White Holme Moss

After weeks of gloom and rain the sun reappeared in the South Pennines on Sunday, leading to a long walk along the tops to take in some rays.  We parked up fairly near to the top of Blackstone Edge Road and took a track that leads westwards to White Holme Reservoir.  From there we travelled clockwise past Light Hazzles and Warland Reservoirs. You'd think the reservoirs would be full after all that rain so I was surprised to see how low they are and how much of the stone tower on Warland Res is exposed.

Continuing in a huge circle with a diversion to Gaddings Dam for lunch, we marched along the Pennine Way before turning off eastwards past the rocky outcrop of Holder stones following the path along Warland and White Holme Drains.


These drains are constructed water channels like mini canals that quietly run for miles and miles around the tops, carrying the reflections of sky and clouds along with them. I call them the conduits and I like to let my thoughts slide away along their mirrored surfaces. I've been studying the conduits and taking photographs of them for years now. I expect many people will consider that a bit anoraky and I find it hard to explain why I like them. I think its mainly the sky-conducting aspect, or rather that they conduct light as well as water. On bright days they are sparkling blue ribbons across the green and manila moors.

52 Squared

Thought it was about time I posted about 52 Squared, a collaborative blog project I've been doing with my artist friend June Russell.  Every week since the beginning of 2010 we've been posting a square format image each on the broad theme of 'Journey'. The images are displayed side by side, mine on the left and June's on the right.  We never consult about what we are going to post, but always try to respond to the combination of images from the previous week. 

It would be possible to cheat, but what would be the point in that?

Its amazing how often we seem to be on the same wavelength, making the same visual connections.  Some weeks it really is uncanny, for example week 28 when June posted a photo of the head and arching neck of an ancient Greek? horse statue from Corfu and I posted a photo of an old curling, rusty gatepost from Calderdale.  Both images convey the idea of restrained coiled energy.

This project is so enjoyable, for the elements of surprise and synchronicity, chance and challenge, and I'm shocked to realise we are more than half way through the year now.

To view 52 Squared follow this link: http://52squared.blogspot.com  

Watershed - Inspired By Landscape

Exciting news!  I've been chosen to be the resident artist for the Watershed Landscape Project in 2011 focussing on our wonderful moors and reservoirs here in the South Pennines.

When I saw the call for proposals way back in the Spring, my heart skipped a beat, to read my dream job description, and now I can hardly believe its actually going to happen.

I can't wait to get started and today I met Char March, who'll be the resident writer during the same period.  I'm still taking it all in, but will post more when I have a bit more information. Its brilliant to have some work lined up for next year, and to know I'll be spending even more time immersed in our landscape.

Insight Exhibition at Earth Spirit in Hebden Bridge

Its the final few days of the photography exhibition where I've been showing my first proper cyanotypes and mini photographic books, alongside interesting and beautiful work by three other photographers, so if you're in the area its well worth taking a look.

The gallery upstairs at Earth Spirit is a lovely space for showing work as it's so clean and airy with lots of natural light from big windows. The exhibition has drawn many visitors and received a very positive response.

Pontefract Liquorice Festival

On Sunday I was with my friend Viv delivering a free liquorice jewellery making workshop for families at Pontefract Liquorice Festival, paid for by Wakefield Council.  It was a lovely sunny day and our marquee was positioned right on the main drag by all the action so we had 5 solid hours of intense confectionery stabbing!

A giant load of liquorice, jelly babies and midget gems in 3 Kg bags was donated by the sponsors Tangerine Confectionery, and by the end of the afternoon it was almost completely gone.  The four lovely lads above waited very patiently in a long queue before being able to make their adornments and I was really pleased they let me take their picture.  I only managed to snatch a few, we were just too busy trying to keep the edible embellishments rolling out.

We met lots of great people and a special thanks goes out to Brenda from Surrey who battled through the seething melee in her wheelchair to bring us a cup of tea each - what a star.

If you've never been to this event, it really is worth going, for the great atmosphere and the on-street entertainment provided.  This year there were some amazing sights, my favourite being a bright green strangely beautiful ostrich-like bird with an equally vibrant green rider - (actually all one talented person on stilts).

Cyanotype Photograms

The past month has been madly busy with all kinds of ups and downs and one whole week involving Cyanotype mania.


The lovely Sarah and Helen offered me an opportunity to take part in an exhibition of photographic work in their beautiful gallery space above Earth Spirit in Hebden Bridge over the arts festival period.

Stupidly, I put myself under a lot of pressure by deciding to have a go at doing cyanotype photograms from scratch, using the chemicals I bought over 2 years ago, and to work on a large scale on thick watercolour paper.  Things kept going wrong with the chemistry (I had no weighing scales), the weather became rainy and windy and some of the wild plants kind of went past their sell-by-date. I was running out of time and getting in a panic.  Luckily the weather suddenly became sunny and stable and further on-line research showed me where I'd been going wrong with too much hydrogen peroxide bleaching out my prints instead of speeding up the oxidation process.

