Introducing an Exmoor Red Stag painting by Melody Hawtin

A Father’s Love a Red Stag painting

A Father’s Love is a painting of an Exmoor National Park Red Stag. These are the largest wild animals in Britain. These majestic animals roam freely in the hills just a short walk from where we live in Porlock.

The painting Melody is introducing is a Giclee print on canvas that she has enhanced with oil paint. The frame is a float frame in black with gold edge. The painting is available on our website, please follow this link to view.

We are just a week away from Easter Sunday and it seems an appropriate time for Melody to describe her painting and her thinking behind the painting.

Melody studied Art and Art History at Winchester School of Art. It is her love of Art History that permeates all of her paintings. On this occasion she is able to combine this with her love for her Christian faith in Jesus.

The talk is quite unscripted and unrehearsed and we are aware of a few mistakes. We felt in the interest of the spontaneity and flow that we would not redo the video. We hope you can agree that you are more likely to find a herd of deer than a flock and that the other mistakes just give us something to smile at.

You can find out more about Exmoor by following the link to the Exmoor National Park site. But, we both agree this is one of the least discovered gems in England. Exmoor has a beautiful coast and lovely landscape and is an ideal inspiration for an artist or photographer.

Melody hopes you enjoy her talk.

24ct Gold Leaf to Enhance your Original Painting

Applying 24ct Gold Leaf to an original painting or giclee print. In this video Melody is working on “Crossing The Channel With Angels”, this is a giclee print that she previously finished with oil paint and is now adding the gold leaf as per the original. These are brilliant techniques to take a giclee print to a new dimension. Follow this link to view the previous video where Melody painted over the giclee print with oil paint.

During the video Melody will be talking about her paintings and how she applies the gold leaf. Melody often uses gold leaf on her paintings and will describe how this is relevant to her work.

Applying the gold leaf

When is a Giclee print not a Giclee print

Today we join Melody as she hand paints a Giclee print on canvas

Welcome to Melody’s studio. Today Melody is hand finishing a Giclee print on canvas with oil paint. Please look out for our next vlog when Melody will be describing how she applies 24ct gold leaf to this painting. Today we join Melody, as a fly on the wall, we get to see how and where she works. Whether an original painting or, in this case a Giclee print on canvas, Melody works with her music in the background, and surrounded by her paints and many paintings. We hope you enjoy these videos and find them interesting and informative.

Join Melody in her studio

About Melody’s studio

Melody’s studio is in the centre of Porlock a working village in Exmoor National Park. We found the studio in an old Tannery, as you can see it has high ceilings and is much bigger than you can see here. Melody has many paintings on the walls, some in progress and some still wet, the smell of the oil adding to the atmosphere.

The studio is open most Saturday’s or by appointment. It is quite an experience visiting the studio.

The journey to Porlock brings you into Exmoor National Park, as you approach you can get a sense of what Melody paints and her inspiration. Exmoor is set on the coast overlooking the Bristol Channel towards Wales. Here the National Park merges with the sea, making this a unique setting for an artist.

We believe that this unique setting with it’s clear unpolluted air gives a special quality to the light. We know that artists in Cornwall, especially St Ives, talk about the light. Here on Exmoor we find a similar light, but perhaps a bit softer. Combined with the rich colours of the landscape, the gorse, heather and bracken, we find a richer spectrum of colours. Both Melody and husband David are inspired by these colours and are privileged to work here and to capture this in their work.

To see some of Melody’s work please view her paintings on this site, but Melody has more work in progress and much does not appear online.

To view more of Exmoor National Park please view the website.

Melody almost always paints with her Christian music in the background, this is the case with this video. We have not added a sound track and hope this is not a problem to the artists. Music: Mighty to Save by Hillsong; From the Inside Out by Hillsong; Here I am To Worship by Maranatha Praise Band, thank you for your inspiration.

Stretching a Giclee canvas print

Part 3 of 3 of stretching a Giclee canvas print I will be producing the finished canvas print. In Part 1 I covered printing and protecting your canvas print. In Part 2 I covered preparing the stretcher bars ready for stretching.

Now you have printed your Giclee print, prepared your stretcher bars and are ready for the final step. I always find the process, whether printing on paper or canvas an exciting process. Whether a photograph or a painting I find each step from viewing the image on a screen to holding up the finished product seems to add dignity to the image.

Stretching a Giclee canvas print

Giclee printing an exciting process for the artist or photographer

I remember the first print we produced, Melody and I kept looking at it, not believing this was a flat image. We kept coming back expecting to find that the image somehow had the texture of an original painting. I think part of this is the accuracy of the original image. I have always scanned paintings rather than photograph them. Scanning produces a very large image, sometimes approaching 1 gigabyte. The result of this process is that I have an image that is perfectly in focus, but more than that if I zoom into the image I can see all the swirls and colours that are in the original.

Future blogs and YouTube post

This giclee print is for a customer order and Melody will be transforming it to a mixed media painting. To be honest we never quite know what to call these paintings, they are more than a giclee print and with enough work become originals in their own right. I am currently videoing the process of applying oil paint. Once dry Melody will be applying 24ct gold leaf to bring the painting to life. Keep a look out for our next blog which will show Melody at work in her studio.

You may like to look at our YouTube channel, some relates to art or photography, other posts relate to events I have photographed in our village and some to our travels on Exmoor. I hope you find these interesting.

Assembling stretcher bars for your canvas print

In Part 2 of 3 I will be assembling stretcher bars for your canvas print. In this video I am using stretcher bars from Lion Pictures. I have used several manufacturers but find these to be readily available. I like these stretcher bars as they are well constructed to avoid warping.

The stretcher bars, although in metric, are sized in 2 inch steps. For Melody’s original paintings this is fine but for giclee prints you will need to size the canvas print according to the available sizes.

In part 1 I dealt with printing the canvas and protecting it with lacquer, if you have come to this video first it is well worth looking at this. In part 3, I will be stretching the canvas print to produce the finished picture ready to hang.

Assembling stretcher bars for a square print.

I started my journey in Giclee printing when Melody and I formed Melody Art in 2003. At that time the process was relatively new and it was quite rare for an artist to self publish. Using this form of printing, researching techniques and obtaining materials was much more difficult. Now the technique is known and used by many artists.

Over the years we have met many artists and have found many to be very helpful. Using YouTube and this blog is a great opportunity for me to equally helpful and free with the experience I have gained during this time. So, I hope you enjoy this article and find it helpful in your journey.

Giclée printing on canvas

Part 1 of 3 Giclée printing on canvas, in this example I am using a Canon printer, Hahnemuhle Artist Canvas, original Canon pigment inks.

I started my journey in Giclée printing when Melody and I formed Melody Art in 2003. At that time the process was relatively new and it was quite rare for an artist to self publish using this form of printing, researching techniques and obtaining materials was much more difficult. Now the technique is known and used by many artists.

So what is a Giclée printing on canvas

We see many prints, allegedly Giclée prints, but it is a case of buyer be ware. Having an inkjet printer and sticking in a bit of copy paper does not produce a Giclée print. Firstly the printer is an inkjet printer like many everyday printers, the difference starts with the quality of the inks and papers used. The full definition of the process is covered by The Fine Art Trade Guild, although we are no longer members we do follow the guidelines they publish.

For me the process starts when the image is captured, I scan all our paintings, cameras were not sufficiently accurate back in 2003 and I still have issues with taking photographs of art work. Part of the scanning process is to produce an image that is colour calibrated and can be sent to a printer to produce consistent results.

The next stage is to have a printer that can accept colour profile information from Photoshop or any other high quality image package, and can also accept profile information relating to the paper or canvas being used. Our printers have always used pigment inks although dye based inks are used by some printers. Printers have changed over the years, the Canon printer I use has 12 colours, my previous printer had 7, both produced consistent prints with colours almost identical to the original.

The next choice is the paper or canvas type. I have for many years used Hahnemuhle papers, they have always been expensive but since Brexit have become even more expensive. There are now many sources of papers and canvas and it is worth looking at samples and choosing a surface that suits your particular style, we use etching paper and a matt canvas. The paper as defined in the process should be of a particular weight, off the top of my head the paper we use is about 200gsm (grams per square metre) and the canvas is 340gsm. In addition the papers are coated so that the ink is not absorbed into the paper. Should you try printing on ordinary copy paper you may be able turn up saturation on the colours to approach something like the original, but in truth the paper will be absorbing much of the ink and will be muting those colours.

The papers should be supplied with their own colour profiles ensuring that the print looks the same from one paper to the next, alternately one can have custom profiles produced that take into account the idiosyncrasies of your own printer.

The print shown in the video is “Purple Headed Mountain” and is a limited edition print of one of Melody’s paintings. The painting is of Dunkery Beacon, the highest point in Exmoor National Park, and was painted when the hill was covered in heather and gorse.

