Open Houses at Brighton Arts Festival

Well it's that time of year again when Brighton is busy and the festival's in full swing. I like to go to a few Open Houses to see what local artists are up to... and sit in some of their lovely gardens having a coffee and a cake or two! Many of the gardens are amazing - it gives me garden envy sometimes - if only I had the time and energy to make my garden look so good!

 

 I've been trying out my new Instagram filters, as you can see from the photos... if only this was my garden!

Below is the work of Janet Brooke - she does these lovely colourful lino prints. She's exhibiting at the Open Houses in Brighton.

 

Her work is all about Brighton - Brighton pubs, Brighton houses and rooftops, old shop fronts etc...some of it's disappearing as the old shops and pubs close down.. The colours she uses are very appealing - some of them are almost like Japanese woodblock prints.

After a quick soya latte...

 

...I went to have a look around BIP (Brighton Printmaking Open Access Workshops). I'd love to do a course in printmaking sometime - if I had the spare time and the spare cash! One of the people who teaches there is Helen Brown - this is her work below:

 It really reminds me of walking out on the Sussex Downs - the rolling hills and colours of the fields - its very evocative of a breezy summer day :-)

I'd love to learn properly how to do these multi-coloured lino prints and you can do courses at BIP on it. I've done some lino printing before, but just very simple black and white ones - nothing as sophisticated as the work of Janet Brooke and Helen Brown!