Prints - a selection

These are not 'reproductions' but images made by the artist and printed from the original plates or blocks.

In relief printing the ink is transferred under pressure from the top surface of a block to the paper,
all that has been cut away does not print.   In intaglio printing, usually from copper or zinc, the
top surface of the material remains clean and the printing is done out of the lines etched, bit or
incised into the surface of the plate.   The ink is forced into them under heat and pulled out
of them by damped paper under great pressure.   Wood-engraving is made with hardwoods, usually box.  
It is always end-grain, the surface is highly polished and engraved with special tools.   The images
made from box can show fineness of detail with deep contrasts of blacks and whites.  Wood and linocuts
are made by cutting the image with a knife or gouge.   The wood can be anything from plywood to
sycamore to oak, etc..  The relief printer can also use found objects from which to print.

The prints on these pages are ones free of specific texts and are in signed limited editions.  
Others have been made with particular texts but can also stand on their own, these are also in
signed and limited editions. 

  
Shown here are just a few examples of more than 300+ relief prints and etchings.  
Further enquiries, go to ‘contact’.

Swan and Fan, wood-engraving, 1989

       The Lonely One is Evermore the King;  and The Quest of the Sangraal, 1974.   Wood-engravings.   These are two of
seven engravings illustrating R.S. Hawker's poem The Quest of the Sangraal.    They were commissioned by
Christopher Skelton (1925-1992) of Skelton's Press (1968 -1985), but were never published.

From JOYS, passages from the works of Thomas Traherne, The Old Stile Press, 2004.
Wood-engraving, hand coloured.   "The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which
never should be reaped, nor was ever sown.   I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting ... "

Wood-engraving, 9x13.5cm,  1977,  Salmon Fishing

Fish and Butterfly. Coloured aquatints, two of 4.  The others are Bee and Anemone.  1970, 20x20cm each

    

    Etching/aquatints, each 26x35cm, 1976 Sleeping & Awakening

The Hunter & Hunted Are One, I & II, etching aquatints, 1974 (details)
 

Woodcut with calligraphy, 46x60cm, 2004,  My Son David (Border Ballad)
Calligraphy:
Oh what’s the blood it’s on your sword,
my son David ...?
Oh I’m goan awa in a bottomless boat,
In a bottomless boat, a bottomless boat,
An’ I’ll never return again.
Oh when will you return again,
My son David, my son David,
When will you come back again?
When the sun and the moon meet in yon glen
Hey lady Mother, ho lady Mother,
When the sun and the moon meet in yon glen
For I’ll return again.

Woodcut from the book A Christmas Sequence, The Old Stile Press, 2008
Joseph dreams of Gabriel

Over the Tweed, woodcut, 2002, 30.5 x 43cm

Light in the City, wood and linocut, 1996

“Some say their continual Sadness is because of their pendulous State …”
woodcut from Secret Commonwealth, by Mr Robert Kirk of Aberfoil, 1691
Published by The Old Stile Press, images and Afterword by AL

Sister Wendy – Contemplative  Linocut with hand colouring

The Lion and the Unicorn Linocut with hand colouring

The Traveller Wood-engraving

Montage of wood and linocuts from Jubilate Agno 2012