In part 2 I’m going to be stretcher bars together.

The Reason We Need Art In Our Schools – David

Landachre Bridge - over the river Barle on Exmoor - oil painting on canvas

Did you see Ed Sheeran on television speaking about the arts in schools?  What a breath of fresh air to see someone who gets it, who has some understanding of how art benefits the country financially, culturally and humanly.

Let me explain my background and how I arrived at similar views.

In my teens I trained as an engineer, later for my career becoming a telecoms engineer.  When I was at college I would look at the art students and would think what a waste of money, why not close it down and spend the money on important manufacturing and engineering works, something that would benefit the country.

Relax at Withypool Bridge - Exmoor
Relax at Withypool Bridge – Exmoor

Of course, I have come to understand that this was a very narrow view, but never the less some 40 years later a very popular view among our politicians.

Meeting Melody when I was just 40 has changed my view and given me different insight into the hidden values of art. Ed Sheeran also spoke of the financial returns that art brings to the country, I am somewhat aware of this, but it is not my main concern, it would be interesting to know what the financial benefits are, but not today.

So, what have I seen over my years as a photographer and supporter to Melody?  What I have noted that in general terms when I met people as an engineer I would talk about things, problems and solutions.  We did not enter other areas, who are you, what do you think, how do you feel and so on, these are still areas new to me and still somewhat out of my comfort zone.

What I noticed when I have worked in our gallery or studio is how different the conversations are.  These may be the same people I have encountered in a work environment, but now we are somewhere else, something else is going on and someone I have never known is emerging.

Quite often I have seen people suddenly overcome by emotion, tears appear and somehow or another a few colours on a canvas have connected with their subconscious to expose and perhaps bring healing to troubles and difficulties.  I keep thinking of things as I write this and I am reminded how we were approached by a local hospital to supply art, this wasn’t just to make the place pretty, this was the stroke and dementia ward and studies had shown how important colour is in aiding recovery and healing in these circumstances.

Pink Tarr Steps - landscape painting in oil on canvas
Pink Tarr Steps – landscape painting in oil on canvas

So, what are my thoughts in this?  In very simplistic way I think it is how the brain works, we can view the brain as being two parts, the dominant side which is our day to day and the artistic side, which I think for many if not most is the less dominant.  I am still an engineer and I think things through simplistically, but it seems to describe what I have experienced.

In our day to day we deal with pressure, life, problems, we get up and go to work and it seems our society leaves little space for the artistic and yet to do so leaves us unbalanced measuring ourselves and society against a distorted set of values.  Perhaps there are a lot of issues in this that need exploring, one sees people struggling with stress making ends meet, they are doing all that society demands but never achieve a sense of peace or happiness.

Yesterday I had a funny conversation with Melody, I asked her what she would want to happen if I came home and found a box too big for her to move at the bottom of the stairs.  Her reply is still causing me difficulties to comprehend, she said she was more interested in me being empathic than in getting the box to the top of the stairs.  Of course, my engineering thought is that we need to get the box up the stairs and solve the problem.  Later when she came back in the car with the seat belt not working, we both sat and cried, and I told her how I understood the upset and emotion that this caused when she couldn’t take her mum shopping, she loved it, repairing it was incidental, but it did allow her to go shopping with her mum, Melody wanted me to add that I have embellished this a little we didn’t really cry, well she didn’t.

In another anecdotal way I see it that we are a society that has focused on exercising our right legs while neglecting our left, our society wanders around with a limp always going in circles.  So, like Ed Sheeran I wonder if it is possible for our politicians to get out of the materialistic circle they are forcing us into and to realise that life is about more than this, it is about our care for the society we live and for each other, about service and not just profit about the person and our humanity.

My daughter who did teacher training in Sheffield described how a lesson consisted of 55 minutes of crowd control and 5 minutes of teaching, except when she introduced some element of art when the class would become manageable, surely this must be well known and worth consideration.

So, I do hope his voice is heard and I do hope other artists join in speaking in support of what he has said, and all this comes from a reformed engineer.

Not entirely randomly I have included pictures of bridges, Pink Tarr Steps an ancient clapper bridge on Exmoor, Landachre Bridge a lovely sweeping bridge, both of these by Melody and finally Relax At Withypool Bridge a black and white photograph by me.  All three are bridges over The River Barle and are within a few miles of each other.  I thought mixing pictures by Melody in her colourful arty style and a b&w photo by me in my engineering style symbolised the connection of two sides of the river, the arts and the material world and perhaps they can be linked.