Celia Hart's blog about what's going on in and around her studio.
Art, printmaking, inspirations, gardening, vegetables, hens, landscapes, wild flowers, East Anglia, adventure, travel.

Friday 4 January 2008

Fleeting moments

Happy New Year! 2008 entered hiding behind a shroud of dense fog, but that didn't deter us from taking a bracing walk with friends before enjoying a feast-like lunch! There were no glorious views but the landscape fading into a grey-white middle-distance had a strange presence. Water, air and earth merging - an image to return to later.

In my mind I have a 'file' of saved images for future prints and paintings. While I'm busy working on other things or out for a walk or gardening I 'look' through the images and they seem to come into sharper focus. When I eventually put them onto paper the scene seems to draw itself, I've walked around the scene in my mind and everything about it is familiar.

This is the sketch for a pair of prints "The Arrival of Fieldfares" and "Running Deer". It has come together from a collection of fleeting moments, there and then gone images seen from a footpath or from the car. All are special moments.


A flock of chattering fieldfares arriving from the cold north; a single fieldfare plucking a haw from the hedge before rising into the air to join the flock; two deer racing along the crest of a field; the copper-red sun sinking behind distant woods; skeletal hogweed seedheads; hares racing across ploughed furrows.


The lino blocks will be printed over impressions taken from a pair of oak blocks - the grain continuing across the pair of prints. I love the way the grain is visible in the backrounds of japanese woodcuts and want to use the wood grain of the English oak to give a texture to the sky and land.

13 comments:

  1. I feel greatly heartened that a gifted artist like you also stores images "upstairs" for mental review!
    And these new ones are quintessentially English!

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  2. Happy New Year Magic Cochin!

    This is a wonderful post. You're such a talented artist and write so well.

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  3. This is a beautiful sketch. I love reading about your work with linocuts. These will be fun to see - I didn't know what fieldfares were, but now I do!

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  4. What beautiful images. Will you show us close-ups soon, please? I do enjoy your limited palette.

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  5. Happy New Year Celia (somewhat belated!)
    I love those sketches - the prints are going to be amazing.

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  6. Today I've given you a "You make my Day Award" because you do with your beautiful artwork and thoughtful blog.
    Gina x

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  7. Happy new Year!
    I am looking forward to seeing this lino-cut printed up- it looks wonderful.

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  8. These are beautiful prints. You are a wonderful artist ... I really appreciate how you tell us a story about your art... where the inspiration comes from and then how to do it.

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  9. Celia, I love the artwork, and you describe it beautifully. How I wish I had your talent? x

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  10. I know you're geographically removed, but I do hope your undergardeners will be safe from the 'flu.

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  11. that last comment was from Dinahmow!

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  12. Happy new year Celia! :) Did you make any new years promises?

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  13. Happy New Year! and thank you for all your encouraging comments.

    Dinahmow - the under-gardeners will have a secure roofed enclosure if an AI control zone is put in force in this area.

    Celia

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