From the Hebrides to the Studio: The Story Behind My Oyster Catchers Print

How a print begins

We’re heading to the Hebrides soon, and it’s reminded me of how many of my prints are inspired by photos I take when I’m on holiday. We’re going to North Uist, and I think it was there on a previous visit that I took a whole series of pictures of a big group of oyster catchers taking off from the sand on one of the pristine beaches.

There were many birds in each of the pictures, but when considering the composition of my print back in the studio, I wanted to keep it simple and focus on the form of just a few of them. I took different birds from different photos and combined them into one image for my design, aiming for a sense of motion across the paper without it being too busy.

(Almost) monochrome 

I’ve created two versions of this design – one has a blue sky background, but for the black and white version I kept the whole thing light and airy by using the white of the paper as part of the scene, suggesting the open sky around the birds. Of course, the orange beaks had to feature somewhere - they’re part of what make these birds so recognisable and endearing.

Carving vinyl blocks 

For this print I used flooring vinyl to carve into to make the blocks. It’s not a material that I use regularly (I prefer cherry wood), but the hard and consistent texture does allow for fine detail and smooth colour impressions at this small scale.

 

You can see the tiny scale of the orange beaks from these pictures – a small but very important detail in the print. Printing from the carved blocks involves applying the ink using fingertip sponge dabbers, and then laying the paper on the block and pressing on the back of it with a Japanese hand printing pad called a baren.

Handcrafted details

The print isn’t finished when the ink is on though, there are a couple more stages to the process. I like creating a deckled edge on some of my designs – the irregularity of the torn paper makes each one even more individual and unique. 

I also add an embossed “chop” seal to the corner as my signature. I prefer this more subtle way of signing my prints rather than using a coloured ink like on Asian prints, as I find that too distracting.

Finishing touches

When all that is complete, the prints are ready for mounting and framing. I float mount the print onto a black backing board to highlight the deckled edges of the paper, which I think adds another layer of detail to enhance the overall effect.

The long narrow format of this design means that it won’t fit a standard off the shelf frame, which is why I like to offer a framed version for convenience.

As you can see, there are many parts to the process of creating a handcrafted print from the photos that originally inspired it, and I like to think that the whole is more than the sum of those parts!

I’m looking forward to capturing many more inspirational photos on Uist this time around – we’ll see which ones turn into prints.