Woodland Craft . . . a book jacket (behind the scenes)

A few days ago, this book arrived in the post - Woodland Craft by Ben Law (you may recall the chap on Grand Designs who but a wooden house in a wood) and a foreword by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (River Cottage, etc). 

I was excited to see it . . . as the cover illustration is a woodcut by me!

Here's a confession - I dread working on book covers and usually go out of my way to avoid doing so. It's a hangover from my previous life working for educational publishers, the book covers were the result of endless meetings and emails and the opinions of Uncle Tom Cobley and all. But that's all in the past and this time it wasn't me that was pulling the whole thing together, I 'just' had to come up with a picture. And the subject was right up my street . . . I couldn't refuse.

I'd do a woodcut, after all it's about wood so an illustration created by carving wood seems apt.

Great! They said, here's a list of what Ben would like include in the scene . . . it was a very long list!

I looked at the piles of reference photographs of Ben working and the tools he uses and the items he makes from wood harvested near his house, then I sketched them all in a scene. It was getting a bit crowded. I really loved the textures of the twigs and woven baskets so I played with the scale and brought them to the fore. On the back cover I put two frisky squirrels like the ones I see from my studio window.

There was a long pause . . . comments came from the publishers and from Ben. The Squirrels had to go (not welcome in Ben's wood!) the Rooks also got the chop, but the Long Tailed Tits could stay. A Blackbird and wood pile replaced the Squirrels on the back cover. The chair, besum and basket got moved back so they were fully visible.

At this point I paced around and sighed a lot. The composition was OK but something was missing, it needed a spark of something.

I ploughed on . . . to get all the detail in I'd need to work big. Very big! The birch plywood block is about 1 metre wide by 80 cm (3 x 2 feet). I started carving the design for the back, there are a lot of twigs!

Here's the block on my desk . . .

. . . nearly finished!

This is the finished block. I inked and hand burnished separate prints for the front and back. These where down onto thin Japanese paper that had visible fibres in it.

Here are the prints, scanned and positioned in Photoshop. I knocked back the paper texture but didn't clean it out entirely.

The publisher wanted me to add a second colour, or maybe a third and fourth? Doing this as a multi block print seemed risky (especially if last minute tweaks to the design were requested!) 

I decided to add the colours digitally using textured 'brushes' and merging the colours with the scanned print. I settled on a retro palette or apple green, yellow ochre and grey . . . it was at this point that things started to fall into place (Phew!) and I knew I could make this work. Which was a huge relief as I was almost - but not quite - regretting taking this on.

So, here's the finished cover . . .

. . . and here's the back 

The book has a paper dust jacket, underneath is a nice binding with a linen spine. You might have noticed the dust jacket looks a slightly darker colour from the book inside . . . because, well, it is. The brighter colour was all settled on and printed, then after some thought the publisher decided darker more woodland tones would be nicer - so they tweaked the colours and printed the dust jacket.

I actually like both versions. The brighter version has the retro-look of my original artwork. But the dust jacket version looks great too.

It really is a lovely book, with lots of photos and beautiful illustrations describing traditional woodland craft projects. I'm sure it will find it's way under many Christmas trees this year.

Celia

xx

PS: I've put this together on my iPad so will have to add the links later - now added x

August already! another Gardens Illustrated linocut and a feature in the Suffolk Magazine

Welcome! yes I'm still here but there's lots been going on, so make a cuppa and find somewhere cosy to settle down for a read. . .

Because I work on the Gardens Illustrated magazine linocuts about 2 months ahead of publication date, the year speeds by even faster than normal – I've almost completed the October illustration . . . but I can't tell you about that!

However, just published is the August issueand Frank Ronan's column is the one he put aside when his much loved cat passed away – and it's about Pelargoniums.

I love Pelargoniums, but the ones I like best are the scented leaved ones, Smelly Pellies :-) I didn't have any life-models to hand, so I actually went out and bought three loud and flouncy 'Geraniums' from the local DIY store to sketch from life.

The editor had suggested two possible quotes to inspire the illustration; the one I chose was about Frank's memories of Pelargoniums overflowing from window boxes in the Normandy town where he used to live. (I'm not sure why they printed the alternative phrase under the picture in the magazine. Not that it matters.)

I haven't been to Normandy, I needed reference but didn't brave a trip through the tunnel to sketch from life! I relied on the internet and put together a scene very loosely based on the streets of Honfleur.

This month I've sneaked a little Dachshund into the design, he's not mentioned in Frank's column but there was a space that needed something to lead the eye back into the composition and I love the way Dachshunds' ears flutter out behind them as they scurry along, so why not?! And he's a tribute to the adorable Dachshund's owned by many of my Twitter friends (you know who you are! I owe your furry friends a dog biscuit as thanks).

You can see me pretending to work on the sketches for this design in an article published in the August edition of the Suffolk Magazine. As you can see, I had no time to neatly arrange my studio, it is what it is! When the photographer turned up I was working on the design of  new The Daily Telegraph crest, it was top secret so had to be hidden! So I posed pretending to work on the Pelargonium sketches and then inked and took another proof of this linocut.

I will be printing a limited edition of this design which will be available next Spring. All my Gardens Illustrated illustration will also be produced as cards, I will introduce the first of these late this year/early 2016.

In the Suffolk Magazine article Tessa mentions a woodcut for a book cover, I can now reveal it is the cover of 'Woodland Craft' by Ben Law, some of you may recall Ben Law was featured on Grand Designs building his cruck house in a wood. I'll tell you more about working on the woodcut when the book is published in October.

And finally . . . FolkEast
yes it is only a couple of weeks away! I will once again be in the Art Arcade which this year is bigger than ever. There's an Art Arcade Facebook page where you can find out about the artists/makers/craftsfolk who will be there this year and the activities you can take part in . . . there will be so much to do as well as listening to the fabulous line-up of musicians. I hope some of you can come along and say hello.

Celia
xx

A new woodcut: The watchful hare

  

The watchful hare
Woodcut on handmade Japanese Kitakata paper

edition of 10  •  hand burnished  •  6 colours  •  30cm x 40cm

A late summer evening on the edge of a Suffolk barleyfield,
among the Rest-Harrow and Shepherd’s Needle
a hare quietly watches.
 

There's nothing like a deadline to speed up productivity! I was very excited when Helen at the Church Street Gallery in Saffron Walden told me about exhibition titled 'Neo Bardfield' that she was planning as the first major event for the gallery's partnership with the Curwen Studio; and I knew at once that the print that had been simmering on the back-burner in my brain for over a year (I know! I'm into slow-cooking of ideas) had to be finished in time.

If you follow me on Twitter you probably noticed the sneek previews as this reduction woodcut evolved; and although it was a challenge to hold my nerve through the 'when it's carved it's gone' process, I enjoyed every step and want to do many more.

I took photographs to record the process, because each step destroys part of the previous carving and the block is gradually reduced to just the few lines that print the darkest colour.

 

As well as 'The watchful hare', the exhibition will include my latest linocut, 'Up with the lark'; some of my other linocuts and cards will also be for sale in the gallery.  I hope that some of you will be able to visit the exhibition, you can read more about it on my web site, here.

Celia

x