Summer Prints 2011 Exhibition Opens

The Summer Prints 2011 Exhibition opens at the Calder Gallery in Hebden Bridge on 30th June and runs until September. The preview is tomorrow night from 6pm until 8pm. Further details can be found at: http://www.caldergallery.co.uk/.

I have 8 linocuts in this group exhibition which promises to be an interesting mix of printmaking techniques and methods.

Flamborough Linocut

Colour 4 on the Flamborough linocut. A darker sand colour.



 Followed by colour 5, the first blue.

and then the first green.

Inspiring

At a loose end this morning so spent it surfing the net for printmakers sites. After looking in on the usual suspects came across this:  www.theartistsloft.com/prints  and spent the next two hours mesmerised by the subtleties of the prints.

New Linocut - First Colours

After the deliberations of last week I finally settled down to working on the next Linocut, in between mounting and framing my prints for the Calder Gallery Summer Print Exhibition in Hebden Bridge. See the link on the right. Everything is now all framed and packed ready to be taken to the gallery this coming friday. So for now at least I can concentrate on getting this print done, before I have to start preparing for the fast approaching Art in the Pen show at Skipton in August. Anyway, for now; colour 1.

....a pale cream colour. This is the Yorkshire Coast at Flamborough, so the cliffs here are Chalk rather than the Great Scar Limestone of the Yorkshire Dales. In bright sunshine they shine pure white with blue shadows, so I can't use any of  my 'dirty' limestone greys here if I want to retain that summer brightness. Next colour is a blue grey.

The second colour always looks like I've printed it too dark (sometimes I have!), but this time I think it should be ok. It may not be blue enough though. Next we'll start to warm things up a bit.

A bit of golden yellow for the beach.

Doodling

Since finishing the Kilnsey Crag linocut I've been at something of a loose end. I have ideas for prints but couldn't settle down to work on anything. I started with this thumbnail of Dent in the Yorkshire Dales.

It has potential but I'm not sure I can make a linocut from it - maybe a Scraperboard drawing.
I tried a drawing of the North Landing at Flamborough and then worked on some thumbnails of Avocets.

If ever a bird was designed for linocutting it has to be the Avocet. But therein lies the problem -trying to come up with an original design.

I then got distracted by this Dunnock outside the window, before going back to the Avocets.

Dunnock. Field Drawing.
Rotring Art Pen.

I then went back to the avocets before revisiting the drawing of North Landing Flamborough.

It looks like this is what we are going with - tune in next week.

Entering the World of Modern Communications

With a lot of help from my teenage daughter (something of an expert on these matters). I now have a facebook page. See the link on the right. Just not sure what to do with it.

Kilnsey Crag Wharfedale

Kilnsey Crag
10 Colour Reduction Linocut.
270mm x 180mm.
Edition of 6.

Finished the print off with the final dark on the crag. This lump of shattered Great Scar Limestone with its massive overhang, stands close to the road as you travel up Wharfedale. The road, just off to the right of the stream, passes beneath the crag and infront of the farmhouse in the middle distance. Shortly after it divides; one branch bearing left to take the traveller up Littondale, the other continuing along Wharfedale behind the hill in the distance.

I was tempted to use black as the final colour, but resisted the temptation. Using instead a dark grey made up from the accumulated leftovers of previous colours all mixed together and saved in an old ink pot. I've pretty much stopped using black as I felt it was too overpowering against some of the paler colours. Even the final colour on the Raven print was printed using this dark grey mix.