Tracking

The lovely thing about a light smattering of snow is the glimpse that it offers of the wildlife around. This morning we woke to the sight of two foxes running across the near-white field, we suspected they were around - the smell and their eerie cries - but we rarely see them.

Yesterday we walked the lanes and tracks around the village in search of evidence.

 

Pheasant  and rabbit prints

 Badger scrapes?

 

A veritable highway of little paw prints running across  a farm track from a small burrow (top) to the opposite verge (bottom)

  where we found a well gnawed beet!

 

mini roundabout

 

 hares!

  

salamanders!

 

Geese - work in progress

Judging by this rather mean little pile of lino shavings I haven't cut nearly enough out of this lino yet. Normally I have mounds of the stuff wafting round my elbows, and eventually round my ankles. But here's a glimpse of the cut so far (photo taken on a v. v dull day :() .

Click here to see the original sketch for this piece.

SALE NOW ON (as they say)

Geese over Garforth

A quick glimpse of a sketch for my next print. Inspired by great Vs of geese that crossed over our heads on their way to Fairburn Ings one mid-December evening. Just magical! I've prepared the lino and, because I will be using the reduction method instead of individual plates, I have crossed all my fingers and toes!

The cutting has begun.


Happy New Year to you all & thanks for reading :)

"Collecting" skies

 

 

I've been "collecting" skies for a new print. It should be about rich inky darkness strewn with a few moonlit clouds but I have been repeatedly seduced by spectacular sunsets and sunrises.  Have there been more of these this autumn?

Hedge, fields and birds

Inspired by glorious sunrises, neatly clipped hedges and harking back to the days when large parts of lowland of England were still covered with the remains of medieval ridge and furrow (see Turning the Plough for an explanation of ridge and furrow). I spend a fair bit of my working day making maps of medieval field systems from old aerial photographs and its sad to see that so many of these wonderful corrugated earthworks have been ploughed down or built over. Inevitably they sometimes creep into my artwork.

Available here and here

hedge, fields, birds - work in progress 2

Second plate printed...