Grassington Festival 2012 Art Trail

By 10 am on Saturday morning I was at Leeds Art Gallery with a group of other artists. We had the delightful task of each choosing an artwork to take home!

I'm taking part in the Grassington Festival Art Trail, a collaborative project with Grassington Festival, Leeds Art Gallery and fifteen artists.

We will all be developing new artworks for a sculpture trail at Grassington Festival in June.
Using original artwork from the Leeds Art Gallery picture lending collection, each artist selects and takes home a piece of art and uses it as inspiration to create new work in response.

Members of the public can see the artists’ responses installed around the village during the Festival in June and they can also enjoy the original artworks inside local Grassington shops and businesses.

I swore I'd choose something small and easily transportable but was very taken with this lovely austere etching called Black Landscape by Printmaker Norman Ackroyd and had to have it.

The frame is about A1 size and heavy so thank goodness I didn't have to catch the train back to Hebden Bridge or my arms would be dislocated by now! The trudge up to a distant car park was bad enough but luckily I was fortified by numerous cups of tea and croissants provided by the charming facilitators Bryony Pritchard from Grassington Festival and Ted Wilkins from Leeds Art Gallery.

Grassington Festival is on from 15th - 30th June so I now have 6 weeks to make my response - the overall theme is Tracks and Trails which fits in well with recent ideas - looking forward to a new challenge and seeing what others get up to.  You can follow progress here as my work develops and also on the Facebook group set up for the project: http://www.facebook.com/groups/389873544386001/

I just want it to stop raining ...

Feeling really studio bound as I just can't face going out drawing when its so wet outside. Haven't heard a curlew in weeks now.

Curlew Nest Woodcut

Finally managed to complete the woodcut of a curlew Golden Plover nest on High Brown Knoll started earlier in the year and posted about as a demonstration of the woodcut process.  The printed image size is around 24 cm square.

This framed print is going to the Manor House Art Gallery and Museum in Ilkley as part of an exhibition titled 'Moor Views'.  The show is connected with the Watershed - Inspired By Landscape project I was resident artist for last year and includes work from the photography competition.  A little bird tells me that my friend Angelika Freydank is one of the prize winners - well done Angelika!  Opening times and details are included on the invite below:

Sadly, I don't think I'll be able to make the preview as I'm taking part in an activity at Leeds Art Gallery on that day, as part of a project with Grassington Arts Festival.

SPAM

I've had to remove this post as its innocent contents have resulted in vast amounts of pointless spam. I have no idea why.

Green Lizard at Widdop

I love Widdop Reservoir for its wild, bleak nature and like many places here in the South Pennines there's
a sense of austerity where wildlife sightings seem hard won in a sparse environment. So it was great to find this common lizard sunning itself in bilberry on the rocky outcrops above the reservoir last week.

During the same walk we saw a lovely male Ring Ouzel zipping along the shore, the first time I've ever seen one of these rare visitors - a mountain blackbird with a distinctive white crescent on its breast. No chance to photograph it unfortunately.