artists printmaking | Lavender Moon: Artist, Poet and Lover of Nature

I love spending autumnal afternoons printmaking. There is so much to inpire me all around. This beautiful Barn Owl appeared as I was driving along the dark, quiet country road near the village of Cople. His white heart shaped face was lit up by the waxing moon. It was a truly magical sight, quite stunning!

Pencil in hand I sketched my design first onto tracing paper, then traced it down onto a square of lino ready to cut. I decided that I wanted a graduated night sky and a full moon, so this involved cutting a stencil for the moon. The lino plate was then rolled over with the two colours, then the moon stencil was put into position. The next task was the best bit, putting it under the press then peeling off the paper (Japanese) to reveal the night sky with a full moon.

After cutting away my design on the lino I printed a black and white version first to check how the design was going to look. What do you think? I was very pleased with it.

When my night sky backgrounds had dried, I then overprinted my owl design in black ink. This was a little tricky but well worth the effort. I hope you like it.

Just for a change I thought I’d blog about a fun way of making art. This painterly printing technique is called ‘Monotype’. It has this name because each print is unique. The ink is rolled out on the metal plate (see top photo), then using brushes, fingers or rags, marks can be made to create a painting or design on the plate. In my monotype, ‘Faery moon’ I used the end of a paintbrush, my finger and a small palette knife to get the picture I wanted to create. Actually Faery moon just seemed to emerge like magic, much like my poetry. I love the colours! The messy process finished, I put paper onto the plate and ran them through the press. The second photo is the resulting unique print. Usually the plate would be washed off and inked again ready for a new design, but in this case I loved the effect of the rich colours on the plate so much that I decided to leave it exactly how it looked. It’s difficult to show the print off in a photo, but hopefully you’ll enjoy looking at it.