Lino Print artist Kate Miller called in to the gallery recently to deliver ‘Rainy Landscape’. The first print of her new collection. Here Kate tells us about the inspiration behind the piece and the development that led to it’s creation.
Kate Millers New Rainy Landscape:
About a year ago I was driving home towards Newcastle from Bamburgh, where I had spent the day at an art fair. We had had low cloud, freezing temperatures and horizontal rain all day. However, on my drive south the misty views to either side of the A1 were just beautiful. I remember thinking how Northumberland can look stunning in any weather.
That car journey sparked the idea for this print, although it took several months for the seed of an idea to germinate and grow into a fully formed plan.
This print is a departure from my previous work in 2 main ways. Firstly, it has been printed from around 15 different blocks. While I often make multiblock prints, this time the blocks I used were not always complete. I cut from small sections rather than printing from the same sized block each time. Secondly, I used oil based inks. I have been tentatively changing from water-based inks or inks mixed by hand from acrylic paint with a block printing medium, for a while now. But this is the first time I have mixed all my own oil based colours from scratch and overprinted layers. As each layer takes over a week to dry, and I used 15 blocks, you can begin to imagine how long it took to print these landscapes!
I am now a true convert to oil based inks. I use Caligo safewash inks by Cranfield, which are easy to clean without the use of any corrosive solvents. They give a beautifully smooth, glossy finish on the Kent printmaking paper I use.
I often combine different printmaking techniques in my work. In these landscape prints I have added extra texture in some of the fields, using monoprint techniques, printing from scraps of textured paper for example. I decided to make this a varied limited edition. Which means that there a limited number of prints made (11), and that each one is slightly different. I varied the colour of the ink and the strength of the texture printing in each one. This means that although part of an edition, each print is slightly different, and therefore unique.
I’m hoping to make more landscape prints in the coming months, always inspired by Northumberland, but maybe with some finer weather!
See Kate’s Rainy Landscape Framed Print for Sale In the gallery and here online
