I wished I had learnt all about printing!

A long time ago when I was a doing my foundation course at Northampton Art College I'm ashamed to say that I never dared to venture into the printing department. At the time I was only 16 - 17 years old and I regret that I was just too intimidated by the seemingly very gruff, loud, large black bearded Scottish tutor in charge. As a consequence I never learnt about printing and yet I really love prints and I very much regret that I didn't tough it out.

I especially love the relationship between flat blocks of colour and patterned/textured areas that you often find in prints. For years I have loved the work of printmaker John Brunsdon and my landscapes are heavily influenced by his work. He simplifies landscapes down to lines and blocks of colour, a design approach that lends itself well to building collages out of Harris Tweed. I use plain tweeds for the flat blocks of colour, patterned tweeds for textured areas and wool yarns for the lines.

More recently I came across the work of Mark Hearld, in a wonderful exhibition that he has curated at York Art Gallery called The Lumber Room: Unimagined Treasures. Mark is a painter/printmaker who makes fabulous paper collages of landscapes on a much more domestic scale than John Brunsdon's. I love the way that Mark's work is very humorous, lively and almost cartoon-like, but still very much grounded in the careful study of wildlife and landscape.

Because my work is built using needle felting, even drawing a line with yarn is a slow and methodical process. So it's just not possible to dash off a quick slash of colour or scribbled line and a result my work is quite calm. Seeing Mark 's work make me wish there was something I could do to liven my work up. But don't know what or how just yet. We shall see.