Winter-sun Print

This was taken beside the River Eamont, near Penrith, because its form and subject  reminded me so much of the exhibition I had visited just half an hour before. 

Making marks, creating texture, seeing perspectives, capturing something that lies between  interpretation and reality. Maybe this is what all art attempts to do, but one of my favourite forms is print making. Today I dropped into Rheged and visited the print gallery on the top floor. It was like walking into a garden in full bloom with so many colours and images climbing the walls to move amongst and look at. There were hundreds of pictures, every one different in content, style and technique, large and small, detailed or with simple lines, blocks of colour or many-layered. Many of them took something from nature as their inspiration, birds, animals, flowers and landscapes. Or indeed used natural materials to create the print, laying plant stems, arranging leaves, sticking bark to give 3 dimensional effects when flattened, inked and rolled. 
Film screens dotted about showed artists in their studios, talking about their work and using so many processes and skills to create something that spoke without words. And print making has such a strong added element of gamble and surprize. The inked piece, product of hours of preparation, is shrouded away under damp paper and blankets and squeezed by a mangle-roller, flatter than road-kill. On the other side the layers are gently peeled away and behold, usually, a phoenix arises, recognisable from what was planned but with unforetold variations of charm and beauty.
I felt the same about the photo - who would have thought a bit of dead grass and a couple of feathers would have summed up the joy of a sunshine day against the dark depths of  the winter season?