Illustrators’ Fair 10 dec Granary square nc1

03/12/2022 | Cat Among the Pigeons Press

I’m excited to be participating in the Illustrators’ Fair for the first time ever. There will be 100 stallholders of artists, illustrators, comic book artists, printmakers, animators and more! The fair is on Saturday 10 December, 11am to 5pm, in the covered atrium of UAL, Granary Square, Kings Cross, NC1. I will be running a 20% off sale on my colourful linocuts and screenprints; and I am sharing a stall with the brilliant printmaker Atomic Mess, do check out his Etsy shop.

To find out about all the fantastic participants follow along on Twitter @IllustratorsFa1 and on Instagram @illustratorsfair

and on both sites the hashtags #illustratorsfair #illustratorsfair22 #festival of flyers

Flyer advertising stallholder Cat Among the Pigeons Press at the Illustrators' Fair featuring a selection of colourful prints and fair details.

vote for the people’s choice award in the derby print open 2022

21/06/202221/06/2022 | Cat Among the Pigeons Press

Show some love and vote for prints to win the People’s Choice Award in the Derby Print Open exhibition. Visit https://www.derbyprintopen.org/browse/dpo2022 click on a print, click on the heart icon beneath the print to vote. You can vote for multiple prints. There are 60 printmakers exhibiting over 200 prints!

Of course I would be over the moon if you fancied voting for any of my Owl prints, you can find them on my dedicated page https://www.derbyprintopen.org/printmakers/catherine-cronin – thank you!

Owls at the derby print open 2022

02/06/202221/06/2022 | Cat Among the Pigeons Press

I am very pleased to be exhibiting at the Derby Print Open for the first time this year!

“The Derby Print Open is an exhibition open to all showcasing contemporary printmaking from artists based in the United Kingdom.

The Derby Print Open was created in 2018, by Green Door Printmaking Studio, with a simple ideology; to promote printmaking and printmakers around the UK.”

There are 60 printmakers exhibiting over 200 prints! On show I have a framed in oak ‘Tyto’ screenprint, a framed in walnut-stained wood ‘Long-eared Owl’ linocut, and unframed: ‘Barn Owl’, ‘Short-eared Owl’ and ‘Tawny Owl’.

The launch of the physical exhibition is this weekend, and the exhibition runs until 30 June 2022. If you can’t make it in person, don’t worry as the online exhibition launched yesterday:

Virtual tour – https://www.derbyprintopen.org/dpo-2022/virtual-exhibition

Note: I noticed the virtual tour doesn’t reflect the true dimensions or framing of the prints; if you look at the prints by the two below options, you will see how they look for real.

Browse printmakers – https://www.derbyprintopen.org/#selected-printmakers
- My page – https://www.derbyprintopen.org/printmakers/catherine-cronin

Shop prints – https://www.derbyprintopen.org/browse/dpo2022

Visibility Fair 2021

26/09/202127/09/2021 | Cat Among the Pigeons Press

The online Visibility Fair is a collaborative enterprise by Just A Card and Handmade Hour, hosted on Tresstle. There’s hundreds of independent makers and artists participating, including me. The fair goes live today and is on all week till 10pm on Friday 1 October.

Use coupon code VF2021 across the fair where you see promotions.
Get 15% off with code in my Etsy shop during the fair, I also offer free shipping in the UK.

Follow the #VisibilityFair on all social platforms to see the latest news from participants and buyers.

Merry Christmas Print Sale 2021

05/12/202102/06/2022 | Cat Among the Pigeons Press

It’s time for a Christmas sale! Use code MERRY20 in my Etsy and Folksy shops for 20% off handmade original prints. I’m running a sale of 20% off in my ArtFinder shop too. ENDS 16th December. I offer free shipping in the UK.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CatAmongstThePigeons

https://folksy.com/shops/catcronin

https://www.artfinder.com/artist/catherine-cronin/

Additionally in my Etsy and Folksy shop I am offering the following discounts on cards.

New reproduction greetings cards of my linocut prints, produced by MOO:
1 card at £3.50
Mix & match 2 card designs at £6
Mix pairs of cards – 4 cards at £10
🎄🐈‍⬛🎄❄🎄🍐🎄❤🎄🐈‍⬛🎄❄

Indie Week 22 to 26 November 2021

21/11/2021 | Cat Among the Pigeons Press

I’m a virtual stall holder at the #VisibilityFair with over 400 other artists, makers, crafts-peeps and indie businesses. Visibility Fair is celebrating #indieweek with @justacard from tomorrow through to Friday. (22-26 November)

Perfect spot for some wonderful independent shopping!
Opening at 10am Monday 22 Nov – head on over to:
https://tresstle.com/events/visibility-fair/

Use fair COUPON CODE VF2021 FOR 15% OFF in my #Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CatAmongstThePigeons
#freeshippinguk

Follow on Instagram at #VisibilityFair #HandmadeHour #Justacard @justacard @handmade_hour #indieweek @tresstle_

Thoughts on Life Drawing 5: where to start?

