My 20th Year of Open Studios

The first year I took part in Cambridge Open Studios was 1996, so that makes this my 20th year!  I hadn't realised I'd been doing it for so long, how time flies.  The first three years were at my parents house in Hoadly Road in Cambridge.  They then moved to Ely, by which time we'd moved from our tiny cottage in Waterbeach to a larger house in Milton.  The detached double garage was an ideal place to house my etching press and the space was big enough to use for displaying my work.

I started off with just a few paintings and some hand-made lino-printed cards and it's steadily grown over the years with a huge range of cards and stationery for various publishers most notably Phoenix Trading.  My first publisher was Stone Marketing and I did several hundred products for them until they changed direction around 2002/2003.

Green Pebble also produced a range of six of my fine art seed head cards and Artists' Cards have just released two of my bird themed cards (above).

I still enjoy creating my drypoint prints both framed and unframed, but it's my range of tea towels and coasters that have become the most popular product.  They make ideal gifts and are affordable, whereas a picture may be out of some people's price bracket.

I continue to enjoy working towards Open Studios each year, even though it is a tremendous amount of work and my long suffering family are neglected throughout July.  Here's to many more years putting up the yellow flags!