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. Here is a selection…perhaps I should get on and use them now.
I have been playing around with my Lone Crow. Adding touches of paint to this print. What do you think?
A kite in flight.
My latest work – Collagraph Print with a 24ct gold leaf sun. To buy online click here .
More about me here: https://linktr.ee/DianeYoung
See how the gold leaf changes with the light!
“To The Sun and Back” – Kite with 24ct gold leaf Sun.
Different angle showing how gold leaf changes in the light.
Shimmering sun
Close up – can you see the gold fleck in his eye!
I have made a rubbing of my mountboard plate by lying layout paper (which is very thin) over the top of the plate and using a graphite pencil to get an impression.
I scan or photograph the rubbed image onto my PC and open it in Photoshop. Since the lights and darks of rubbing itself are the opposite of what my final print will look like I invert the black and the white in Photoshop to see what it looks like.
This gives me a very good idea of where the lights and darks will be when I do my final Collagraph print.
See now how the wing is now the highlight and the underside, eye area and lower beak is dark.
On the plate itself these highlights also have wood glue (or you can use PVA) which help to create brighter highlights on the finished print.
I am happy with this; now for the inking and printing!
I have just managed to get totally distracted by this new editor, trying out all the new blocks for text, images, galleries, calendars and lots more. I was supposed to be checking out some photos on my PC of a trip to Dartmoor a few years ago as I want to integrate a Dartmoor scene with a rook profile.
Now I am back on track I have popped some photos in the new editor’s gallery below. Just click to enlarge and get a close up of these Rooky characters. As we drove over the moors the cheeky rooks were waiting in the pull-ins up on the hills and making begging noises for bits of sandwich! It was a great photo opportunity for me. They are such characterful birds.
I see these swans from Spring onwards on our nearby canal on my regular walks; they are called Mute Swans because they are not so vocal as other swan species. The serene beauty as they glide across the water hiding a ferocious guarding nature that you would not wish to mess with if their nest was nearby and they thought you a threat. They mate usually for life, and if you want to identify the male of a pair he is the one with the much larger knob on top of his orange beak.
Mute Swan on this morning’s walk © Diane Young
Sleeping Mute Swan 2019 at Coombe Hill Nature Reserve Glos © Diane Young
I have rarely painted a swan, but I found this very old painting which was intended to be part of a story called The Crow, The Castle and The Beanstalk. This is Gretel waiting to be rescued…..
My walk today was bright and dry and full of birdsong. The usual suspects showed up robins, blackbird, blue and coal tits.
Blue Tit – © Diane Young
Along with crows and wood pigeon, and a crow’s encounter with a low flying buzzard dipping sideways to shake the crow off his tail. Our local canal has a resident heron who is very used to people walking the tow path; he continued his fishing activities unfazed in this morning’s sunshine.
One of my favourite bird calls is that of the Goldcrest. They are very small, our smallest european bird, and usually situated very high up in conifer trees. You might see them from below if you are lucky, but then only their olive coloured underside, and unless you learn their call you would not know that they were there at all. Their call is high pitched, jingling sound, listen here to find out what it sounds like…..
https://www.british-birdsongs.uk/goldcrest/
The goldcrest is a tiny cute little bird that looks slightly glum don’t you think?
Moving from painting colour to printmaking with colour is really difficult! Tiny bits of colour are creeping in here with my rook.
Northumberland and the Scottish borders yielded some great scenery for me and lots of birds on the shore and the islands. I bought a card with a print of Lindisfarne on it and was inspired to try these collograph and monoprints.
Jenny Wren singing her heart out……
I believe this is field of blue is linseed or flax.
Looking for ways to describe a new format!
Reformat of a painting that had been in a different frame along with adding a pressed leaf.
A freehand machine sewn piece with words from a poem by William Henry Davies (1871 – 1940).
Diane Young Artist 