RWA 161st Open Exhibition

Yesterday I was thrilled to be able to go down to the RWA to see one of my prints, 'Weather beaten track' included in this year's annual open exhibition.

Its fascinating to see which images are selected for shows like this. For some people this was the less obvious choice of the images I submitted, but it is the one that is looser in the drawing and handling of resists - therefore more adventurous for an etching? Perhaps this is what the selectors saw in it.

The print/drawing room had a lot of good quality work by some of my favourites of this show, including Fiona Robinson, Ros Ford and Laurie Steen and I felt honoured to be hanging right next to David Carpanini's atmospheric etchings inspired by Welsh villages.

Etchings by David Carpanini - beautiful sooty blacks

It was also good to see lots of representatives of UWE's MA Print course, and of the Gloucestershire Printmaking Co-op.

Its a good show, worth a visit if you're in the Bristol area.

Weather beaten track

I've been working on keeping things loose as the scale of the print develops. Working from photographs can impose too much detail, so this print is made by working only from sketches completed on location.

There's something immensely satisfying in seeing a number of prints lined up

 - the magic of multiples 

 

'Weather beaten track' etching 40 x 20cm

 

I made my sketches of this track back in March when the weather was changeable. This section is quite exposed and I got hailed on one day as I sat there, and then caught a snow flurry the next time I drew. It was always late in the day as I took the dog for his afternoon walk and it seemed a bleak place. Hence the blackness of the trees in the distance, the rough bare track and the title of the etching.