Hidden Gem Prints

I'm a big fan of lino prints( including  artists such as Australian printmaker GW BOT ), liking the distinctive, varied marks made by the cuts depending on the degree of touch. I've even had a go myself .  So I'm happy to  bring the work of Fran Graham to your attention. I've known Fran and her husband Robin   for some years - they both worked at  Kew.  Fran is now working for the  Yorkshire Dales National Parks as an ecologist, and she's really brought that sense of place and knowledge of plants to her delightful prints. I've suggested they might look good on fabric ( well I would , wouldn't I!)

Thorns Gill- a new favourite place

Not the best painting I did but the one that sums up a magical time and place
After a tea from the van at Ribblehead , we walked over fields to Thorns Gill. Ignoring the picturesque packhorse bridge , I walked further down Gayle Beck (the main feeder into the the Ribble) and sat on a bank containing lots of grassland plants (thyme, potentilla, harebells), shaded by fruiting rowan trees.
I sat for a long time listening to the sounds of water before I ventured down to the stream to fill up my water pot (and retrieve my roll of masking tape ) before committing paint to paper.

A tranquil place (apart from the odd fighter jet!) and one that I held in my mind on my 7hr return journey by train the following day as I tried to exclude the raucous card games of a stag party ( the downside to travelling before a Bank Holiday)