John Altringham

Small, five-petaled, white flowers on a slender branch.

Purple/black globular fungus growing out of a crack in tree bark

Afternoon walk along the river bank. The first blackthorn flowers of the year and King Alfred's Cakes fungus. Also known as carbon balls.

Doorway of ruined mediaeval monastery photographed in 'warm' winter sunset light.

Wood engraving print, 100x65mm, in black ink, with pencil and engraving tool for scale. An ornate stone arch in a ruined, mediaeval monastery framing a distant arched window. First test print, work in progress.

Warm light in a cold, winter sunset at Byland Abbey in N Yorkshire, England, January 2025. A year later, a wood engraving in progress, the first test print made this morning.

Byland Abbey is one of several mediaeval monastic ruins in the area built in […]

[Original post on mastodon.online]

First test print in black ink of a wood engraving on the 100x65mm block of lemonwood on the right. A multi-peaked mountain rises above an island-filled loch.

Slioch (The Spear) overlooks Loch Maree and its islands. View from the NW on the high point of the track from Poolewe to Slattadale. NW Scotland.

First test print of a wood engraving on a 100x65mm lemonwood block. There is probably not a single 1cm square […]

[Original post on mastodon.online]

Unfinished engraving of a mountain on a 100x65mm block of lemonwood. It sits on the keyboard of a laptop showing the source photo for the engraving. The engraving is reversed L/R so that it will print the right way round. The photo is also reversed to facilitate engraving.

Another dreich day. Back to engraving and to the Scottish mountain series. Can anyone identify this peak? Note: it's reversed L/R since it will be reversed again on printing.

Photo. A view through trees, across a green valley to a snow-covered moorland, all under a clear winter sky. The snowline stands out clearly, the transition from white to green is abrupt.

A walk in winter sunshine on the north side of the valley, looking south to snow-covered Ilkley Moor. An otter below the weir as we crossed the old bridge. Kites and buzzards crossing the sky without a wingbeat.

Less will cost you less than more but there are fewer (less) of them and I can't print any more of less, having engraved more on the block. More costs a little more than less and I have the option of printing more of more. If you follow me.

Print of wood engraving of stream tumbling down a rocky ravine. Backlit, minimal detail, emphasising light, rocks and water falls and splashes.

As last but with profusion of plant life.

Wood engraving. Black Beck, Ilkley Moor. 120x60mm. Less is more?

@jimstn Thanks! Always nice to collect a new word.

Watercolour. The side of a colourful stone building with a history. Most of it is dressed sandstone but at the base is a more rubbly section. Some windows still in use (with satellite tv dishes) , most are bricked up, but with different materials, probably at different times, because another building was once attached to the wall. The line of the gable is still obvious due to differential weathering.

A palimpsest of a wall... the sort of painting you start when there's another long, wet day ahead of you.

Watercolour based on a photo taken by @thisismyglasgow

Watercolour. Morning mist clearing from a craggy moorland edge in late summer, the heather is in flower.

Watercolour. Ilkley Moor as overnight mist disperses on a morning in late summer. Sketched today as the wind whistles at the window and rain hides the moor.

Rough sketch in walnut (brown) ink of a wet and misty moorland edge.

A rapid sketch in walnut ink of what the moor might have looked like the last time I was up there if it hadn't been enveloped in rain and cloud.

Watercolour, greys. Islands from the air on rough watercolour paper.

Watercolour islands in a sea of rough, handmade Two Rivers watercolour paper.

Pencil sketches of curlews in flight, showing a range of dynamic shapes.

Howling wind and rain, the moor half-hidden in cloud. Sketching curlews throwing shapes.

Monochrome photo. A rock outcrop on open, snow-covered moorland. Thawing under a wet sky.

Ilkley Moor. The snow turns to rain.

Prints in black ink of small wood engravings, irregular shapes no more than a few cm long or high. Island lighthouses, coasts, castles, mountains.

Prints in black ink of small wood engravings, irregular shapes no more than a few cm long or high. Bat, barnacles, tree, curlew, puffin and great northern diver.

Wood engraving loose ends - practice blocks, doodlings, explorations, bookmarks, etc.

@julianbrasington Thanks! Stippling can be slow but it's very versatile.

Wood engraving print in black ink of columnar basalt cliffs of Rubha Hunish on the northern tip of Skye. A steep rocky path descends from a break between the two buttresses and two tiny figures give the scene scale. Two engraving tools lie alongside.

The engraving in a lemonwood block after printing. In cleaning the block after printing a little thinned ink may be wiped into the cuts obscuring some detail. This does not affect the quality of subsequent prints once the block has dried.

First proof print from the finished block. The columnar basalt cliffs of Rubha Hunish on the northern tip of Skye. 75x75mm wood engraving.

To the right, the engraving in a lemonwood block, after printing.

Panoramic photo from low on moorland, over a shaded small town in the valley bottom, to sunlit fields and shaded moorland top beyond.

Afternoon walk on t'moor, just in time for the clouds to break and let the light in.

Watercolour. An ascending ridge of three rocky pinnacles in a winter snowstorm.

A print in black ink of a wood engraving of the same mountain in a snowstorm.

About to start on the final edits to the Rubha Hunish wood engraving, aiming for a proof print before day's end.
In the meantime, to take your mind off the madness of the human world, here's Sgùrr nan Gillean in the Cuillin of Skye, in a winter snowstorm. In watercolour and wood engraving.

Print in black ink from a wood engraving. A sparrowhawk sits alert on a tree stump, with a winter tree above. Below is a walled garden with a partially opened door in the wall. A pencil and engraver are shown for scale.

I had hoped to print the new Rubha Hunish engraving today but a test print shows I need to make a few more changes to the block. So here's another work in progress - a sparrowhawk based on a male that spent 10 min eating his freshly caught lunch right outside our sitting room window.

A very small (46x36mm) print of an irregular line of small leaning standing stones in long moorland grass, with a moorland ridge in the background, under a sky of fluffy white clouds.

Since the last post was received with such enthusiasm, here's some understated standing stones of uncertain history a short walk from home. A tiny 46x36mm wood engraving.

#StandingStoneSunday

Print in black ink of six tall, slender standing stones, part of stone circle. The stones and the ground have some realism. The sky is more graphically represented by horizontal line that increases in width as they rise through cumulus clouds.

Wood engraving print, 75x75mm. The Ring of Brodgar, Orkney.

#StandingStoneSunday #printmaking #art #prehistory

A panoramic sketch in walnut ink (rich brown) of the Arthur's Seat skyline, Edinburgh. From Whinny Hill to Salisbury Crag, viewed from just east of Holyrood.

On this bright and frosty morning - an Edinburgh panorama in walnut ink.

Near finished engraving on a 100x100 mm block of lemonwood. It shows a view along and up vertical columnar basalt cliffs with steep scree slopes below. A path descends towards the viewer from a distant break in the cliffs. Two tiny figures on the path give a sense of scale. A pencil and engraving tool are shown to give scale to the engraving.

First test print, in black ink, of the engraving.

First test print off the block. Room for a variety of primarily small improvements and, as always, work to do on the clouds.

And to accompany it, by @Daniel_Hoffmann

Rubha Hunish

When we were children they taught us
to hear time in the ticking and see
it […]

[Original post on mastodon.online]

Near finished engraving on a 100x100 mm block of lemonwood. It shows a view along and up vertical columnar basalt cliffs with steep scree slopes below. A path descends towards the viewer from a distant break in the cliffs. Two tiny figures on the path give a sense of scale. A pencil and engraving tool are shown to give scale to the engraving.

Wood engraving, near finished, on 10x10cm block of lemonwood.

The columnar basalt cliffs of Rubha Hunish at the northern tip of Skye. A steep path, with a little scrambling at the top, leads down from the break in the cliffs onto a cliff-rimmed peninsula […]

[Original post on mastodon.online]

Print in black ink of wood engraving. Snow covered conical peak. Below, a loch edged by trees, reflects in the water. Above, a starry night sky with a prominent Milky Way.

The nearest engraving I have made appropriate to a winter holiday greeting card: Schiehallion in the central Scottish Highlands. Have a good one!

Unfinished engraving on a polished and inked 10x10cm block of lemonwood. The block is cut across the grain, which in this tree species is very fine. An engraving tool and pencil are shown for scale. Tall basalt cliffs are seen from the bottom of a path that descends a break in the cliffs and across extensive scree slopes. Two tiny figures can be seen on the path.

Work in progress, my first wood engraving for several months. Enjoying the calm it brings. 10x10 cm lemonwood.

Looking back up the cliff path at Rubha Hunish, Trotternish, Skye. Down to the almost hidden peninsula and the birds, the Shiants, the Outers and the panoramic mainland mountains.

Wood engraving print in black ink. A wildflower-bordered path steps up a root-bound slope to a broken stile beyond which a large tree spreads its branches across a field.

Wood engraving print in black ink. Four elegantly curved pine trees dance on a moorland edge.

Wood engraving print in black ink. A snow-covered mountain ridge under a full moon on a starry night. In the foreground dark islands in a dark sea.

Wood engraving print in black ink. A knife-edged mountain ridge climbs to a rocky summit lit by a low sun from the right.

Some of my wood engraving prints on their way this week to N. America, mainland Europe, Scotland, England and here in Ilkley.

Snow, sculpted by wind and sun into ribbed and sinuous ridges. Pure white in sun, ice blue in shade.

Overlapping ice bubbles in a shallow pool forming sinuous abstract patterns.

A screen of young birch trees covered in ice on a misty, frosty morning.

A view in winter across a valley. A light covering of snow on the hilltops grades into green fields and dark woods in the valley. The snow glows in the soft light from breaks in the clouds.

It's wet, windy and unseasonably warm. Dark, dreich and depressing.
Scenes from better winter days on Ilkley Moor.

A still pond reflecting a pastel sunset sky. Trees and scrubby vegetation are colonising the margins and old fences are collapsing into the water.

A late afternoon walk along the River Wharfe from home. By design or benign neglect some parts of the flood plain are returning to nature, in tune with the trend on the river itself, where fallen trees are not tidied away but left to increase habitat diversity on the banks and in the water.