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.

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.

New Prints

 I have been working on a number of images all of which have over the last couple of days come to completion and been editioned.

Badger

Wood Engraving

30mm x 70mm

Golden Eagle 

Wood Engraving

23mm x 72mm

Sylvan Cathedral

Mezzotint

200mm x 300mm

Signs of Industry

 All along the Calder Valley are signs of its industrial past. Some are obvious, the old mill buildings dating from the industrial revolution to older relics of the old cottage industries. Along the watercourses there are old overgrown mill leats and broken sluices the only remaining traces of industries long gone and now hidden by the overgrown tangle of reclaiming woodland.

The Old Sluice

Wood Engraving on Maple

100mm x 75mm

Edition of 20

The Dumb Steeple

 Another small wood engraving 55mm x 40mm on an oddly shaped sample block. Quite a test of composition. This is the Dumb Steeple at Cooper Bridge in the Calder Valley, close to where the River Colne joins the River Calder. Originally it stood in the centre of the crossroads where the road up the valley divides, one branch crosses the Calder and on to Huddersfield, whilst the main road continues up the Calder Valley. Now though it stands to one side, having been moved from its original spot when the roads were widened. In 1812 it was the rallying point for a group of Luddites prior to them marching on Rawfolds Mill in Liversedge a couple of miles over the hill from here.

Pentre Ifan

 Newly completed wood engraving on Boxwood of the Pentre Ifan neolithic burial chamber in Pembrokeshire

Pentre Ifan

Wood Engraving on Boxwood

39mm x 63mm

Printed on Japanese Simili paper with Hawthorn Dense Black ink.

Delving into the archives

Usually my prints are made from recently drawn sketches and fresh ideas. Sometimes though a sketch may have laid unused for years. This latest print evolved from one such drawing. Looking at my range of subject matter it's all a bit haphazard and I thought it might be a good idea to create a body of more unified work. Something that I haven't done since a solo exhibition I held at Doncaster Art Gallery 8 years ago. With that in mind I started thinking about some of the memorable encounters that I've had over the years; Pine Marten in Scotland, Golden Eagle in the Lake District and Otters in Wales, Leighton Moss in Lancashire and also in Scotland. Thinking along these lines I realised that it was a long time since I had last seen an Otter. It's even longer since I last saw a Pine Marten but going back to the subject of Otters I turned up the drawings of the last sighting I had. Twelve years ago my wife and I happened to be in Dumfries in Southern Scotland. We had parked in a carpark beside the river and on returning noticed a large crowd of people leaning against the railings looking at something in the water. Naturally we went over to be nosey, assuming they were just watching kids playing around in the water. What we saw was an Otter fishing below the weir just underneath the footpath. Fortunately I had a small A6 notebook in my pocket and a stubby bit of pencil and managed a few scribbled sketches, more as a record of the encounter than with any expectation of them being the basis of anything further. I splashed the watercolour on later to fix the pencil and stop it smudging any further than it already had.

Looking at these sketches recently I began to think that maybe something could be made of them and I doodled up the design below in black biro.

It had possibilities so I drew a more refined design in pen and ink to the size of  a spare wood block that I had.

and then made a tracing to transfer to the block.

After a couple of days engraving I had this

The Fisher King

Wood Engraving on Maple Wood

100mm x 75mm

Recent Prints

 A couple of prints finished over the last couple of weeks. A simple 4 colour linocut printed to use as my Christmas Card and a small Wood Engraving of a Grey Seal and her pup originally sketched over 30 years ago at Pwllderi on the north coast of Pembrokeshire.

Winter Moor

4 colour Linocut

190mm x 130mm

Grey Seal and Pup

Wood Engraving on Lemonwood

30mm x 69mm

Moorland Bridge

 

Moorland Bridge

Wood Engraving (on Maple Wood)

100mm x 75mm

Edition of 50

Printed on 145gms Zerkall Smooth with Hawthorn Printmakers Dense Black Ink.

This simple but elegant footbridge stands beside the Pennine Way footpath about quarter of a mile north of Blackstone Edge Reservoir.

Starting a new print

 On one of our regular local walks exploring the moors near our home. My daughter Carly and I came across this little stone bridge crossing the feeder canal to one of the moorland reservoirs. I made a quick pen and ink sketch and then back home in the studio made a more careful pen and ink scraperboard cartoon in reverse ready to transfer to the Maple wood endgrain block. The final photo shows the block with the newly started engraving.

Pen and Ink field drawing

Reversed drawing the same size as the wood block in pen and ink on scraperboard.

The newly started engraving.

Stepping Stones

 

Stepping Stones

Wood Engraving on Maple 

100mm x 75mm

Edition of 30

Printed on 145gsm Zerkall smooth with Hawthorn Printmakers Dense Black Ink, completed 12th February 2021.

First Print of the Year

 

Dipper

Wood Engraving on Boxwood

50mm x 62mm

Edition of 20

Printed with Hawthorn Printmakers Dense Black Ink on 145gsm Zerkall Smooth.

The first print of the New Year and the last of my little sample pieces of endgrain blocks.

Stoat

 Another small wood engraving on Boxwood printed on Boxing Day.

Stoat

Wood Engraving

51mm x 54mm

Edition of 20

Roe Deer

 The mezzotint plate that I have been working on for the last couple of months is now ready to edition. However, due to a small stock control issue I've none of the Fabriano Rosapina paper that I use for the mezzotints. So whilst waiting for the order to arrive I engraved and printed this little wood engraving instead. Based on some sketches made back in March of one of a group of 4 deer feeding along the edge of a field close to my home.

Printed with Hawthorn Printmakers Dense Black Ink on 145gsm Zerkall Smooth paper.

Hitting a Wall

 It's been a bit of a frustrating month since our summer holiday. I've made two attempts at a linocut of the lighthouse at Spurn Head and both attempts have ended up in the bin. The first abandoned after about 5 colours and the second after two colour passes. I'll return to the subject and give it another go as there is definitely a print there but I need a couple of months distance, to come back to it with fresh eyes.

So in the meantime I've been playing around with my sample endgrain wood blocks and engraved a couple of little prints.

Towards Bacton Church

22mm x 76mm

Engraved on Lemonwood.

Based on a recent sketch made on the Norfolk coast, looking across the wheat fields from near Paston to the church in the village of Bacton.

The Te Deum Stone, Withens Gate, Calderdale.

45mm x 39mm

Engraved on Maple Wood.

An incised marker stone probably dating from the late medieval times which stands beside the packhorse route which crosses the moor between Mankinholes and Cragg Vale in the Calder Valley. The latin inscription; Te Deum Laudamus translates as "we praise thee O Lord."