I decided to try to make three plates for this, but in retrospect i think the image is a bit too small and the plates were fiddly to cut and print. The card is not very deep and with small surfaces it’s easy to over or under ink.
So not perfect by any means but I have the three plates and can keep on trying!
First partridge prints 4 x 4 inches
I have returned to the coot sketches and am planning another print to be a companion to Rook. I am not sure if or when I will be able to find the right sort of type so might just have to cut it myself. It would be good practice.
Black and white thumbnail.
So far I have made a rough proof and scribbled on it a bit with white chalk to see what more I need to cut away. I made quite a few colour roughs but in the end decided it will just be black and white this time, like rook.
Inked up plate and first proof
It’s fascinating seeing the print emerge. It’s never quite how you imagined.
My last BB this week and some sketches of the coot for a possible print which I will be doing next week. The weather has been so wonderful that its hard to be indoors at the drawing board!
Print progress next time.
I am just back from a wet but wonderful trip to Amsterdam. In between the showers, the museums, the galleries, the cafes, the bars and the markets we did a bit of canal side strolling Near the Rijksmuseum, sections of the canal have been planted with floating platforms of water plants, just a few feet from the bank. This is apparently a scheme to provide nesting sites for coot, moorhens and other canal birds. It seems to work.
This coot was particularly annoyed by the arrival of two ducks and rushed into the water ferociously chasing them off. I did not get an action shot but here she is returning to her nest.
She was not over impressed by our presence either because she is, of course, protecting a chick or two. I could only see one peeping above the foliage.
Coot chicks with their red spiky featherless heads are not the prettiest “Ahhhh” factor baby birds, looking more like mini vultures, but I am going to see what I can do this week. Some sketches, maybe a print.
The coot I see here at Grafham are shy and rather secretive. Their feet are wonderful.We see them scuttling across the lane sometimes but on the reservoir shoreline you can see them slowly searching for food with their strange hesitant gait.
This is a sketch from last year…
I am very fond of coot. More sketches etc to come.
Happy Easter to you all.
Sue and I are having a couple of weeks off. I have some commercial work to do but will be back on the 28th April.
And, as spring really gets going, there is so much gardening and belated spring cleaning to do. Hopefully the odd Easter Egg will arrive too!
Meanwhile an Easter chick! A little moorhen sketch from a few years ago. Just a ball of fluff with big feet. Some things may be different in Florida but the moorhens are just about the same.
