New Work

I have been working solidly for the last twelve months or so, on work for a solo exhibition at Doncaster Art Gallery next January. This will have around 25-30 prints in it, all based on studies made around the valley of the River Don in South Yorkshire. Mostly landscapes but others with some Natural History content. So far I have 21 prints completed, so as I average about 2 a month I should meet my target. As all this work is for a particular exhibition, apart from posting the step by step stages on the blog, I have been keeping these prints under wraps and haven't shown them anywhere yet. However, this means that I am now running low on other work and my print drawers are starting to look a little bare. Which is good in one respect but as Art in the Pen is coming up next weekend, I am conscious that I am going there with pretty much the same work that I took last year and which I also showed at Printfest earlier this year. It doesn't look like I have done anything new for about the last 18 months! So in order to redress this over the last week or so, in and amongst other work, I have come up with a couple of new items just for next weekend.

Firstly a couple of simple prints done using the same block.

Badger 1
Linocut. 110mm x 150mm

I had been to that well known stockist of artist materials "Poundland" and bought a load of small brown paper bags, originally these were being sold as bags to put packed lunches in for childrens school dinners. I wanted them to put greetings cards and small prints in when I sold them. To smarten the bags up I printed this simple design onto the front of them all. Loathe as I was to waste a print on a "give away" I also printed a small edition of 12 onto some Hosho paper. Using the same block I also made a two colour linocut which I printed as a much larger edition of 24 also on Hosho paper. Actually my largest edition to date. I don't usually print more than 10 in an edition.

Badger 2
2 colour reduction linocut. 110mm x 150mm

These were pretty simple and didn't take much time to do so I came up with something else, slightly more complicated.

Otter
7 colour reduction linocut.
247mm x 150mm
Edition of 16.

Based on drawings made a couple of years ago of one in the River Nith in the centre of Dumfriess.