Visions of Landscape

 Visions of Landscape Exhibition at The Storey Gallery, Lancaster. On now until 22nd April.

Batik paintings by Simon Clarke, Paintings by Michael Howley and Pete Clarke, Photography by Phil Darby, Ceramics by Stella Boothman, Anne Cahill and Sue Turner, Encaustic Wax by Susan Brazendale, Glass by Karen Redmayne and prints by Anita Burrows and Stuart Brocklehurst.

Editioning

 After working on the new plate all week, without really progressing it further. I realised I was just tinkering with it for tinkerings sake. So this morning I decided that enough is enough and set up to start printing. After around five hours work I'd taken 10 impressions.

Mezzotint - Progress or otherwise

 Work is going steadily away on the latest mezzotint with one small set back. I took my first impression from the plate back at the end of January. 

State 1 - Impression 1. Printed 22/01/23.

Overall the image is still dark with a long way to go yet but the main elements are defined and starting to take shape.

State 2 - Impression 1. Printed 04/02/23.

After more scraping the large foreground tree is more clearly defined but the sky areas between the tracery of branches still needs more scraping and burnishing. Fiddly work and time consuming but strangely meditative.

State 3 - Impression 1. Printed 12/02/23.

Overall more or less as I want it. There is still a lot of burnishing to do in the sky area and parts of the smaller twigs on the foreground tree need to be lightened. However, I'm not happy about the wall on the right hand side. I wanted a more dappled light effect on it but I've scraped too much, not left enough dark areas and now it just looks flat. After some thought I decided the only option was to re-rock that part of the plate and start again on the wall. A bit of a setback as I was hoping to have at least a decent artists proof printed ready to take to the North Wales Print Fair at the Mostyn Gallery in Llandudno next week.

New Year - New Work

 It's been a steady start to work since the New Year, with this mezzotint plate on the work bench. The bones of the design are roughed out but need more refining before taking a first impression. Another couple of days or so and we should be nearly there.

This sketch of a woodland track near my home drawn early last spring is the basis for the print. I've scanned it in to the computer, reversed it and printed it out below. This gives me an image to transfer to the copper plate.

Not the easiest object to photograph but the images below give an idea of the progress so far.

Last Prints of the Year

 A couple of Linocuts finished a couple of days before Christmas. Now for a bit of break before starting new  work. Both these are taken from sketches made some time ago. The Golden Oriole is from sketches drawn on 17th May 1998 at Lakenheath Fen in Suffolk. The Chough is a little more recent, drawn on 5th August 2014 on the Ceredigion coast between Llangrannog and Ynys Lochtyn.

Chough near Llangrannog

Linocut

175mm x 120mm

Golden Oriole

9 layer reduction Linocut

229mm x 155mm