On a Rainbow Roll!

As an artist, I often feel very humble before the drama of nature. I see amazing skies here in north east England that are incredibly inspiring but it's impossible to capture their glowing reality on paper. Nevertheless, I keep trying!

I'm currently working on 15 new landscape and seascape monotypes. These are unique printed pictures created on a plastic sheet then transferred to paper. So why am I doing so many at once? Well, I apply layers of colour and each layer needs to dry so it makes sense to work in a batch. I work across all the sheets, going back to the driest ones to continue adding more ink. Not every print will turn out well...

Working in series also helps me to develop a theme or a way of working. This time I've been using rainbow colours on the initial layer to give a luminous multi-colour effect in the sky that has a really strong resemblance to the way colours change towards the horizon in a real sunrise or sunset sky.

The video shows the way colours are rolled together and applied to give a rainbow-like gradient of colour. These colours are the first layer and will influence the way the rest of the picture develops. If I'm working towards a seascape, I'll roll the same colours below the horizon to give the idea of reflections on the water.

St Mary's Island (detail) above is a commission for a local couple who have been collectors for a few years now. They subscribe to my email news and get to see new work as soon as it's been produced.

You can join my list for a preview of my new series of monotypes before they're available in galleries or online.

You can find out more about my monotype process and watch more printing videos.