It's astonishing how much it can change the atmosphere of a print, just by changing the colours slightly.

North Berwick landscape art print with golden grass and colour swatches in sky blue, mountain green, and golden yellow

When an image is being carved, it's easy to focus on the composition, and the layers, but in fact, the element which takes time & nuance is the colour combination.

Work-in-progress North Berwick print with handwritten colour notes

Each print is sampled on paper first & notes are made.

It's easy to forget which colour is which.

This print is inspired by the view back to North Berwick Law from Gullane, in East Lothian, Scotland.

Pencil and pastel landscape sketch of North Berwick Law with soft clouds and open fields

After taking photos on location, I then printed my favourites & scribbled over the top, considering which composition I liked best.

North Berwick Law landscape print in deep mountain blue with carving block and colour swatch

Then I began messing about with colours.

The colour combination above, quite by accident, felt like the gloaming, and didn't quite capture the light, that is so magical in East Lothian.

So by changing the colours & messing about with tone, over printing & ghost printing* I ended up creating several different versions of the same image.

North Berwick-inspired print showing golden grasses and blue skies, paired with swatches in sky blue, mountain green, vanilla and golden yellow

Whilst the bright colours in the print above are lovely, they didn't capture that atmosphere the way I had hoped.

The print pictured above ended up being my favourite. I love the way 'The Law'** sits quietly in the distance with the birds dancing in the sky.

When you join me for a class, we'll have a lovely time messing about with inks & colours to see which combination you like best. After all, we are all different, just like the prints.

In the Lake District prints below...

Minimalist misty mountain art print in teal and sky blue with matching colour swatches

It's interesting to see how different the atmosphere is, just by changing the colours slightly.

Minimalist landscape print of misty mountains and calm water in light sky blue and dark jade tones

Misty mountain art prints in light blue and dark jade tones with matching colour swatches

It's a lovely way to spend a few hours, just messing about with colours.

You'll love it, I know you will.

*Ghost printing is when the print has already been printed once, or even twice, so when you come to print it on the image it has an ethereal quality, a softness that is unique to the printmaking process.

**The Law is an icon of the East Lothian landscape. It's a distinctive hill which sits in a relatively flat, or at most, undulating plain. It can be seen from miles around. Geologically it is a volcanic plug, the most famous of which is the one on which Edinburgh castle sits, but also, nearby, is the Bass rock, sitting defiantly a mile or two off the coast in the cold, grey sea.

landscapes

same print, different inks