A Second Look

During lockdown in 2020, like a lot of other people I took time out to do different things.

One of these things was sketching and drawing and I enjoyed spending time looking at familiar things and seeing them in a completely different way. Now, two years later I’ve begun to take a second look at some of my drawings and mark making and I’m learning how to recreate them in a very different way ie. through print making.

I started a print making course in March and now I’ve got over the challenges of being in completely new surroundings and knowing nothing about the process of print making, I’m beginning to feel the excitement of learning something new and producing something new as well!

Some of these little sketches have appeared before in Rae’s MCQG Newsletters and on the Mapping Manchester’s Quiet Places Blog so I thought you might like to see what turned out when I took a second look at them and turned them into a print!

#1 This photograph was taken in a country lane in Sandgate near Cark in the southern Lake District. The first print is my version of it as a mono print. I traced my drawing onto a piece of paper which was laid on inked up plates with different colours. Lift your page and there’s the image. The second one is my most recent print and is a lino print. The image is cut into a piece of Lino with tools ( time consuming!) and then paint is rolled on to it. The paper is place on the top and it goes through a printing press - and there is the print!

#2 This a sketch of Dolly running for joy over the salt marshes at Sandgate and I reproduced this with a few embellishments of the shore in a mono print where I drew the images directly onto what would be the final print. And yes she is running in a different direction - the original image comes out “ handed” or to be more precise , laterally inverted.

#3 I became even more drawn to nature during lockdown and trees in particular became my new companions. I am always drawn to the light and marvel at how the sun always shines through the spaces in trees. These pics were taken in Chorlton Meadows and Alexandra Park, both of which were havens for me during lockdown ( and still are now!)

The print is a dry point which involves scratching and making marks with a sharp metal point such as a scriber on an aluminium plate. Paint is applied and then with the paper on top it goes through the press. Two plates were used for this one as the tree goes on after the sun. A similar process was used for the dandelion and sun print as well.

#4 Walking through meadows and woods left very much to their own devices during lockdown, I came to appreciate the wild flowers and weeds as they are commonly called and none more so than the dandelion. Here is my pen and ink drawing of said weed and my variation produced as a dry point. I just love the way their yellow heads light up the countryside. The second print, also a dry point, reminds me how time never stands still .... and the light is always there. Sometimes we just have to take that second look to find it.