'Spirit Dancer'

'Spirit Dancer' is a hand printed lino cut of a black horse/horse skeleton. Printed on 40gsm acid free Thai Mulberry paper with Cranfield Caligo safe wash oil-based ink. Part of a series of prints exploring the cycle of the life and death in animals.
Like most of my prints the first stage was to draw out the design in my sketchbook. I then took a photograph of this into Procreate (an iPad app) to work out the final details. There was also rather a lot research involved to ensure the anatomy was correct - George Stubbs book 'Anatomy of the Horse' came in very useful! The outline was then transferred to my lino (stained red with watered down acrylic paint) where I went over it in permanent pen before carving.
I find carving lino a very meditative process and this was certainly the case with this print, where I could get lost in the details for hours! As seen on the left I used Pfiel lino carving tools, especially the finer tools, 11/1 and 11/05.

Here is a video of the print coming off my lovely Gunning etching press:

And here is the final print. Printed on 40gsm acid free Thai Mulberry paper with Cranfield Caligo safe wash oil-based ink.
This is a limited edition of 50 prints.
Paper size: 40 x 40cm
