Barn Owl Print

Finally finished the Barn Owl print with the addition of the final dark just to bring out the foreground detail.

The block inked for the final time.

and the finished print.

Summer Dusk

Reduction Linocut.

250mm x 362mm

Edition of 8 prints.

To recap, there are 23 colours on this print inked up and printed in 11 stages as below:

Stage 1. A blend of orange and 3 shades of yellow.
Stage 2. A light blue printed on its own for the small patch of blue sky.
Stage 3. A blend of 3 shades of grey and yellow ochre.
Stage 4. A darker yellow ochre on the Owl only.
Stage 5. A darker tone of the yellow ochre above again on the Owl only.
Stage 6. A blue grey on the Owl only.
Stage 7. A blend of blue grey, light brown and light green.
Stages 8 and 9. Progressively darker shades of the above blend.
Stage 10. A blend of blue grey and green.
Stage 11. Final darker darker blend of the Stage 10 colours.

The print can be purchased by following the link on the right to my Folksy shop or here

Next steps on the new print.

After a weeks work there are big changes in the way the print is looking. To start off I decided to work on the Owl before continuing with the landscape.

The 4th stage colour is a yellow ochre.

Rolled on the block I then carefully wiped away any ink from the area around the Owl.

Printed it starts to give definition to the bird.

The 5th stage is darker tone of the same colour.

Again I carefully wiped any stray ink from the block before printing.

and the Owl starts to appear from the background.

 The 6th stage is a blue grey colour to bring out the plumage details.

Rolled on the block and it can be seen that not much material remains on the Owl.

and printed.

With the owl more or less finished apart from dropping in a final dark for its eye. It's time to turn back to the landscape. The 7th stage is another blend.

The ink rolled out gives an indication of how the block has been cut.

The difficulty now is to maintain the atmosphere of the print.

After more cutting Stage 8 is a two colour blend.

On the block a big area in the centre has been removed.

and printed. The next colour changes need to be quite subtle to maintain the dusky atmosphere.

Stage 9. Two colours, a darker blue grey and a dark brown for the wheatfield. The small blob of ink floating around on its own to the right of where the Owl was will drop the dark colour on to its eye.

Printed and we are nearing the end. Only a couple more stages to go.

Stage 10. Two more colours, another dark grey and a dark green.

Not much lino left now.

After printing only a final dark colour to go now.

First steps on a new print

The start of a new and quite complicated print. The sequence shows the results of the first few days work.

The block cut and ready to be inked with the first colour,

which will be a blend of four shades of yellow.

Rolled out

and the block inked, which gives an indication of how little has been cut from it at this stage.

The first colours printed.

Next is a pale blue

but only in a small and discrete part of the block so all I've cut so far is the area immediately around the patch of blue. There will be a lot of cutting to do after this has been printed before the next big block of colour can go down.

The blue printed.

After the next colour, another blend, this time three greys and a darker yellow ochre.

The inked block shows how much material has been removed since printing the blue. Hopefully this blend of cool greys over the yellow and orange will set the atmosphere for the print.

And printed. So far we have nine colours printed in 3 stages. The sky is now finished so the next step is to remove all of the material above the horizon line before deciding what to do next. The Owl is positioned such that once this has been done, I can work on it without having to ink any other part of the block. It needs to have a couple more colours to define it's plumage properly; a darker yellow ochre and a dark blue grey. So I may do this next before continuing to work the landscape.

First print of the new year

Rain at the Grey Mares Tail

18 colour Reduction Linocut, printed as two and three colour blends in 7 stages.

243mm x 137mm

Edition of 10 prints

The first print completed this year, a smallish linocut based on an old wtercolour sketch. The challenge with this one being to capture the atmosphere of a rainy day in the Scottish Borders. Newly posted on my Folksy shop it can be purchased by following the link on the right or by clicking here

Last Print of the Old Year

Ingleborough from the South West

17 colour reduction linocut printed in 9 stages

252mm x 342mm

Edition of 10

The final print of 2015, completed just before New Years Eve.