I’ve always been a bit of a sporadic blogger and there are two reasons for that. The first is to do with time, or lack of it. Making your living as a professional artist involves a lot of long days in the studio but also lots or time spent making deliveries, doing accounts, applying for things, packing orders and general administration tasks that are boring but necessary. The other is because I gain all the inspiration for my work whilst walking or fell running and the compulsion to get off of the computer and get outside when I am not in the studio is very strong. However, I do love to write and I want to share how I make my work and how I get my inspiration. I am now fully immersed in the work for Cherish, my joint exhibition at the Dales Countryside Museum, and I want to share the origins and the making of some of that work over the coming months.

So I spent the early part of the year doing lots of reading and research in the museum archives and it has been brilliant. My head is full of the words of naturalists throughout history but as soon as spring came, I felt the pull to leave the books behind and get outside for the all important field research. The Yorkshire Dales is a beautiful place to live and being in the ‘three peaks area’ means that I get to run along and swim in the Ribble, summit big hills, explore moors and peat bogs, wander through meadows and pick my way over limestone pavements. Highlights have been owl watching: Barn Owls, Short Eared Owls and Little Owls; witnessing a pair of Ring Ouzels raise their family; the evening screaming parties of Swifts (that seem to be more numerous this year); three different sightings of fully fledged Curlew chicks and flocks of lapwings with their youngsters getting ready to leave their breeding grounds.

We’ve been really lucky to have a pair of Mistle Thrushes nesting at a nearby farm and I’ve been following them since winter. Skylarks have often provided the soundtrack to my runs over Whitber Hill and I have found a couple sites where Ravens are breeding and announce their presence with their coarse ‘cronking’. It has been a long hot summer and I’ve often ended a sweaty run with a dip in the Ribble. One evening I sat submerged in the water with only my head sticking out and the birds returned and acted as if I didn’t exist. Dippers fed just downstream from me, willow warblers sung and flitted about in the shrubby trees on the banks and swallows swooped for insects right next to me. All of these experiences have been either sought out or lovely surprises and I am already creating prints that I hope will raise awareness of the birds of the dales and the various special places that they need to flourish.

In my next post I will share the exciting new skill I am learning. My work on the Ink Inspiration about Marie Hartley in 2019 & 2020 not only gave me the idea for this body of work, it also inspired me to try wood engraving but it has taken a few years to pluck up courage and make the time needed to start. To date I have created only three prints but I love the whole slow, detailed and thoughtful process and I think it is the perfect compliment to my collagraph printmaking.