Wood cut printmaking on a grand scale

We (by which I mean my fellow printmakers Jan, Jude and I) had an amazing trip to Staithes yesterday.  The day was beautiful, the journey across the North York Moors amazing and it's always good to be walking at roof level along the high level path into Staithes village again.  The bonus for us though was a visit to see four printmakers at work on this very large woodcut print of Boulby Headland with the wave-cut platform in the foreground.  It was fantastic to be able to talk with them about their working methods, which begins with sketching the environment and then making choices about which of their views they should choose as their collaborative print.  In the end the final print very much depends on the quality of the mark making they achieve while cutting the woodblock and by the time we arrived they'd made an impressive start on their first block (there will probably be three in total).  They'll be there working away today and then returning to their various homes in the South West and Mid Wales on Friday.  They've previously enjoyed great success as a group of five printmakers and as this print is the work of four of them they will probably promote this image under the new group name of `Linden Môr'.

The printmakers from left to right are:  Ian Phillips,  Judith Westcott, Julia Manning and Merlyn Chesterman.

It was good to meet up with Merlyn again.  I think it's around three years since the three of us spent a lovely few days in Devon learning something of the art of `woodcut' and enjoying The Hartland Peninsula.  It was good to meet the other three printmakers too and lovely to have a bit more time to chat with Judith and her partner Richard who are friends of Jan.   And what's more we learnt lots - even from our short visit.  If you are interested in printmaking their is some fabulous work on each of their individual websites.

And after we left them?  Well we ate a wonderful crab sandwich in The George pub next door, chatted in both galleries about some of the work on display and enjoyed our short walk along the harbour wall to try and catch a glimpse of the scene they were working on (not easy as the tide was in).

Arriving home I had a quick turn around in order to head for the camera club meeting where the first of the Open Print competitions was being judged by our external judge.  Not a bad evening for me - I think I was narrowly beaten into second place with a portrait (and I'm pleased Darren came away with a first).  Another of my images was joint third and image number three came equal fourth.  So a good day and night. 

Very tired at the end of it all, but pleasantly so.