Friday, November 19, 2010

Monet's Gardener's Resurrected

Monet's Gardeners was inspired by my first visit to the wonderful recreation of Monet's garden at Giverny, France. French gardening can be very labour intensive with many plants being lifted at the end of the year. I had seen manyimages inspired by the garden itself but none celebrating the gardeners. It took another visit and much planning before - four years later - I started to engrave the image.

(click on the image to enlarge it)

The engraving was very successful. It was voted critic's choice at the Cambridge Drawing Society exhibition and was used on the front cover of "Engraved Gardens" (ISBN 1 901648 27 3):


However, with no suitable press in my studio at the time, the block had to be burnished by
hand and there were many spoiled copies and - eventually - I stopped printing with another twenty five copies yet to be completed.

Recently, I examined the block again and pulled a trial proof using "Red" our larger Albion handpress
and a very smooth paper by Zerkall. I was encouraged by the results and, after careful preparation, I finished the edition. Here is a detail from the image:



These twenty five copies, plus Artist's Proofs, will be on sale at £75.00 each, including postage worldwide. However, I have made it my "Print Of The Month" and I am selling them (from my website only) at the special price of £60 until Christmas Day.
















No comments: