Monthly Archives: February 2012

Staying with my ‘drawing in the horns/reins’ approach. Making several prints of blackbird… as much about watching what happened with black over yellow ink as about blackbird. Quite a sumptuous feeling carving into the blocks of flat colour.

I’ve been sketching visitors to the bird table in odd moments . We seem to have more robins than usual and it looks like they are just starting to nest. Grabbing leaves and taking them somewhere behind my studio. Making several quick monoprints to get back in the swing of it after days of domestic DIY, and wanting to get back to something of the simplicity of the sparrowhawk prints.

A bigger block. Working to find a balance in what the different layers do… here I thought I would keep the first two layers very simple and let the top layer do most of the work. Ends up being a bit thin on background… and a bit heavy on the final layer. Enjoying handling a bigger space.. just need to loosen up and play with it a bit more…

Poor photo… ink sheen and poor light at end of day… that and the slight misregistration  makes it harder to see what is what.  Trying to deal with the bigger picture. Learning something but not quite sure what yet.

With these earthier colours a sense of getting more into the realm I was after… The mossy greens predominated in reality but they can wait to come back in, if at all.
I’m including photos of studio end wall to give some kind of  overview.  I hadn’t mentioned the use of warmup  prints (the little squares below the sparrowhawks). Not sure whether they are colour sample tests or abstract compositions but enjoyable and helpful to do.

2 more prints on this theme…