Creating “Moorland Air” linocut
Original Print – Linocut on Paper
Landscape art (lino print) inspired by moorland habitat - which, it is claimed, a lot of the world's total heather moorland is in Britain
Most of England's share of moorland is in North Yorkshire, I understand.
The North York Moors in Yorkshire are quite a sight to see in Autumn when the heather is in full flower.
It's another subject for art I'm destined to return to. Surprisingly, it's quite a challenging type of landscape to represent in art.
High moorland hills tend to have broad expansive tops, rather than peaks and rocky outcrops. These tops are quite uniform in texture because heather dominates all other vegetation.
A challenging landscape subject
Capturing that feeling of being on top of the world, when in a moorland terrain, in your art can prove very difficult as a result of both the scale and uniformity of the environment.
A composition can soon look rather flat. Some artists make big art in order to overcome the problem. It's an interesting artistic challenge and one of the reasons why I'm making art of this sort of landscape. That's appart from it being breathtakingly beautiful, of course!
This print evolved from its initial sketch, ending up with a total of six applications of ink. This was more than I'd planned for. It happens.
Printing linocuts is a creative process
While making an original print is a fairly set process once the initial planning is done, there is still room for creative rambles to happen while printing the art.
This is a characterful, subtle, and yet bold original print – evocative of the subtle and yet bold heathland with its big ocean skies over epic rolling heather covered uplands.
Exhibited at St Peters Church, Harrogate Art Show, 2013.