For the last three years I've been a Complete Printmaker at Hot Bed Press - it's a course for anyone, from those who pretty much can print to those who never have, taking them all through a number of basic and more sophisticated printmaking methods in year 1, increasing both the breadth and depth of understanding in year 2, and finishing off with a more free-form approach and some masterclasses -  ours were with Elizabeth Willow, Lucy May Schofield, Jason Hicklin and Kip Gresham - in year 3.

We were the very first, and as we grew, the course grew with us, from one to two to three years.  Many of us who set out together still choose to print on the same day as each other, where we can, and have learnt from each other as well as from the course.  We each approach our chosen subjects so very differently that it would be impossible not to pick up a few new directions, new ways of thinking, from the other imaginations around us.  While we've all worked away to our own chosen ends, we've also participated as a group in shows - our own exhibition at RKB Gallery in London was something of a highlight - and at print fairs.  What happens next will be up to us, obviously, but meanwhile to mark the end of three years we're having one last hoorah - a final group exhibition under the Hot Bed Press banner.

Details are sketchy at the moment, but the private view will be at the Casket Works on the evening of Thursday 10th March and the exhibition will run for a fortnight.  I'll post more info as soon as we have it.

My latest Bath visit took in the Quercus gallery - already a top favourite go-to place whenever I visit - and the Society of Wood Engravers' current touring exhibition.  Both pleased me, so that counts as a win.

As I say, Quercus has quickly become a favourite gallery.  I suppose it helps that it's relatively central - those at the wrong end of Walcot Street are less likely to feature regularly purely because I park for a limited amount of time and want to squeeze in as much as I can - but it's far more than that.  The choice of work there just fits perfectly with what I like - the often muted, natural colours, the not-too-landscapey landscapes, the more abstracted work with plenty of straight lines, the ceramics.  Alright, it's well within my comfort zone, but that's absolutely fine with me, I don't want to be challenged all the time.  I didn't notice whether or not there was a specific exhibition on when I was there, but I did notice lots of beautiful work by Susan Laughton - subtle, chalky shades, presumably at least partly because she uses plaster on wood as a substrate - and marks (predominantly straight lines) that build up into images that are, to my eyes, precisely those not-too-landscapey, maybe misty or dimly-seen, landscapes, where the translation into what and where is undertaken by the viewer.  I'm ashamed to say that I didn't notice titles, if there were any - apologies to Susan if I missed all sorts of specific or general locations, and thankyou to her for the pictures she's kindly given me to include.     

A pair of bowls by Nicola Tassie that I've seen and mentioned before, porcelain with inlaid iron oxide lines, were on display too - arranged so that the mark-making (again, straight lines criss-crossing each other) seem to flow from one plate to the other, with especially complex crossovers on the rims.  I love them, a ceramic diptych.

Andrew Lansley also had a number of works on show.  They definitely count as landscapes, or often waterscapes - I particularly liked Time and Tide.  I've only homed in on a few of the artists showing, but to be honest I'd be happy to give wall space to any number of pieces.  Flat space for ceramics is more of a problem - in my house, any flat space tends to be occupied.  Except the floor.  Mostly.

I only happened across a twitter reference to the exhibition of wood engravings - at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution on Queen Square - during the few days I was visiting, so that was a happy chance.  I went along, as I always do to wood engraving shows, with a preemptive feeling of disappointment - I have an awkward relationship with the craft, filled with oodles of respect but not necessarily with liking.  Doesn't seem to stop me going, though.  However, I enjoyed it much more than I expected.  No, I don't like everything particularly, but that's perfectly acceptable at any exhibition, and what I found was that there were few if any pieces this time round that were enormously skilful yet left me bored to the centre of my being (my particular wood engraving bugbear).  Nothing to touch Sara van Niekirk's linocut 'Heracleum and Guinea Fowl' from a couple of years ago, but that has a special place in my memory that would take some beating. In an effort to stop filling up my house with ever more paper, I decided not to buy myself a catalogue, so already I'm having to cudgel my feeble brain in order to remember favourite artists. Luckily for me, the Society website shows all the work from the exhibition (though as always a computer image is a pale echo of the real thing) reminding me of what I liked and pointing out to me that I might have missed a few or might not have been concentrating enough at the time.  So I can say that I particularly liked Helen Roddie's Canalside Meadow, Barry Woodcock's The Spectator and David Killick's Cormorants, as well as Paul Kershaw's amazing Peregrine, Andrew Seaby's Natterjack and others too that even looking at the pictures can't bring back to my feeble mind.  They're all there to be seen on the website, but I strongly urge anyone to visit - the show is in Bath for another couple of weeks, and is on later in the year at Thirsk, when I have every intention of visiting again, and - history would suggest - won't.