3 colour monoprint, block size 20.5 cm square
This a small scale image to see how I fared on a new theme. Staying with the same colours that I’d been using with the sparrowhawk.
Second of two more prints… on the same theme today… Seeing what happens as my grip on the real experience slips away.. Maybe a bit samey in my approach but unusual for me to be able to repeat the composition so many times…and I’m still learning about the printmaking approach.
3 colour monoprint, c. 50 x 40 cms
Managing to squeeze in another print… I usually try to avoid studio work at the w/e but feeling some increased confidence with the monoprints and not wanting to lose momentum. Still having trouble with the middle layer… in this case the press has pulled the grey off where it overlays the yellow leaving a more yellowy and tonally paler than I wanted… but sense of being happy to work with what happens rather than fighting it
3 colour monoprint c. 50 x 40 cms
Using the charged subject matter to look harder at this approach to monoprinting. There is only one shot at it … building the layers. Yellow then grey then the dark brown. All drawing in negative, scraping away at each layer of ink, leaving the blocks of colour corresponding to the anatomy of the birds. A slip in attention and some critical part will be cut away… and it is never the same re-rolling the ink… something about the integrity of that initial sheet of colour. There is only enough ink for one really strong print.
The layers are overprinted ‘wet on wet’ and there is a degree of repulsion.. a more oily layer repelling a less oily one… If there is too much ink then running it through the press can squash out finer lines… In this version I tried to cut down on the overlapping of inks but it hasn’t really made that much difference… Learning by doing
Spoilt for choice on imagery in the brain after several weekends in mid Wales. Finally settling on the sparrowhawk as theme for the day after the 2 sessions watching it devour pigeons in the garden. 
same bird as a couple of weeks ago…. she seemed to have grown on this diet of pigeons. In the garden again. 
Beavering away at Marsh Harrier proofing. Determined to follow through on my woodcuts despite the fresh input from Welsh woodlands. The previous 2 woodcuts that I’d made printed fairly easily from the initial cut blocks. This one always seemed to need more adding to it. I was interested in manipulating the blocks in various ways anyway… treating the blocks more like monoprints… with wiping, scraping, blotting etc… All a bit head spinning… achieving something of what I was after on one layer but then losing it on the next. These various proofs were trying to get a good balance.
Large female sparrowhawk feeding on feral pigeon in the garden. Something about the ease and proximity of viewing and maybe the subject matter really throwing me… Same has happened with cheetahs and tiger in the past… just going to pieces with the sketching….focussing on minutiae and losing the bigger sweep. Just starting to get something together with this sketch when a friend called… Good that it is taking out these pigeons anyway… since a school opened nearby they have moved in, perching on neighbours roof and taking advantage of her feeders.
