Lithographs (1996 - 1999)

Handmade lithographs - printed at Northern Print Studio, North Sheilds and at the former Lowick House Print Workshop, Cumbria.

In the spring of 1996, whilst working away at Lowick House Print Workshop for a couple of weeks, I was trying, unsuccessfully, to print a flat green as a first colour for a lithograph of a hillside with two trees. As is often the case with printmaking and all its tricky processes, it wasn't going how I'd hoped. I couldn't get the ink to print as I wanted - I was doing something wrong. In frustration I went for a long walk over the nearby fells. Just before getting back to the workshop it occurred to me that, with this image, I wasn't particularly interested in the ground below the line of the hill . . . and Couple (i) (see foot of this page) and a great many more similarly minimal lithographs were born!

In the mid 1990s I enjoyed a three month residency on the Falkland Islands. I feel sure that the vast open space of the South Atlantic is somewhere behind these pictures, but then so too is the landscape of east Cumbria where I live and work. On overcast days the powerful presence of Cross Fell diminishes and birds and trees take on a greater significance. The many thousands of thorn trees are truly wonderful in their great variety of shapes and sizes - some gnarled and bent by the elements and others with seemingly charmed lives.

On the Fence
Fence (ii)
Couple (iii)
Further South (2nd state)
Skein (ii)
Skein (i)
Holding On
Ravens (viii)
Raven (vii)
Ravens (vi)
Wood (2nd state)
Wood (1st state)
Flying
Raven (v)
Raven (iv)
Lift
Divided Self (1st state)
Divided Self (5th state)
Albatross
South Atlantic
Palenque (iii)
Palenque and Turkey Vultures
Rookery (1st state)
Crow
Couple (i)
Couple (ii)
Further South (1st state)