Lockdown Lino

source photos and the design transferred to lino
© Teresa Newham

Since lockdown began, I've realised I need to find a way to make art in spite of my current inability to concentrate for long.  I've been watching some excellent YouTube videos by Laura Boswell and become really keen to try some of her tips and techniques (do check them out - she's into her second series now with a third one planned).

one of my new Pfeil linocut tools - a work of art in themselves
© Teresa Newham

Back in January I designed a pair of linocuts of a duck and a drake, tracing the outline of the birds from some photos I took on Harpenden Common a few years ago and adapting each one for printing. I got no further because I couldn't decide how to tackle the background.  Now seems a good time to experiment!

fun with colour mixing
© Teresa Newham

So far I've stained the lino to see the cutting more easily; prevented the carbon transferring to the print by curing it first; and painted some of the background onto the lino with watercolour before cutting it.  I just love the new Pfeil linocut tools I was given for Christmas, which are comfortable and easy to use.

painting the background before cutting
© Teresa Newham

I'm taking things slowly. It suits my mood to leave the prints a week or so to dry between each layer, giving me time to work out the next stage and how to approach it - some of the layers are more transparent than others.  It's complicated, but it's fun and it's keeping me occupied. If I'm happy with the result, I'll show you how the prints turn out!

sky, grass and shadow completed - now for the rest!
© Teresa Newham

Ducks and Days

The end of July has turned out to be as busy as the rest of it. The art show season is finished, but I'm now in the throes of preparations for Herts Open Studios - for further details click here. During the week I've had off work, I've wrapped & labelled photo cards & posters and mounted originals, painted and wrapped cards, and received so many art-related packages (including that linocut set that I wasn't going to bother with until later in the year . . . ) that I've started my own bubblewrap mountain! I'm also now the proud possessor of a card rack, folding camping table and two collapsible chairs, although that has quite a lot to do with a visit to the open-air theatre at Tolethorpe, which involved eating a picnic sitting on a slope in a howling gale. Luckily the play was excellent.














Flying Ducks
© Teresa Kirkpatrick 2009

I haven't been entirely idle on the painting front in July, however. I finally got round to doing two cherished projects - my Flying Ducks, which is supposed to be a pastiche on the ceramic ones which everyone had on their walls in the 1950's - and The Days are now Short, which I first thought of doing during a performance of the Merry Widow at the ENO last year. I fell in love with the lighting and it has stayed with me ever since. It shows Elrond and Arwen in a scene which we don't actually see in Lord of the Rings: waiting almost desperately for the outcome of a battle in which they can take no part. The full quote is: "The days are now short. Either our hope cometh, or all hope's end." I like Tolkien's word-play here. Aragorn, who is fighting the battle, is also known as Estel (Hope).



















The Days are now Short
© Teresa Kirkpatrick 2009

I have plenty more Tolkien-related paintings in my head, and many non-Tolkien ones too. Eventually I will get round to completing them all!

Memory & Imagination

Memory & Imagination: New River, Broxbourne
© Teresa Kirkpatrick 2009

It might seem strange, blogging about a painting which I don't think anyone (apart from me) is going to think much of, but I really like this picture. Just after Easter I took a walk with a couple of friends (and a dog) along the New River at Broxbourne, Hertfordshire. It was a lovely afternoon and I wished I'd brought along my camera. We saw a swan sitting on her nest, various other waterbirds such as coots and grebes, and (memorably) a brace of ducks using the long, straight river just like an aeroplane runway! One of my friends mentioned that he regularly brings his two-year-old grandson to the river to look at the waterfowl.

When I got home, I scribbled down my main impressions of the scene: the long, straight river vanishing in the distance, the swan on her nest etc. Three weeks on (with much happening in between) I finally got around to setting brush to paper. I wanted to capture the feeling of Spring, the drama of the straight lines, the green algae-filled river, the wonder of spotting that swan on her nest. No matter that I can't remember now if the tree roots she was settled in were those of a willow or something else, or that I've almost certainly left out a bridge or two. The man and the boy on the river bank might be my friend and his grandson, but they might not (the child in the painting is probably too tall for a two-year-old). It doesn't even matter that it's not a particularly good rendering of the scene. This one's for me - but I'm sharing it with you!