Christmas cards and more for Keats House

I am thrilled to think of my artwork being available on holy ground!

Keats House, Hampstead

 My cards and prints and bookplates will soon be on sale in the Keats House shop which occupies part of the room that was once the Dilke then the Brawne parlour. 

Where the great Keats walked ... 

I am, as you see, cockahoop at the mere idea.

So my studio has been converted into a packing station:

As well as the Christmas cards they will be stocking Sailing to Italy and Hampstead Landscape cards and prints:

Sailing to Italy

Hampstead Landscape - Letter from Naples

 And bookplates - providing I can source very small cellophane bags.

Right, no time to blather on, must get back to my cardboard boxes and bubble wrap and weighing scales and packages which will this week be winging their way to the house formerly known as Wentworth Place...

Cards and stuff ...

One way and another, there's been far too much going on in the shape of comings and goings mainly, family stuff (and nonsense) which all combine to push my creativity levels down quite a few notches. So I have been involving myself (on and off) with more practical matters - like getting together things to go in my coming-soon online shop.

Cards, for instance.

Introducing (above and on the left) Field Place and on the right, Haworth Parsonage. Framed collage in the middle. All posing on my mantelpiece.

And below:

bookplates, bookmark and a mini-print greeting card. 

More to come.

In between grappling with Lord Byron's Gothic pile, that is.

Right, back to work ...

Ex Libris - finis

Finished tweaking:

And I had some surplus ink on my roller so I reprinted an old carving from a few years back to have a nice fresh print instead of the unloved dog-eared item in my drawer:

Done and dusted!

Naive bookplates

Testing, testing....

Just tweaking and trying different papers and messing about with ink. 

This last being something one of my cats was apparently doing overnight, as I woke up to find black paw marks all through the house.

Linocut rage

I have a lot on my mind just lately. And a lot on my desk, as you can see.

Which is just a bad excuse for my complete and utter idiocy in cutting a bookplate and forgetting to REVERSE THE TEXT.

That'll teach me to carry on beyond midnight when the spirit is willing but the brain is in freefall. At least mine must be.

My only consolation was that it was a small piece.

And this evidence in a book on my shelves that even the great Carrington was capable of the same mistake. At least twice. And once on a bookplate as it happens.

So ... time to clear the decks and get back to the drawing board tomorrow, stop mixing metaphors and letting cats invade my workspace.

Deep, deep sigh.