These prints were inspired after several visits to a yew tree standing tall at the back of my local church yard. Its bark swirls and layers magnificently as it stretches high up in to an opening canopy and I find it a fascinating source of inspiration. This particular tree is also regularly home to a barn owl in the summer months, who I see swooping across the fields looking for prey at dusk.

My Bark series has been created using my own handmade inks, green extracted from ivy and pink from yew needles, with the dark line from iron oak gall ink. These inks were foraged from material found within a mile of my home in Northamptonshire. Careful consideration of the materials and inks I use in all of my prints and drawing sits behind every piece of work I make.

It is important to me that my practice invites nature’s interaction in the final creative result, which I do through careful use of handmade inks. When I do use commercially manufactured inks, it is done with consideration and purpose and as a suggestion of nature and human interconnectedness.