For logistical reasons I was working at home rather than my small studio space, so making the cyanotypes also involved complete chaos and mess in my kitchen although I was very careful not to contaminate anything to do with food...

The chemical solution had to be painted on the watercolour paper with a big brush, whilst grovelling on the floor, so why did I choose to use a circular motif I wonder?  Because I love circles actually, and using a disused wire circle from a lampshade as a guide and a lovely wide hake brush, it wasn't as bad as I'd imagined it would be to get a decent shape.  The cyanotype solution dries to a wonderful pale lemony green before its exposed to UV light.

After exposure to the sun, the paper is rinsed in a water bath and gradually the Prussian Blue and white pattern is revealed in all its cyan glory.  I especially love the areas where the sun has partially exposed and you get pale blue shadowy areas.  I also tried some more abstract arrangements of the plant structures but although these show promise for future work, all the ones I did during this session went wrong, with the colour bleaching out or the paper getting torn etc.

I can't wait to get started again, having invested in some digital scales to mix up the chemistry more accurately, and having made a timed test strip to guage how long the Yorkshire sun needs to perform the alchemy!  The two images above show Horse Tail and Cow Parsley, and Foxgloves.  I hated picking the foxgloves when they look so glorious in the wild, and spread out my raids over a wide area to avoid making too much impact on any one habitat.

New Mini Haiku Book

Another project I've finally completed! This little Haiku picture book has gone through a number of transformations to get to its final state.

The book is called Thoughts on a Fragment (found in the ruins of an old school) and relates to the former open air school in Bradford mentioned in an earlier post (2nd May 2010).  Its printed on watercolour paper with archival inks and is a signed edition of 75. There are 8 photographs, a Haiku poem and a tiny story. 

Northampton High School

I've been away for the past week, working as Artist in Residence with girls aged 7 and 8 at Northampton High School in Hardingstone, Northamptonshire.  This is the third time I've been asked to work there and its always a pleasure.  This year was especially enjoyable as the project was themed around the school's beautiful wild area.  Regular readers of Tumbling Hills already know that I love working outdoors and find the natural world a constant source of inspiration and joy.

The May blossom has been particularly splendid  this spring and the school's wild area was full of green and white abundance under bright blue skies and warm sunshine when we went out there to observe and make sketches.  With many lovely trees, wild flowers and a large pond, the girls were spoilt for choice.  Back in the classroom girls made individual paper collage pieces ready to be combined into a giant collage running along the back of the stage in the assembly hall.

I'm really pleased with how the final piece came together and impressed by the intricacy and inventiveness demonstrated by the little artists. I would not have expected them to be able to concentrate for so long on the subtle variations in bark, leaf form and overall shape, and to render these so well in the medium of cut and ripped paper.  I had a great time composing the final image you can see here, although it took me a long time to get the placements just right.

These photos don't do justice to the real thing - being set back on a stage, the lighting was quite tricky.  Its hard to choose a favourite bit but I love the pond, especially as it doesn't worry about matters of scale and exists in its own reality...

Spring Has Well And Truly Sprung

Crossing over the Rochdale Canal just outside  Hebden Bridge yesterday, I saw this lovely scene of verdant tranquility. Spring is always amazing, you can never become blase about the metamorphosis from brown to green.

Woodcut Course on 22nd May 2010

I am running another woodcut printmaking course on Saturday 22nd May at my studio in Hebden Bridge.  The courses have proved very popular and participants on previous days have created some very interesting and attractive woodcut prints, as can be seen in earlier posts below and on Brooklyn Studios blog.  

The intensive one day course will run from 10 am to 4 pm and is suitable for beginners and those with experience.  The course fee is £50 for the day, including all materials.  For more information or to book a place, you should contact Angie Rogers, Brooklyn Studios, Unit 3, Hangingroyd Lane, Hebden Bridge HX7 7DD, telephone 0788 4307546 or send a message to angie.rogers(at)talk21.com  the (at) should be the conventional symbol but I'm hoping this post will bypass the spam robots. 

If you have never done woodcuts or indeed any other form of printmaking, don't be put off -  the process is very straightforward and easy to get to grips with, and the results can be quite magical.

Cyanotypes and the Alphabet

This Spring is turning out to be a time when I can complete some unfinished projects and reassess the direction in which my work is going.

A couple of years ago I ran a children's art project exploring aspects of the ruined site of an innovative open air school for children in a wood in Bradford.  We made beautiful blue and white cyanotype prints using the leaves and flowers growing in the woodland.  A cyanotype is a very simple kind of photogram that uses sunlight to power a chemical reaction on paper.

During the research stages of the project we kept finding small fragments of pottery - remains left from when the school burned down in the 1960s.  The most evocative items were two little adjoining pieces of a child's alphabet plate, but not the usual alphabet, this was the sign language alphabet for the deaf, so all around the edge of the plate were tiny hand signals.

