Wood Impressions Story

As I prefer to follow a natural way in my printing process, from subject, to paper, to ink, I started thinking about different objects to print. My life revolves around the sea & the outdoors, guided by tides, swell, wind: my daily routine, checking to see when all of these elements align for a perfect day of surfing & diving. This doesn’t happen often, so I have to have land-based options to print.

I live in the countryside where we have many forests & I was drawn to trees. Big, gnarly, textured trees. I started researching tree printing techniques, inks, how to cut wood, what to look for. I bought a chainsaw! Boys love new toys! Then the Corona Pandemic hit & I was forced into “lockdown” for months!!!  I would run my dogs through the back roads through the woods not far from my house. I would spot a fallen tree, look at the texture, rub my hands over the bark, study the intricacies of it, decide where I would cut it, then I’d plan my strike mission to cut tree rings, keeping the interesting pieces that “talk” to me, & the pieces that don’t, get used for my firewood! It’s a Win Win formula! It’s physical & it’s exciting in a weird way as you start off running your dogs in the woods, then a tree captures your eye, you explore it, plan how to cut it & transport it back home, prepare it for printing, which is a whole other story, then finally you pull your first print from that tree & it’s perfect, a solid, crisp, defined print on beautiful paper ! That makes me feel Alive!

So as my journey started with fish that keeps me connected to the sea, I now print Wood Impressions which keeps me connected to the land! Once again my heart is full! #neverstopexploring