Frosty Hare

A slightly varied edition.

They are all the same tonal range. I think the image processing has made some lighter.

The field where the hares are usually found is just a bit down the mountain from the trees around Craig y Cilau. The stunted hawthorns high on the hillside are fantastic when covered in frost and snow. It gets really cold up there in the winter. In the shadow of the cliffs they don't get much sun even on the brightest of days.

This is set at night. One of those hard crisp nights with bright stars. The Brecon Beacons (south Wales) are only the 5th area in the world to be designated as a dark sky reserve.

I've put in a bit of a Christmassy shooting star and a rather stylised milky way. I liked mixing up the twinkling stars and the glistening of the ice crystals.

This idea started out as a simple design for a rocking card. I might self publish it as one for this Christmas (maybe just for friends and family).

I went through my usual design process. Blue acrylic and black ballpoint...and endless agonising over the composition!

I'd cut up the background and the hare into bits to move them around. It was just crying out to be made into a jumpy bit of Eastern European inspired stop motion.

It was planned as a 5 layer reduction linocut but I added another light tone into the trees to give them more depth. The blue/black is saved for the foreground and the hare. More contrast makes things seem closer.

A new Slama press and a smart roller from Lawrence. The print was made on my usual iron book/nipping press but the Slama press was great for ensuring some of the more difficult areas had printed well. This was especially useful for the first couple of layers where the print area was quite large and the book press was needing quite a lot of 'grunt' to get a good impression.

Exciting news! I have a new etching/multiprint press from Gunning. I shall post a bit about it in a few days when I've had a chance to try it out.

My state of the art drying system! I started out with 48 prints and I've ended with an edition of 40. Very good going for me, especially with the fine registration needed to avoid filling in the thin frosty branches.

Six layers of cutting and printing and a bit more of Bjork Frosti.