Gurnard's Head.
You can see it from miles away while walking different bits of coastal path. But I'd never actually been and walked onto it. It was a gorgeous sunny late January afternoon and I fancied exploring a new place. I had good friend and fellow print maker Ian Cox with me and we were out to be inspired.
Looking from Gurnard's Head towards Pendeen lighthouse heading towards the golden hour.
and then we walked ( well scrambled more like) around the other side and ... before our eyes the bay filled with dolphins. How lucky were we! we stood and watched in awe for 30 minutes while they fished the bay, so many we couldn't count, and then they swam back out into the sunshine.
Ian's photo my video below
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0976/4824/files/IMG_2852_2.MOV?v=1645614322
Lots of gorgeousness but the picture below is the one I chose to use for my next print.
The drawing on the lino and the first cuts
The first layer was a very pale yellow
followed by a slightly stronger warmer yellow and then the first green
a first blue and the light on the sea in the background
I added a lighter blue to the sky as I thought it was too dark. The finished print edition of 24 has very varied skies. I played a lot with the sky trying things out. Some have a much lighter blue as I didn't re-ink the lino and some I left the blue off altogether. I chose not to do a gradient on my sky and was experimenting with other ways.
A darker green has been printed too
I'm afraid I forgot to take pics but I added the brown of the far headland and then a blue under the dark rocks.
The final colour was a very dark green almost black.
This is the bluest sky version
and this is a no blue version
this is what happened when i didn't re-ink and wanted just a touch of blue in the sky
What an amazing afternoon I'll never forget the sight of the dolphins so I wanted to name the print "and then we saw dolphins"
Edition size 24 varied
print size 17 x 21cm
10 colours
250gsm paper
Price £125