Posted by Dave Bull at 8:00 PM, December 19, 2007
Time for work on the next chapter of the My Solitudes series to get under way; this one will be the 'River in Winter'.
The design for this one may come as a bit of a surprise to some people; I have learned from correspondence during the past few months, that many people seem to have the idea that there are only to be three designs in this series, with the same landscapes appearing in different seasons. Now that's not a bad idea for an intellectual and design challenge, but I felt that for a multi-year project like this, the collectors (and I) need a bit more varied 'content'. So there will be 12 very different designs overall.
We saw a very peaceful corner of the river back in summer. Let's look at another aspect of it this time:
Now this isn't a photo of my actual camping spot - this was taken a short distance upstream. But it does serve to give another view of what this river looks like ... a very steep valley and a rough landscape. I'm standing at least four meters above the water, and look at that trash caught up in the tree branches on the right! This is not a place you want to be after a major storm comes through!
The previous river print was a mid-range landscape design; but this time I want to move in for a close-up, so I scouted all around my camp area for an interesting 'still life' of rock and water. When you get down at the water's edge, it's quite a jumble of white water and rapids. Here's a typical view ... surely it should be possible to find something interesting in all that!
After a few hours of poking around at the water's edge, and getting my feet plenty wet jumping and slipping around on the rocks, I came across this little scene:
Rock ... smooth water ... white water ... and a good bit of 'energy' as the water slides down that little 'chute'. I think there might be an interesting print 'hiding' here ...
I took some snapshots, and then returned to my desk, and started to fool around, trying to frame it in the best way to catch the dynamism of the moving water. I think I managed to come up with something, but it's going to be difficult to show you ... yet.
The previous three prints in this series all had pretty understandable 'key' blocks. There was one block - printed in dark pigment - that carried lines that formed the boundaries of the different colour areas of the print. This image will be different. There will be no key block as such.
During the time that I am carving, there will be no way for you to 'see' pieces of the puzzle coming together. The blocks - for the most part - are just going to seem like random shapes and patterns. But once they are all done, and a multi-layer printing is done from them, I'm hoping we'll have an interesting print!
Anyway, for what it's worth, here's the only one of the blocks that will have any lines at all, so let's call this the 'key' block:
I think you can recognize the stone in the lower left corner; as for the rest ... well, stay tuned!
The thread continues in [River in Winter - 2] ...