I‘ve spent a little time with the moths again… no joke ..
This time combining the two plates.
Hmm.. nice possibilities. These are just proofs on newsprint which prints up really well! Better sometimes than the expensive paper. That’s just how it is sometimes ..
Like Sue I am just back from hols. This time another inspiring visit to a favourite city Amsterdam. Time is short this week so just a simple moth design to try a few print techniques.
Some initial sketches to sort out a design that will be quick and versatile.
A few further thoughts and starting to cut the base plate.
I am doing a bit of exploratory work for our proposed Fenland Book, which nicely ties in with some research from last year, concerning the local willows. Willows are a vital foodplant for many insect species, including bees of course and some very beautiful moths. I have become more and more interested in moths having watched a couple of moth ID sessions last year and I am really beginning to appreciate their beauty, diversity and incredible camouflage abilities. The willow it seems hosts well over 150 species of varying shape size and colour.
I am also looking at Fenland moths in general and so am starting off with a few sketches of general moth shapes..an amazing variety I find! These are locally recorded moths so encompass the Great Fen area as well as our small hilly plateau.
Many Moths …pencil on A4 sketchbook.
and a couple of colour note sketches….
I do have a small moth trap which I have yet to use so perhaps I will set it up tonight, although I think it is a bit late in the season.
I am still playing with the coot and after a bit more cutting away I have another black proof.
I am hoping to make a few experiments with this and now have a blue green version and a couple of dark blue ones.
Coot Blue Lino 10 x11 inches
More to come :)
While I am working on the large adder print I decided to make smaller one with an offcut of the vinyl. I wanted to try some colours and see what combining it with an old leaf lino cut which was about the same size, would look like.
A new small adder
The old leaf print and the small adder. I am planning a two colour reduction for the snake.
A combination of the two plates.. other colours and another plate to come.
On Saturday Chris and I went to Holme Fen, a wonderful lowland Birch forest just south of Peterborough. It is a remnant of old fen and a rather good habitat for adders. I have written more on my blog post at Pencil and Leaf. Black Adders from the Black Fens.
Reading old accounts it seems that there were quite a few black adders in the fens, difficult to see against the black peaty soils. The workers would encounter them regularly but I was glad to read “had a healthy respect” for them.
Adder Sketches
I am still thinking about how to develop the adder image. More sketches today. I wonder if I can redress the balance a bit and rather than portraying them as dangerous and frightening creatures have an adder-loving fen man with adders fondly clustering round, or perhaps 2 dancing adders ( the mating dance) with the peat diggers benignly in the distance.
Rough ideas A4 sketchbook
2 thumbnail ideas for a possible print.
I am also rather interested in their eyes. They are a beautiful orange red with a slit pupil unlike the grass snake and slow worm whose eyes have round pupils.
Watercolour sketches of the eyes; adder,grass snake, slowworm ( which is really a legless lizard, hence the eyelid)
Adders and Grass Snakes have no eyelids but a transparent scale called a brille which covers the eye and is part of their skin. Just before shedding this brille turns blueish, clouding the eye. After the old skin has peeled away, the adders eye is returned to its glowing brilliance. Amazing.
There is too much to explore about adders to leave it here and I will continue working on the images…more soon
For more adder love see artist Ben Waddam’s short film on a peat bog adder here.
