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

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 Cropper Lads

 Leading on nicely from my previous post. This newly completed linocut may come as something of a surprise to anyone familiar with my usual work. A couple of years ago I was approached about a possible commission for an illustration of Luddites. Not my usual choice of subject matter but I did some research and worked up some rough drawings. As it turned out for a variety of reasons mainly related to the fact that everything fell apart during the Covid pandemic the commission came to nothing. The rough drawings remained in my sketchbooks and I did no further work on them at the time. Something about them kept nagging in my mind though and I kept looking back at the drawings. I'd taken one of them quite a long way to being worked out as a print and leaving them at this stage felt like unfinished business. So a couple of weeks ago I took out the drawing and transferred it to a block of lino and made a small edition of just 4 prints, mainly for my own benefit with no expectation of it being particularly saleable. In a departure from my usual pastoral references this print has influences of  Soviet Era propaganda posters with a little bit of DC Comics thrown in for good measure.

Come Cropper Lads of High Renown

6 Colour Reduction Linocut

300mm x 210mm

Edition of 4

detail

The title of the print comes from the first line of The Croppers Song. Allegedly written and first performed by the Luddite John Walker at a February 1812 meeting of the Liversedge and Huddersfield Croppers, held at the Shears Arms at Hightown, in Liversedge. Only a couple of miles over the hill from my home where this print was made, the Shears Arms is still open as a Public House.

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.