30 September 2012

A couple of sheep

Hello! Well, I had a great day out yesterday at the Gransden and District Agricultural Show, where I took a whole bunch of photos (and would have taken even more if I hadn't left the spare memory cards at home, oops!). Lots to see, and I now have lots of ideas for future projects... but for now, here are a couple of ink and watercolour sketches.

 7 by 9" ish

5 by 7"

Sheep - they're great!

25 September 2012

Swan at Woodwalton Fen

Hello! I've been busy doing another linocut print - a bit more ambitious this one, and it's based on the visit I made to Woodwalton Fen the other week with the FenVAC sketchers...

Here are the final prints (need to get me a washing line to hang these up on, out of the way!):

 


And a pic of one of them:

 
As they are hand-inked and hand-pulled, each of these prints is slightly different to the others, so each is a unique impression of the hand-carved lino block.

And some earlier steps in the process:


 
The printed area is about 6 by 8-ish inches. I used Schmincke water-based inks, and the paper is Zerkall 210gsm paper. I reckon that there are maybe four or five reasonably decent prints out of the eight I pulled. Not too bad, but I need to practice lots more on the technical side of things, i.e. not getting inky splodges where they're not wanted ;-)

17 September 2012

Morrigan, a cat

Hello!

Here's a small ink and watercolour painting I completed last week. It's of Morrigan, a very pretty cat belonging to a friend. Sadly Morrigan is no longer with us :-(

Ink and watercolour, 5 by 7". Clickable for a closer look as always.

She was a pleasure to paint!

14 September 2012

Out and about in the fens

Hello!

Had a lovely day out with the sketchbook yesterday, arranged by local art group FenVAC, so thanks to them! We met at Woodwalton Fen, part of the Great Fen project which will see a large area of agricultural land returned to its original wetland state.

 This is Gordon's Mere, one of the several small areas of open water amongst the reedbeds.

 Here's a footpath through the reeds.

And this is the bungalow on stilts (the fens are very low-lying so stilts are definitely required!) built by the reserve's originator, Charles Rothschild (of the banking family). The stilts have high water lines drawn onto them so you can see how deep the flooding was in particularly bad years!

11 September 2012

Lapwing linocut

Another linocut experiment, this is a lapwing, a smallish wader/farmland bird.


Printed on 5 by 7" paper, from a block 4 by 6".

Next I decided to try some chine colle - a technique where you add paper (here coloured tissue paper) over which you print the ink.

Had some ink/glue/tissue paper issues, but it adds a nice splash of colour. Of course, as a friend on the Painting Friends forum noted, the coloured tissue paper isn't lightfast so there will be fading issues, something to bear in mind.

I've ordered some more inks (lots more colours to play with, can't wait for them to arrive!) and am going to try a three-colour print using one lino block per colour. Gulp :-)

08 September 2012

Out and about again

Hello!

Well, we are finally enjoying some warm weather, and I took the sketchbook out to the (now bare) fields near me here in Cambridgeshire. I enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine while sketching this.

 Watercolour and ink, A4 sketchbook

The sun's still shining today, so I think I may make the most of it and head out again...
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