Unfinished seated female nude; colours in body yellow, red and blue.

31/07/202124/07/2021 | Cat Among the Pigeons Press

Where to start? For me it is always the nipples. Starting at the solid centre of the torso and working my way out towards the hands and feet and head. I look at the shapes and lines the body forms and the negative spaces. Due to time restraints of the poses many of my drawings are missing hands, feet and the head; sometimes this seems not to matter in the drawing, and other times its a real shame. If everything is in place and the head is the only thing missing – it can sometimes feels like a negation of that person; not intended, but nevertheless the outcome.

Dana 2021 © Catherine Cronin

I feel more comfortable drawing women, the anatomy much more familiar, I occupy the same skin after all. I am also more interested in what it means to be a woman and the experience of how our bodies are looked at, praised and judged; what it feels like to be inside that experience. If a figure has a head and an expression, that is the way into that experience and character. I want to take my life drawing in this direction; but at the moment I am still in practice, practice mode. I find the head in a drawing session the most difficult part to draw, and to capture a face or expression even harder.

Thoughts on Life Drawing 4: god-architect

Drawing of a naked god architect riding a blue-white fluffy cloud in a pink sky, he is holding a red celestial body in his hand.

24/07/2021 | Cat Among the Pigeons Press

I was starting to feel comfortable with attending the London Drawing online life drawing sessions; I knew what to expect, short poses and long poses. There is a familiar structure to the sessions; the challenge and anxiety comes from getting a figure on the paper.

Then came the session with Camilo, who inhabited and narrated an invented space. He had clothing and props! He had made the props with cardboard, painted backgrounds, and sewn clouds. He performed poses narrating on a theme of a star astronomer/navigator. It totally flummoxed me, being faced with a ‘story’ and a screen filled with stuff; not just an isolated figure. I was out of the comfort zone again. This is where the tutors Josie Deigton and Anne Noble Partridge were invaluable; they were so reassuring and the words that resonated with me during this session, were something like: it’s okay if you don’t know what you are doing, its fine to feel lost; if the visualised story is too much for you, just focus on starting on the figure; or maybe you are interested in the set, pick an aspect of the set to draw.

I told myself ‘don’t worry about the narrative’, just focus on the figure. The more I drew and the more I looked, the more I found myself absorbed in the story. These are the 3 drawings I am most happy with from this session, I read them as showing a god-architect, who is engaged in mysterious activities in the process of building an Earth and its weather system. I imagine he is one of many god-architects active in the Universe.

I never would have thought to make images like this, you can really surprise yourself by being open to new experiences.

Thoughts on Life Drawing 3: thinking and doing

Seated female nude on a chair, body side on with left arm leaning on ledge. Body colours pink, ochre and blue. Blue background.

18/07/2021 | Cat Among the Pigeons Press

Feeling nervous, figure posed on the screen, blank page in front of me and the tutor’s voice says ‘this pose 10 minutes’. 10 minutes to make something, make a mark, where to begin? Then I start, and in the ‘doing’ the anxiety melts away, you live in the moment, no time to think. This is the moment everything you have learned before, if all is well, will be expressed unconsciously, as muscle memory, and expressed in a way that you are satisfied with.

The online life drawing lessons start with short warm up poses, that can be anything from 1 min up to 10 min; then a longer pose of 20 min or 40 min. Those short warm up sessions are key to getting rid of the anxiety and getting into the rhythm of drawing. I find them invaluable, I can feel and see the improvements by the end of the session. Though saying that, the longer poses offer room for overthinking and overworking the image! It is a hard thing to learn , when to stop.

There is an opportunity for attendees to share their work on camera; and I find inspiration from what I see others doing. I make mental notes to try that colour, that medium, that way to express through drawing. At the end of the sessions, I’m looking at my drawings, sifting the aspects I like and don’t like, what I want to push next time around.

I’m still seeking how to express the figure; I love colour, and I’m interested in creating layers of colour to describe the figure. But using such strong colour on the figure leaves me uncertain about background or the space around the figure. I’m so new to this, I’m still focusing on the figure, and I’m looking sideways at the relationship between the figure and the space around it.