I decided to teach the project children to sign the alphabet and take photographs of their hands spelling out a message, with a view to making a book.

It seemed appropriate to tint the photos blue in keeping with the cyanotypes we made and the archetypal blue and white pottery fragment. In the end however, whilst the concertina contents went on display, I didn't get a chance  to make covers and complete the book.  But now finally 'An Alphabet Across Time' is finished I'm pleased to say.  Its a unique book and I don't imagine there will ever be any other copies.

Cloud Atlas

Its strange that I mentioned clouds in my last post, and then the effects of one should cause so much disruption and media frenzy in the past couple of weeks.  I was on holiday in Cornwall when the flying ban was in place and I have to say it was wonderful to see the beautiful blue sky without any vapour trails.

I feel sorry about all the negative repercussions, like transplant organs being delayed and African farm workers being laid off, but  there's something to be said for being reminded that we are far from omnipotent and lack the means to control the natural forces of our planet.

All this cloud interest reminded me of a book I made early in 2009 but hid away because it didn't turn out how I imagined it would.  As you can see, the book is a kind of cloud atlas.

I'd been reading David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas and also studying The Cloudspotter's Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney and contemplating the wonderful variety of clouds that drift over the moors of Calderdale where I live.  During that same period I had to reorganise my studio and was wondering what to do with a stack of air mail envelopes I bought from a closing down Stationers, a pile of old security envelopes and an elderly UK road atlas...

Living in an upland region, you really notice how the clouds come swooping down the valleys and their huge dark shadows move across the hillsides in stately progression. I wanted to make my paper clouds 3D in some way, so that they cast shadows within the book.

Although I did achieve this to a certain extent, it took me ages and the shadow-casting wasn't as evident as I'd hoped and doesn't show up at all in these useless photos!  The plan was to remake the book after more concentrated study in paper engineering, but mostly I forgot all about it.  Maybe one day...  But in the meantime, revisiting my little cloud atlas I like it more than I did before.

Blackbird's Beautiful Song

Thank goodness for the cheerful blackbird whose early morning song has lifted my heart  these last few days whilst I've been stuck in bed ill.  

The enforced rest provided an opportunity to read David Mitchell's novel 'Cloud Atlas' again. I still think its a fine piece of work, the characters and created worlds resonating for a long time afterwards.

Draper Road viewed from Old Town

At last I've found time to complete this oil pastel painting of Draper Road descending down from Slack, as seen from across the valley at Old Town.

I see this view frequently as its on the route I take for my constitutional walk whenever I feel in the mood.  Obviously, things haven't looked quite like this for many many months, but unless its extremely foggy, you can always catch a glimpse of Draper Road glinting through the trees.

Sometimes in Winter its a silver curlicue in a world of black and grey, but the best way to experience Draper Road is on a hot day in late Spring, flying down the hill on a bike.  The corner dropping into the trees is quite tricky and a bit scary if you're going too fast, but once past there its an intense freewheeling descent under the dappled canopy through invisible waves of
bluebell and leafmold.  The same journey in reverse however, is a horror of sweat and toil too ghastly to dwell on ...

Sweet Birds Sing

Finally finished the bird book, my first using the flag structure invented by Hedi Kyle.
Its called 'Sweet Birds Sing' and is a celebration of small birds and an expression of sadness at the loss of trees.

The whole thing is printed from woodcut blocks apart from the text, a little song I've written, which is inkjet printed over the woodcut printed pattern. 

The cover has the same leaf pattern as the end papers, but printed in black rather than grey/green, and the closure is a length of bright green petersham ribbon.

On the whole I'm quite pleased with the way its turned out - its mostly as I envisioned it before starting and I like the way the birds poke out as a little flock.  I feel I've learned a lot and would like to make another flag book that makes even richer use of the flag structure's potential.

It would be great to make an edition of Sweet Birds Sing, but it took so long with all the hand printing, I can't see how it would be feasible to make copies that anyone could afford.

The Bird Book is hatching

I'm still working on my bird book.  I've just completed gouging a pattern of willow leaves onto a wooden block for making the paper that will become the front and back covers.  It was quite time-consuming and hard work, clearing all the wood in the spaces between the leaves.  I can't wait to try printing from this block.  To begin with I will print it in black ink on leaf green paper.

The birds are coming along too.  I'm using a print and collage process, printing onto many different coloured papers and then collaging different areas to gain a multi coloured effect.
I was first alerted to this way of working by an article on the illustrator Hannah Firmin and a wonderful image of ornate Bali slippers.  If you have recently read any of Alexander McCall Smith's 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' novels you will have seen Hannah's work on the covers.  I love both printmaking and collage but found it difficult to cut up my prints to begin with, possibly because I was trained in a strictly purist ethos.  But who makes up these rules? and why do we feel constrained to obey them?