Art in the Pen

 Set up today at Art in the Pen at Craven Auction Mart in Skipton. I'll be there tomorrow 9am- 4pm and Sunday 10am - 4pm. 3 hours work to transform an empty pen into a mini art gallery.

Mezzotint Workshop

 Another very enjoyable two days spent delivering a mezzotint workshop at Prospect Studios in Waterfoot, Rossendale. Once again some excellent work has been produced in just two days.

Golden Plover

 Golden Plover

8 colour reduction linocut

190mm x 170mm

Newly completed linocut inspired by a recent walk across the moors at the head of the Calder Valley.

Spring Walk

 Finally editioned the new Mezzotint. Printed 52 impressions over 3 printing sessions. The latest of what seems to be a suite of images of pathways.

Inked plate on the press bed

Plate and impression

In the blotters to dry

Spring Walk

Mezzotint

200mm x 150mm

Edition of 50

Printed with Hawthorn Printmakers Carbon Black on 220gsm Fabriano Rosapina. 

There is some glare in the bottom right corner - I need to try and take a better photograph.

Field Work

 Drawings made on last Sundays trip out with Carly. Leaving the car at Widdop Gate on the Hebden Bridge to Colne road we walked up the Gorple track and skirted round Lower Gorple Reservoir then cut up the small valley to the ruined farm at Raistrick Greave before climbing on to the moor top by the medieval reaps cross before dropping back down to the car. Good numbers of Green Hairstreak Butterflies, Curlews everywhere and at least 5 pairs of Golden Plover on the moor top.

Green Hairstreak Butterfly, although almost all the individuals seen only had a few white dots rather than the full white hairstreak on the hind wing.

Raistrick Greave Farm, dating from around the mid 1600's and abandoned sometime around 1890 ish.

The medieval Reaps Cross, much repaired over the centuries and now missing it's cross pieces.

Reaps Cross and Golden Plovers flying passed. Lower Gorple reservoir in the middle ground and the watershed between the Calder and Aire Valleys on the horizon.

Slow Start

I've been struggling for ideas for the last couple of months and the old year kind of ground to a halt in a pile of half finished and then abandoned images. At the end of last summer I finished grounding a new mezzotint plate but since then I haven't started any work on it. I just can't come up with a suitable subject or image that I feel inspired enough by, to commit to for long enough to finish the engraving. So earlier this month I packed my sketching bag and went down to St Aidens for a days drawing. This hasn't immediately resulted in a new print but it has got me working in a positive vein again.

Great Crested Grebe. Pencil and Watercolour

Male Stonechat. Pencil and Watercolour

Glossy Ibis. Pen and Ink

Glossy Ibis. Pen and Ink

Glossy Ibis. Pencil and Watercolour

Great White Egret. Pencil and Watercolour

Great White Egret. pencil and Watercolour

Great White Egret. Pencil and Watercolour

Little Egret. Pencil and Watercolour

The view south across the reedbeds. St Aidens. Pencil and  Watercolour.

Back in the studio I stuck a piece of engravers plastic onto an mdf block and working from an old pen and ink scraperboard drawing of a Dipper. Made this little 75mm x 100mm engraving.

Engraved and inked block

Dipper

75mm x 100mm

Plastic Engraving.

Edition of 50

Printed on some of my last remaining sheets of Zerkall smooth paper.

The Last King in Riggindale

 It's been a while since I last handprinted a linocut and I'd forgotten how much of a workout it can be. This linocut, a reworking of a much smaller wood engraving is too big to go through my press so it was back to the baren and a wooden spoon. In six hours I managed to print 11 impressions, although I think only 8 of them are good enough to sign and number at this stage so I'll need another session later to print up the number required for the edition. I was planning 20 but I think I'll settle for 10, unless I can get access to a press with a bed big enough to take an A2 sheet of paper.

The Last King in Riggindale

Linocut.

298mm x 421mm

The title refers to the Lake District valley that was the site of the last breeding pair of Golden Eagles in England.