Glen Coe

Glen Coe, a passing view (pen)

A small confession. I'd rarely drawn for drawing's sake until I took part in #drawingaugust. Of course I'd made pencil sketches in advance of watercolour painting and some quite detailed plans for lino cuts but I've rarely produced a drawing that would stand on its own two feet. But I've resolved to do a lot more drawing.

Up through the trees

Available here 
and here 

My latest print was inspired by a trip to Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast earlier this year. We had rented an RV and worked our way around several of BCs Provincial Parks. For anyone used to the UK's slightly cheek-by-jowl approach to camping and caravanning this was an eye-opener: enormous drive-in plots (complete with fire pits) screened from the nearest neighbours by enormous cedars and Douglas Firs and a lush understorey of saplings, trilliums and ferns. 

This piece started out as a sketch for #drawingaugust on twitter

but I quite liked the concept and adapted it for lino cutting.

 

 and many tiny leaf cuts later...

PS If you do follow me on twitter please note that I have locked myself out of my original account and am now tweeting from @a_deeganprints please do follow me (again!). Thank you :-)

@adeegan is now back in action please do follow, thank you :-)

Loch Linnhe

(converted to greyscale from original sepia ink)

A week of views across Loch Linnhe, I could have sat, sketched, painted and photographed all day and all night.

That's me!

and my studio, on pages 88 and 89 of Mollie Makes no. 30. Big thanks to India Hobson, Folksy and Mollie Makes :-)

Handprinted by A.Deegan website

I recently decided to resurrect my website after a lapse of a year or two. I had forgotten how much work it takes to get them up to scratch! I don't think I will every find the time to reinstate all the galleries and images that the old one had but I plan to make this look a little less generic, eventually. So it's not too pretty at the moment but it does feature a series of monoprints not available elsewhere, please take a look at tell me what you think.

Handprinted by A. Deegan ~ www.adeegan.co.uk

Cowichan Bay, Vancouver Island

Cowichan Bay - an original lino print in sage green

**Happy Canada Day** USE THE COUPON CODE CANADAY13 TO GET 25% OF THE COST OF THESE TWO PRINTS (excluding P&P, valid until 3rd July)

On our travels around Vancouver Island we stopped by the small town of Cowichan Bay for a quick coffee and a nosy round. I really liked the feel of this quirky little place with its stilted, shoreline stores and homes, floating houses and row upon row of moored boats. The shoreline up to the mouth of the Cowichan River is studded with tall wooden piles and I loved the way some had been customised as bird boxes and feeders and weather vanes. Cowichan Bay is also the home of the Arthur Vickers Gallery (unfortunately shut during our fleeting visit) and the True Grain Bread bakery (luckily, very much open with its fantastic selection of breads and yummy spelt cookies).  

 I've posted a few photos below to remind me that we did see blue sky once or twice!

Links you might like

http://www.cowichanbay.com/
http://arthurvickers.com/gallery/
http://www.truegrain.ca/

Chine colle (sticking the light stuff down)

I chose a lightweight tissue for my latest print "Leaving Saltery Bay" for a couple of reasons. The main two were entirely practical.

I'd planned out a reduction lino cut that would require 4 different inkings and 4 separate pressings and even for a relatively small edition of 25 prints this would mean winding my press up and down 100 times if I used my preferred 120g paper. The tissue however picks up the ink under the gentlest of pressure and needed only a few swipes with a bamboo skin baren.

The second reason was the difference in drying time. I've found that the first layer of Caligo relief ink sits well on traditional papers, soaking in just enough to dry within a day or two into a nice matt finish. However subsequent layers of ink dry very, very slowly and usually retain a slight sheen. By contrast the lighter tissues absorb 3rd and even 4th layers of ink. I didn't want to lose the momentum of carving and printing by waiting for days in between for prints to dry and knew my impatience could easily ruin the whole edition. So I hedged my bets and split the edition between the light weight tissue and Zerkall, with many more on the former than the latter.

Having created a pile of wafty sheets of sheer inkiness I realised I hadn't quite thought through the finishing process, which brings me to my nori versus Coccoina experiment. Presuming that the nori was the “correct” thing to use I set about testing a little off cut. Then I remember the delicious smelling Coccoina and thought I'd give that a whirl at the same time. I pasted the heavier weight paper (Stonehenge) then smoothed the tissue onto it. The Coccoina was much dryer to apply, perhaps I should have left the nori to the air for a minute or two longer but photos below show the outcome:

nori sample to the left, Coccoina to the right

nori sample to the left, Coccoina to the right

The nori sample buckled a bit more than Coccoina. I've now used the Coccoina on the real thing and, with application of a couple of hours light press pressure, I'm really pleased with the results.