The trees are carved into a plate of mountboard and printed to damp paper. Once dry the template was used to create the exact shape for the ink texture to be applied and left to dry.
Scottish Mist
How was that done?
Author Archives: DianeY
“Elusive” – Red Squirrel
Elusive. They are aren’t they. We are so lucky to have made effort to maintain pockets of populations of red squirrels in the UK. I saw my first on Brownsea Island in my 20’s. It wasn’t until 30 years later I saw red squirrels again, this time in Scotland.
This original design of mixed media artwork is a collagraph print (produced off a plate through a printing press), with 24 ct gold leaf and acrylic paints.
Total size framed 43 x 33 cm £255. Contact me on email diane@dianeyoungartist.com
New: “From the Land to the Sea”
I started this little piece using some sturdy packaging left from Christmas! The miniature artworks are made the same way a collagraph plate using a variety of materials sealed onto a mountboard backing with the addition of gold liquid leaf.
Now available from my shop just click the link for more details.
Fragments and Shiny Things
It is so difficult to photograph gold and textural art and convey it’s lustrous detail in a snapshot. But it has to be done!
I am focusing here on mini plates, I like their individual quality as object and am trying to figure out how to use them as pieces of art in themselves.
Sundarbans Seahorses
Sundarbans is a delta where hundreds of rivers meet the Bay of Bengal represented by the wavy vertical lines of this artwork. This original collagraph is hand pulled onto Somerset Velvet 300gsm paper using Cranfield inks with watercolour detail.
Puffin Pics
A friend showed me some holiday snaps of puffins reminding me of how jealous I was when other artists had used their own reference for paintings of puffins. And also that I had actually got my own photos taken in 2019 when I visited the Northumberland coast. The clarity of the light and their endearing forms and colour makes them an easy subject matter.
What is the Story?
Why buy art?
Why do you put pictures on your walls, if you do? What might strike you as important in a picture? The obvious reason would be subject matter, maybe size for the space, the colours depicted, the colours of your room, what the image makes you feel, and other things that we cannot really put into words. You can just know if a picture is right for you. They can just speak to you, if you know what I mean.
So why paint a scene like this?
At the time I was painting images of animals in mythology. My research led me to Korean Shaman imagery; I finally decided on the challenge of composing my own version of this traditional image from Korean culture.
The tiger’s size is exaggerated to convey it’s power and strength, the Shaman’s eyes are closed to display his trust in the tiger and how he feels at one with the world. You can almost feel the tigers warm breath on the Shaman’s toes! A trusting peaceful relationship with nature. Crane’s are often depicted in Asian art as they represent longevity, purity and peace. The mountain is of significance as a holy place. The Shaman shown in traditional images vary and are in fact a multicultural icon.
“Koreans still very strongly maintain traditions as old as their culture itself, that mountains are especially holy places of communication of energies between heaven and earth. The sacred aspects of these mountains and their relationships with the human communities around them are embodied in the ideas and icons of Sanshin [Mountain-spirit].”
This original painting above is available to buy online priced £225 with Free P&P.
Photo and text courtesy of Sacred Sites. Read more about Korea Culture here.
Paths of least resistance!
So many ideas and so little time! I mean lots of people have ideas and don’t necessarily go with any of them at all, but one of the difficulties of knowing that you are going to create something is ruling out all those amazing ideas other than the one you choose to run with.
I am not suggesting that any idea will turn out well, but the more you that try the higher your success rate, and a lot of attempts end up in the bin along the way!
Also theoretically it is a good idea to go with a theme. Choose an idea and beat it to death, until you run out of steam. All those mistakes and all those gains made with something intentional in mind.
Since this is all theory let me show you some practice! OOPs I have to reveal that I haven’t followed my own advice at all!
I am inclined to representative work, I love making images of animals and birds. But then I can get a momentarily distracted by other ideas I am interested in too and head off in a different direction. I really would like to do a series based on images produced by NASA earth observatory. They have this amazing website of beautiful images from space being continually updated. I am as fascinated by these as I am fascinated by drone imagery of our coastline here in the UK; seeing the landscape from above and then understanding it from the ground is really interesting to me.
The work below is the Arkansas River from space. This sort of work moves me toward the abstract and helps me exercise less restraint on my colour combinations.
NASA earth observatory images here
The original artwork below is £45 for sale online here
Life of Pi – Cargo – Liking your own artwork
I make artwork which quite often gets surreptitiously tucked away; I am sure artists are all the same with this. This print of a painting has emerged from me turfing out some drawers and was from a long time ago, painted before the Life of Pi film was made and inspired by me reading the book. Only when these works have been hidden for some time does it enable me to become objective about the work as a whole. I left this style of painting behind some years ago now and since that refreshed my style completely on discovering Collagraph printmaking. Rediscovering this painting and looking at the brushstrokes I really like it a lot now and no longer feel the frustration of them as I did then.
Lone #Crow with #Gold Leaf Star
I have been playing around with my Lone Crow. Adding touches of paint to this print. What do you think?
A little something for dog lovers!
#Winter ~ #Spring ~ #Summer
It is snowing here at the moment, but we know the days are getting longer and if you look carefully new Spring growth has started already. In a few weeks all will have changed; here’s looking forward to Summer.
Love Badgers – show your love for this iconic British mammal!
We are lucky enough to see the occasional badger in our garden snooping after fallen bird feed and turfing up the lawn; it is more like a grass patch than a lawn to be honest, so we don’t mind! Time has really flown since I created the “Love Badgers” design; a limited edition print of the original painting is still available now online.
Decal window stickers which look great in you car window; available now in both of the designs below “Love Badgers” (Sorry Badgers are now sold out! Please contact me if you would like to reserve some from a future order) and “Love Greyhounds & Lurchers”. Buy online £1.75 each plus just £1 postage. Click the images or buttons below for links to buy online.
How the decal sticker looks in my car windscreen – no glue clings to glass, easy to remove.
One limited edition print available of Love Badgers.
Original painting of Love Greyhounds/Lurchers is also for sale here.
Diane Young Artist 