"The artist...is also a born adventurer. His explorations, unlike those of a tourist, are rewarded by the discovery of beauty spots unmentioned in the guide books, and with tireless curiosity and an exceptional proneness to wonderment, he will come upon objects of remarkable interest overlooked or even shunned by more disciplined observers."

Augustus John, R.A.




Tuesday 31 March 2015

High Stacks Flamborough Head


High Stacks, Flamborough Head.
12 colour reduction linocut.
255mm x 350mm
Edition of 10 prints.

Finally finished this linocut. I was trying to get it done in time for the Hepworth printfair two weeks ago but the cutting was way more complicated and time consuming than I anticipated. I'm also struggling to take a decent photograph of it too. The dark greens on the left of the headland are coming out much more blu in colour than they are on the print.

Sunday 8 March 2015

New Work

Had quite a productive couple of days. With the first of this years art fairs coming up at the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield in two weeks time I need to get some new work done.

First of all I've got a couple of colours down on a new Linocut.


 Block cut and inked for the first colour. There has been quite a bit of carving done already as this print will have a lot of white areas in it.

 First colour printed.

 After a bit of cutting, block inked for the second colour


I could have printed this colour first and then printed the grey. But the next colour is going to be a pale green and that will look much more vibrant on top of the yellow than it would on the grey. Well that's the theory anyway. It should start to make more sense after the next two colours are printed.

After dithering around trying to decide if the mezzotint that I have been scratching and scraping at for the last couple of months was finished. I finally made the decision and printed the edition. I'm still feeling my way around doing mezzotints, this is only my third attempt at one and it's taken a bit of experimenting to get the pressure right on the press and to wipe the plate properly. There is a very fine line between getting it right and wiping too ink much from the plate. But after 7 hours of,  it has to be said, pretty monotonous inking, wiping and printing I now have an edition of 20 prints laid out and drying off nicely.




Time for a beer!

Sunday 1 March 2015

Lindisfarne

Yesterday I delivered some prints to the By Hand Gallery Shop at Salford Art Gallery. Today has been mostly spent printing this edition of 20 Drypoint prints. Once they are dry I'll scan one and post a better picture.



Lindisfarne
Drypoint
144mm x 210mm
Edition of 20
Printed on 250gsm Somerset Satin.