Blencathra from Castlerigg Stone Circle

Finally finished and editioned the Blencathra mezzotint. Just in time to get it mounted and framed ready for Printfest in Ulverston on 5th and 6th May.

Blencathra from Castlerigg

200mm x 300mm

Mezzotint

Edition of 20

I have been working on this print on and off since last October and finally finished the platework and printed the edition over the last couple of days. I thought it would be interesting to know just how long it would take so I kept an accurate record of just how much time I spent working on it.

Grounding the plate with 24 passes of the rocker took 30 hours
Preliminary drawing took 3.5 hours
Drawing the design on the plate took 2.75 hours
Engraving the design on the plate took a further 160.5 hours, this time including printing a number of impressions at various stages to check progress on the platework.

Finally printing 23 impressions for the edition took 13.5 hours.

A total time of 210.25 hours, something of a surprise as the general impression that I had was that I'd spent a lot longer on it. This time was spread out over 6 months so I wasn't working continuously on just this one print. To put this in context, assuming a standard working week of 40 hours this would have taken a little over 5 weeks of continuous work.

So much for an Easter Break

Spent all weekend working on the mezzotint plate, printed two impressions and finally the end is in sight. Just a little bit of burnishing needed on the clouds to bring out the highlights and smooth out some of the abrupt tonal transitions and it will be ready to edition.

Castlerigg - 2

Got up early this morning and printed two impressions from the plate to get an idea of how much more work is needed.

The plate, inked, wiped and positioned on the bed of the press.

1st Impression

2nd Impression

Overall pretty much what I was expecting, still quite a lot of the plate needs to be lightened. The whole sky area needs brightening up especially the clouds above the top of the fell. The wisps of mist sweeping off the summit need to be blended back into the clouds. Although I want to keep the area in the top left quite dark to act as a foil to balance the dark line of spruce trees in the lower right. The two foreground rocks need more work to bring out the texture in the stone and I haven't yet decided what to do with the dark shadow areas running across the foreground.

Castlerigg Mezzotint - The Begining.

The start of a new mezzotint print. From the original water colour sketch I made a tonal pencil study  which I then scanned and printed off in reverse ready for transferring to the plate. The plate had been rocked with an 84 gauge Lyons rocker in 24 directions with a 50% overlap, about 36 hours work in total. At 200mm x 300mm this is the largest mezzotint I've attempted so far.

The location for the study is the Castlerigg Stone Circle in the Lake District looking north towards Blencathra.

The original watercolour sketch

Tonal study in pencil and ink wash

The study scanned and printed in reverse

Transferred on to the copper plate

Starting the plate work.

Blea Water - Mezzotint

Drying nicely. An edition of new mezzotint prints freshly printed and hot off the press.

Blea Water from Long Stile

Mezzotint

100mm x 150mm

Edition of 10 plus 2 Artists Proofs.

This small print is based on a sketch done way back in the autumn of 1996. I had spent a day sketching my way around the Riggindale Horseshoe in the Lake District. Starting from the car park at the head of Haweswater, I crossed the end of Riggindale and climbed up onto Kidsty Pike. From there I crossed on to High Street by way of the Straits of Riggindale, had lunch sitting just below the summit cairn looking down the length of Haweswater reservoir. Descending by way of Long Stile. The late afternoon sun behind Mardale Ill Bell cast a deep shadow down the flanks of the fell and across the still, blue waters of the tarn.

Finished just in time to dry off ready to take to this weekends Printmakers Art Fair in Chester. The start of a busy couple of weeks. The following weekend on 14th June I will be at Holmfirth Art Market and the weekend after on 20th and 21st June at Carlisle Auction Mart for Art in the Pen.