Someday My Prints Will Come

I am very excited to announce that I am at last ready to start selling prints of my paintings in my Etsy shop! Although I got my spiffy six-colour Epson printer quite some time ago expressly for this purpose I'd kept putting it off because I wanted to find the right paper, by which I mean something which will convey the look and detail of the original piece. Well I finally have; some lovely watercolour paper which reproduces the images with great fidelity and has a pleasing, lightly textured surface.

So, I am now busy printing and stocking (in between getting my daily Tour de France fix of course.) I'm also still deciding which work to reproduce so if you would like to see a particular piece of mine as a print that isn't currently available as such please let me know, I'd really appreciate your input!

Happy Hour

Here's the finished print of the lino-in-progress shown in my previous post.

For sale on Ebay here

Happy Hour WIP

This is what I'm working on at the moment. I've had this old portrait in my files for ages and the guy has such an interesting face I thought he would make a good linocut. I can't help making up stories to go with old photos and I imagine this chap has just finished a long day at work and is relaxing in the lounge bar before the drive home. He looks like a whisky sour kind of guy to me.

I'll post the finished thing later.

Hare Linocut

Another lino. This is one of my very favourite animals and one so very rich in mythology and symbolism. I printed it with black oil based ink and then added watercolour.

For sale on Ebay here

Wolf

The latest totem animal. I have an ever-growing list in my sketchbook of animals I want to do, I doubt I'll ever be able to get round to them all! This took me two days to carve - I find after a couple of hours my cutting hand becomes fatigued and unreliable so I have to take frequent breaks. There are lots of process pictures in the listing here if you'd like to see the various stages.

Fruiting Bodies

A linocut and watercolour piece. I was doodling away this morning and came up with this poppy head design, then I thought it might look cool and rather alien if I printed it onto paper washed with watercolours.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

I recently joined Theme Thursday over on deviantART and this week's challenge is for a piece inspired by this Robert Frost poem:

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

I really like Frost's poetry so was excited to be able to do this. It's a linocut with watercolour. The middle leaf is embossed and finished with gold wax so it really glows, but the scan isn't capable of picking it up alas. It's on ebay at the moment.

Blue Horizon

The second in a limited print run, this lino was inspired by a photo of a young girl gazing into the distance. The light and shade is very strong in the picture and I tried to keep that feeling in the print.

Rooster

Trying out some new lino which seems to hold the cut very well so I decided to create a larger piece for my next animal. I think I'm starting to get the hang of the cutting techniques now and how to get different effects. So here he is, strutting his stuff in the farmyard!

Heron

The latest of the totem animals, a grey heron. I wanted to make something quite detailed so I drew and painted onto the lino before cutting so I could see what needed doing more clearly. The lighthouse and spit of land were added later and I think they provide a sense of space and balance. See more about this piece here

Raven

Another totem animal, and another one of my favourites. Ravens and crows have fascinated me since childhood and I've been wanting to do something featuring one for ages. So here he is backed by leafless trees and autumn sunlight.

Hare

My second linotype, this features one of my favourite animals. Hares are such fascinating creatures with a rich cultural signifigance in art, literature and myth. So I included a henge structure in the background and a harvest moon for the hare to gaze at.
Available to buy here.

Little Devil

It's still as hot as you-know-where, so it's seems appropriate to post this little guy! I do so enjoy making monotypes and this costumed boy is all dressed up for the Mexican Day of the Dead festival. He's printed in black ink, some of which I remove from the plate drawing the figure, and then colour is added with Karisma pencils. Lots more pictures here

I Spy

This latest monotype is made by removing ink from the plate before printing. It's quite a tricky thing to get your head round as you have to effectively look at it as if it were a photo negative, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.
You can see some photos of the printing process here

The Bus Ride

Another monotype which began life as some abstract blocks of colour. I moved the colours around on the plate then printed it with no real end point in mind. While it was drying I laid it out on my desk so I'd see it every time I went in and out of my studio and in one supremely left field moment this blue haired woman with a duck looking over her shoulder leapt off the paper at me! I love it when that happens.

Available here

Trailer Dog

I've recently got hooked on monotype printing thanks to my friend Belinda. It's a fascinating process which produces one-off prints.

You start with a smooth metal plate and paint your image onto it using any number of media - the trailer dog is printing ink and gouache - then you transfer it to paper either using a press or by hand with a brayer. When you pull the paper away the painting has migrated to the paper giving you an original and wonderfully textural piece of art!

See more details here