Wuthering Heights - Maybe??

Clearing Sky over Top Withens

12 colour reduction linocut - printed in 5 passes.

298mm x 198mm

Edition of 14

Printed on 220gsm Winsor and Newton smooth cartridge paper.

The final stage of the latest print and now fully dried. Whatever the merits of this ruins' claim to be Wuthering Heights it certainly sits in atmospheric and romantic isolation and draws a steady stream of tourists. Although on the day that my daughter and I hiked up to it we sat and ate our lunch beside it and were the only people there. Hikers following the Pennine Way pass along in front of  the building. Carly and I followed the footpath up to it from the Haworth road. The Bronte connection attracts a lot of visitors to the area around Haworth from Japan so on the wilds of this Yorkshire Moor, the footpath signs are written in both English and Japanese.

Out on the Moor

It's been some time since I seem to have completed an edition of prints, so to get over the feeling that I haven't accomplished much so far this year I made this quick linocut based on a sketch I did back in February at Top Withens. Keeping to a restricted colour palette and the number of passes to 5, it's much simpler than my usual prints.

The first colour is a blend of blue through grey to pale yellow.

Next another three colour blend from grey, through pale grey to ochre. The ink mixed on the slab and then printed over the first colour. This has completed the sky in just two passes.

The third pass is a dark grey through brown to a darker ochre colour in the foreground.

The fourth pass is a two colour blend of darker grey to brown. This adds texture to the ruin and trees and more detail into the foreground grasses.

The final and fifth dark brown completes the print. I'll post a better photo once dry.

New Mezzotint

Not really new as I've been working on this mezzotint plate since early January. As the plate is now nearing completion I have been experimenting with inking. This is printed with a 50% Lapis Blue Opaque and 50% Indigo mix, blending through 100% Indigo to a 50% Sap Green and 50% Indigo mix.

Working to Completion

Since my last post, I've completed the Reed Bunting print. It took 7 colours rather than the planned 6 so here are the final stages.

Colour 3 - a darker version of the first pale brown.

Colour 4 - blue for the background.

Colour 5 - Another darker brown.

Colour 6 - this was supposed to be the final colour but I decided the bird needed another dark to bring out some of the plumage details.

Colour 7 - the final dark, almost black on the bird only.

It's that time of year again

I don't do much commissioned work, or work to order. Being happy to work wherever the muse takes me. One regular piece of work that I do produce though is the cover design for the annual report of the Huddersfield Birdwatchers Club. Having recently celebrated it's 50th year the Club has published an annual report every year. Since 1989 I have been providing the cover designs so the report to be published this year will be my 30th consecutive cover. Initially the designs were black and white Pen and Ink drawings on scraperboard. With the dawn of the digital age it became cost effective to introduce colour and with the 2008 report I began to produce  full colour linocuts for the cover designs.
I try to make the designs decorative, choosing as a subject a species that I think will make an interesting and attractive print rather than some locally recorded rarity. I leave it to the photographers in the club to provide illustrations of such species. I also try not to repeat myself, with the species list currently standing at 274 I've still got a good few to go at yet.

My usual starting point is to browse through my sketchbooks hoping that some drawing will "leap out" at me as a promising design. In this case it was a sketch of a male Reed Bunting drawn on 26th August 1993.

Working from the sketch I began with a couple of thumbnail drawings to work out a composition then copied the original sketch at the size I wanted it for the print (top left). In my original drawing the bird had a Crane Fly in its beak. My intention was to reproduce this in the print but then I decided that against the background it would look too fussy and get lost. So in my second drawing I dropped the fly and just had the bird singing. The next step was to produce a full size cartoon to work out the design and colour separations before tracing it on to the lino and printing the first colour. The plan at this stage is to print the design in 6 colours - possibly 7.

Colour 1

Colour 2

Exhibition News

I am very pleased to have had three prints accepted for exhibition at the V International Mezzotint Festival to be held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ekaterinburg, Russia. The exhibition starts on 16th August and runs until October. The accepted prints are shown below:

Blencathra from Castlerigg Stone Circle

 High Force - Teesdale

Ingleborough

New work and an update on events this year.

After what seems like an age since I last finished a print,  finally I have some new work completed. A bit of a departure from my usual style in that this started life as a single colour linocut which I wasn't too happy with. So I hand coloured it with watercolour.

Peregrine

Hand coloured Linocut

260mm x 145mm

Varied edition of 40 

Printed on 220gsm Fabriano Rosapina

I've had a few Art Fair confirmations over the last couple of weeks. First up this coming weekend on 30th March, I'll be at Armley Printfest, a new event being held at Armley Mills in Leeds. So for a change fairly local for me. On 25th - 27th May I will be at Saltaire Makers Fair in Victoria Hall, Saltaire. Then in July on 20th -21st it's up to Art in the Pen at Thirsk Auction Mart followed on 10th - 11th August by Skipton Art in the Pen.