friend Alex went to check it out, even though she was but a bit hungover!
As you know I love printmaking and after seeing all the delights on offer on all the stalls and chatting to the artists, I've come away feeling so inspired to get out there and start making. There is so much talent out there. Here are the photos from the day.

It was really interesting to be able to talk directly to the artists about their own work and how they actually did it. We did one big amble around the room to have a good look and a chat and then went round again to do some buying. I bought a James Green print of a Sheffield view and a really sweet tea towel by Hannah Josey. Alex loves all woodland-y things and bought a James Green print too with foxes and badgers on.
Afterwards we went for a full english at Spoilt For Choice on Ecclesall Road which most definitely did the trick. All in all an awesome day. Now I know what I want for Christmas!

ps I can't find a source link for every photo here so here's a list of all the artists that were there. Enjoy!

oxoxo

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Print Workshop Day Three: Lino + Screen Printing

Hey guys! Hope you've been having a good weekend. I have so far and not just because I don't work Sunday's anymore (wooo!). Mine's been quite full up to now, I've been to a clothes up-cycle evening that I mentioned not so long ago more about that later on. I'm also about to go on a final run to train for the 10k I'm doing next Sunday more on that later too!

Today though I want to tell you all about the final day of printing I did yesterday at the print workshop. They definitely saved the best for last!

Lino

This was sooo fun because it's so easy and you almost always get a good result.  

It's very simple. We carved out our image from a piece of lino and inked it up. For this though, we didn't use a press where the plate and the paper would go through big rollers. We did it on a huge cast iron imperial press which lowered a large block onto them to print the image. 

This was my attempt and you can see a really nice grainy-ness on the print which happened by accident because I carved into the rough side of the lino rather than the smooth side. I'm glad I did!

Screen Printing

This was so interesting to do. There's so much preparation goes into getting the screen ready (coating the screen in a light sensitive emulsion, exposing it to uv light..) and then the printing part only takes a few seconds! It's really fun to do though.

We made a few backgrounds that we would print our image onto at the end. We did these by creating paper stencils of various shapes and printing them. It was a good way of getting to grips with the technique before printing our artwork that we'd brought in.

This one above I abandoned because I accidentally printed the blue waves over the green waves but now I'm looking at it again I actually like how it turned out!

The artwork I chose for my screen was one of my card designs from my own range. This below is it as a stencil on a screen after the whole UV hoo haa.

To be honest what I'm most excited about screen printing onto is a tote bag! Now I can proudly display my own design, printed by my own hands!

I'm so glad to have been to these classes. I now can see so many opportunities to re-invent my designs and all the ways I could print them. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you're curious about printing at all you should definitely get yourself signed up for some classes. You wont regret it!

So who else has been creative this weekend?

oxoxo

Print Workshop Day Two: Collagraph + Hard Ground Etching

Hello again, time for day two!
Well first of all I've mastered the directions for the drive, I got there an hour early so I mooched in a cafe eating cake and drinking tea.

Collagraph 

At the workshop though, we started with collagraph prints. For this we spread tile grout on a piece of card and created a texture in it by pressing various things on it such as bubble wrap, lace, string etc. When it dried we inked it up and ran it through the press.
I wasn't blown away by this method to be honest. A lot of the time the textures and patterns don't come through too well. And believe it or not I actually forgot to take any photos of them! D'oh!

Hard Ground Etching

I really enjoyed doing etching but it's so easy to make a mistake. We were etching onto a zinc plate that had been coated in a waxy 'ground'. When you etch into it you reveal the metal beneath. It's then submerged in a bath of copper sulphate which 'bites' into the plate in order to create incised lines.
We then inked the plate and pressed it.

You can't see the metal plate too well in this photo above because of how shiny it is but here's my plate with a bit of a leafy design on and the first print I produced from it. Nice and delicate I think.

Something we did in addition to these plates was a technique called chine colle. This was really cool. We found snippets from newspapers and tissue paper and cut them out. Then we glued one side and put them onto our plates glue side up.

The paper we want to print onto is then placed on top of this and because the rollers on the printing press roll over with so much pressure, the tissue paper is not only glued onto the paper but is pressed into it so it becomes almost one with it. It's very clever and looks really good.

This was my attempt at it below (I re-inked it with turquoise this time rather than green.)

I also managed to grab a few minutes to look around the gallery upstairs and wow there were so many lovely prints! Just take a look at this one by Lisa Stubbs!

Here are some of the other gorgeously printed bits and bobs that were there

Memo Illustration

Some by Dee Beale

Can't wait to do screen printing next week!!

oxoxo

Print Workshop Day One: Drypoint + Mono

For our anniversary last month, Ben got me a truly awesome present - he paid for me to go to printmaking classes! It's a kind of crash course introduction to printmaking spread across three Saturday's and I went to the first one yesterday. It's only the beginning but I already love it. I'm having my eyes opened to so many new techniques for producing an image, which is exactly what I need. I'm gonna see which technique in particular suits me best so I can produce some prints of my work which are up until now only available as greetings cards. 

Source

The studio where it's held is the West Yorkshire Print Workshop in Mirfield (which I managed to get to on time despite getting lost numerous times!)

It's your typical artists playground inside with several rooms all overflowing with tools, textiles, paints, everything! The printing room itself had some beautiful old presses in (and gorgeous wooden floorboards.)

So I want to share with you all what I got up to on day one!

Drypoint 

This basically is carving or etching into a surface with a sharp pointed tool. We did three, one metal, one perspex and one card. The whole surface is then covered in an oil based paint and wiped off so the only remaining ink is in the groove that's been created. 

The plate (surface you've carved into) is then put onto the press with the paper over it and away you go! Rolling the press was quite a work out on the arms but really cool.

There he is, Mickey dowg! This was my best attempt at it. It was so hard to keep the plate clean after wiping it when you're hands are completely black with ink. If you don't like to get messy this isn't for you. Oil based too so it was a bitch to get off!


Secondly, Mono Printing

This was so fun to do and the results were amazing. I really enjoyed mono printing. What you do is coat a sheet of perspex in one colour, we used a water based ink for this, and place on top whatever you want. The kind of things you'd find in your average artist/crafter/hoarder's bits and bobs box! The tutor told us she once held up traffic to collect some netting from the middle of the road because it was too good to pass up.

You then run it through the press with your paper over the top to create a really cool effect and a one off print. You can do this again several times onto the same piece of paper, each with a different colour. The colours will over lap as will the gaps made by the objects you've used. The finished print is usually very bright and expressive and very fun!

These were the experiments I did using this method. It's giving me loads of ideas for making prints of my octopus designs.

I can't wait to see what we'll be doing next week. If you're even remotely interested in it I would recommend you try it out.


So who else out there has dabbled in printmaking?

oxoxo