Hello
My intention for this newsletter had been to show you a finished reduction linoprint with a short video showing how the layers developed. I was going to print the penultimate layer at the weekend, the last layer yesterday morning and put the video together in the afternoon. But you know the old saying, if you want to make the ink gods laugh, write out a printing schedule, and better still add a deadline. I get caught out like this every single time; I am lulled into a false sense of security by how quickly the first two or three layers dry, and forget (again) how much longer it takes once a few layers have built up and the paper is no longer absorbent.
So while we wait for the ink to dry, here a couple of nice things.
Look, squirrel!
The Yorkshire Arboretum became home to three red squirrels earlier this year, and this summer they have already produced four babies between them. (For non-UK readers, our native red squirrels are endangered thanks to the bully boy tactics of the larger North American grey squirrels who were introduced into the country in the 19th century). They are housed in a 2,500 square metre enclosure which humans can enter on a raised boardwalk running through it.
Despite having plenty of space in which to be completely invisible should they wish, the squirrels seem quite unafraid of humans (so long as said humans move slowly and quietly) and will happily scamper around the boardwalk and along the hand rails. How much you will see of them depends a lot on your fellow visitors in the enclosure. When I visited the other day I went into the enclosure twice. The first time I was lucky that everyone there, adults and children alike, were moving gently, whispering to each other and pointing out sightings. We were rewarded with very close squirrel encounters like the one in photo above and video below. (NB this was not a zoom lens. I was that close). When I popped back an hour later the enclosure was full of people bellowing to each other “WELL I CAN’T SEE ANY SQUIRRELS, CAN YOU?” and allowing their children to thunder up and down the boardwalk squealing. There were no squirrels. Funny that.
The Yorkshire Arboretum is part of the Castle Howard estate in North Yorkshire. Visits to the squirrel enclosure need to be booked in advance.
A small garden miracle
Talking of Castle Howard, several years ago on one of our many visits to the house and gardens I fell in love with a bed of agapanthus and bought a couple of plants from the garden shop on the way out. They bloomed in my garden for a year and then vanished. I often do that to plants. I bought another plant from our local garden centre to keep in a pot this time, thinking I could look after it better that way. Apparently I couldn’t. I resigned myself to an agapanthus-free garden. And then…..this has just happened.
It must be one of the original Castle Howard plants which has quietly laid dormant in the bed for at least four summers. I don’t know if it will come back next year, but I am chuffed to bits to see it now.
Still waiting
I’ve got the second to last layer down on that print - here it is looking damp.
I’m making myself a hostage to fortune by saying this but I’m hoping to get the final layer printed this weekend, so my next newsletter WILL have the finished print and hopefully a clever little progress video to go with it.
See you then!
Jane
Yorkshire is such a beautiful area!