Last Thursday saw the launch of the inaugural Big Freeze Art Festival which is being organised and run by Charlotte Connelly, museum curator at The Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) in Cambridge.

Frank Zappa once said that without deviation there can be no progress. Well, I am certainly enjoying being a deviant in the workshop at the moment, experimenting with encaustic monotypes, a type of printing technique using hot wax, which I've never tried before.

Polar research. Where to begin?

For an excited newbie like me, it’s like jumping into a puddle only to find yourself in desperate need of a life vest.