SPECIAL FEATURE: Clare Sherwen

Today, I am happy to introduce Clare Sherwen and her lovely work.  Printmaking and painting is something that interests me, and knowing a little about the process, I was very impressed with Clare’s work. I am delighted that she agreed to be a special feature on my blog.  Please click on the photos and visit Clare’s folksy shop and have a browse.

Clare says:

“My favourite item in my folksy shop has to be my Purple Cat print, he came out so well and has just been featured in a brand new book called “The Printmakers Cat” which I am still in shock about!”

How long have you been selling on Folksy?

"Since 2011 and I am on my 111th sale which I still can’t quite believe!"

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself, your background and how you got to do what you do?

"I’ve always been arty and love creating things and I did my degree in Fine Art (Printmaking) a few years ago. I specialised in the etching printmaking process at university but it is not really the safest form of printmaking to do at home with all the acids etc! A few years ago I managed to get an affordable table top printing press and started experimenting in collagraph printmaking. This is a safer form of printmaking which involves using a card printing plate and adding various textures with paint, enamel, glue etc and then I print from these plates on my dining room table."

“I’m very reluctant to part with the original painting that this card is taken from. I was there at just the right moment to catch that typical sleepy cat look!”

"This year I have been concentrating on selling online and getting my artwork out into exhibitions. So far I have had three exhibitions and two more are coming soon and I still love the thrill of seeing my art displayed on the wall!"

What is the inspiration/motivation behind your designs?

"As you can see from my shop I’m a little obsessed with animals, especially cats! I’ve just got a tiny mischievous black and white kitten called Morpheus and he is definitely the inspiration behind my most recent artworks!

For my exhibition work I mostly produce prints based on architecture which create a sense of heritage and have a very textural and tonal quality, for my online work I tend to do smaller prints and recently a lot of animal motifs have been creeping in! I have been concentrating on making animal prints and have done a series of purple animal collagraph prints with my most popular being a hippo print which sold very well in the USA!"  

“Another favourite is my lino cut print of my new kitten Morpheus looking very cute!”

"I also love watercolour and acrylic painting and have recently started painting ACEOs (mini collectable artworks that are 3.5 x 2.5” in size) which I only discovered about on the daily Art Thread on the Folksy forum. I’ve now sold over 200 of these all over the world and love the fact that anyone can afford a small piece of original art and start building up their own art collection!

How do you decide what to create next?

I always work from photos so I’m usually inspired by the last place I have visited whether it’s the local zoo with their amazing tigers or my recent holiday to Turkey where I took over a thousand photos and still need to find the time to start working on them properly! I get bored working on just one thing so I love being able to work on a huge animal painting one day to a tiny cat print, to then printing up a load of bags the next day!"

“This is one of ACEOs. They are a real challenge to paint so small but very addictive!”

"I’m hoping to start promoting my watercolour pet portrait commissions soon as I had a break from doing too many as I was so busy over the Christmas period last year. I’m hoping people will be a bit earlier with ordering them than last year so I’m not painting right up until the last Christmas posting day again!

What else would you like to share?

I’d like to say how grateful I am to everyone on the Folksy forums. I’d never been on a forum before so it was a little scary at first but everyone was so welcoming and helpful. The knowledge base that is on there is amazing and I don’t think I would have been able to get quite so far with my selling without everyone’s help."

“This is one of my most complicated to do collagraph prints as the bridge is so detailed so it was a real challenge but I am so pleased how it has came out.”

I asked Clare which three items she liked from my folksy shop.

“Love the colours and detail on this one.”

“Love the notebooks and very hard to choose a favourite but this fabric is so pretty.”

“Beautiful coloured fabric.”

If you would like to see or know more about Clare and her work then please click on these links.

Folksy shop

Facebook page

Blog page

Website

Thank you for visiting my blog.  I hope you have enjoyed reading about Clare and her work. Please come back soon.

BFN

Edwina