Current Projects

We're already in the second month of 2025, and I haven't shared much in the way of new work. It can start to feel like you are not achieving enough sometimes when weeks or months go by and you haven't made any new prints or physical work. But January is always a slow month, and there's very little daylight in which to work. Most of my daylight hours have been spent working on a full-time day job, which has been great for my finances and career progression but has left me with much less time to spend on anything else.

Still, this time has allowed me to think about what my creative goals are for this year, and even if they change as the year goes on, at the moment I have a few things I'd like to focus on and hopefully resolve later this year. I thought I'd post a bit about them here, partly for a record, partly as a motivator for myself and partly because I want to include my printmaking practice on this blog as well as my 'walks and travels' photos, which tend to happen more frequently.

The most recent thing I've been playing around with is printing onto tracing paper - or vellum - using a LaserJet printer. This resulted from an attempt I made to print a photographic negative onto architectural tracing/plan paper, which didn't really work - the ink was too heavy and smudged on the paper. I decided it might work better if I turned my photos into line drawings, and perhaps by a combination of this and using a better printer, it did. I'm tentatively calling this series 'Outlines' and think it will focus on the north of Edinburgh and Leith area. There are a lot of photos in my archive that I can print using this process, as well as new ones I might take later this year, so I'm hoping by the end of the year I'll have a complete series, which might become an exhibition, book, or both, as well as a limited edition print series.

Another project I have ongoing, since last year, also based on architectural subjects, is a series of cyanotype prints of ghost signs I've photographed in my local (Edinburgh) area. I have already made a few of these, and have a few more photos ready to print on my next cyanotype-making session. There are other ghost signs I've seen around or heard about that I need to find time to photograph, and then print. Ultimately, I'd like to scan the full series of final prints and make a book from them. It's been a while since I last made a photo book (The Limes, 2018) and I think this series would be a good candidate for it.

Finally, I keep saying I need to go back to Edinburgh Printmakers and make some more Toyobo prints. It's on my agenda, I just need to find the time. Making one edition (of, for example, 5 prints plus 1-2 artist's proofs) takes me about 2 days in the studio if things go well. A half day to a full day to make a plate, and then a full day of printing. It's a slow process, which is obviously rewarded with beautiful prints. Although I've been quiet on it, I haven't given it up.

I'm planning to make another 'scaffolding' print, using the same paper as I used for my first print last year (below). I also have a few other photos in mind for this, like a couple from our Japan trip last year, to accompany the heron print (also below), and I have some older photos of butterfly specimens from museum storage cabinets which I think might make nice prints...

I often have ideas for photo/print series but keep reminding myself that I need to focus my time and energy on completing the projects I've already started before I begin new ones. When I have updates to share on these projects, I'll post them on my social media channels. If you would like to follow my work on a slightly more immediate basis, please find me on Instagram where I post more regularly, though with less written content! Thanks for reading, if you've got this far.