Printmaker Angela Harding tells CATHERINE LARNER how her love of the sea inspires her stunning linocut pictures…
Home for Angela Harding is deep in the English countryside, in the tiny landlocked county of Rutland where the rolling hills, patchwork fields and abundance of bird and wildlife have proved rich inspiration for her distinctive, stylised linocut prints.
But she has always felt a special connection to the sea, spending summers on a wooden sailing boat off the coast of East Anglia, walking the clifftop paths in Cornwall and cycling the perimeters of Shetland and Fair Isle.
“I think all of us are drawn to the sea,” she says. “And I think it’s made extra special when you don’t see it every day, when you have a journey to get there. We all remember as children asking ‘are we there yet?’ and being the first one to see the sea.”
The constant movement of the water, the renewal of the tides and the sense of possibility in the horizon are all features she conveys in her work, whether in the fluid lines of avocets and curlews on the shoreline, curvaceous sleepy seals and playful otters, or the billowy surf and crashing waves.
Angela was introduced to printmaking while a student at Leicester Polytechnic in the early 1980s, translating her love of drawing into the bold, black lines of etching. Carving and cutting into the lino lends a power and strength to each image, she says, perfect for the message she wants to convey. “It has a bit of violence to it.”
While bringing up a young family, Angela first worked as an illustrator for magazine articles, producing greetings cards and selling prints. But in the past few years appreciation for her work has soared.
You can now find her designs on book covers such as Raynor Winn’s bestselling memoir of walking the south west coast The Salt Path, or James Rebanks’ English Pastoral, and most recently Angela has worked with environmentalist Isabella Tree and poet Simon Armitage illustrating their new books. Her images also appear as stationery, jigsaws and homeware and her advent calendar each year is a collectors’ item!
Such is the interest in her work that two books telling the stories behind many of her prints quickly became bestsellers and she is currently completing a third volume which will be dedicated to her love of the water.
“I associate the sea with adventure,” she says, “as well as the feeling of coming home. When I haven’t seen the sea for a while, there’s a sense of rediscovery. I think it’s like anything in life, it’s good to have a break so that you don’t take it for granted, you see it afresh.”
Usually making journeys to the coast by train, she goes everywhere with her fold-up Brompton bike so that she can explore independently wherever her destination. “Then I’m on my own with the sea,” she says.
Last year she visited Fair Isle for the first time. “I took my Brompton out of the plane’s hold and pedalled off around the island. It may be only three miles by one mile but there’s a huge amount to see.”
While she expected to find the landscape and wildlife very special here, the island still delivered much more. “It’s always been a mythical place for me and I was bowled over by the diversity of the sea birds and the drama and rawness of those sharp cliffs, but equally I loved the people. I instantly felt part of the community and very much at home.”
She signed up to receive alerts about sightings of rare birds and had to cycle hard to keep up with the convoy of cars, but was able to enjoy orca whales and a snowy owl.
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Exploring didn’t come without its perils though. “There are places where the cliffs drop away,” she says, “with thousands of seabirds wheeling below. One time I went too far and it was too steep to get back up. Luckily I took my umbrella with me. It’s an old-fashioned one so I managed to hook myself back up!”
Never going anywhere without a sketchbook, Angela only needs the barest of outlines to help her recall scenes she wants to create for her artwork. Then, using a tiny chisel, she’ll cut and pare away the surface of the lino to create an intricate relief which will be inked and hand printed, a process she describes as “letting in light and printing shadows”. It is detailed and time-consuming, requiring the utmost concentration. One small slip can ruin hours of work and a design for a book cover can take four to six weeks to complete.
Though she largely works from her studio at home, Angela will sometimes complete commissions while on board the 24ft sailing boat she shares with husband Mark. They like to spend the summer months on the rivers and coastline of East Anglia and she uses a special ‘Nelson table’ in the cabin. “I don’t need much really – my chisels, my lino and a plank of wood to work on.
“I love the romance of being on the boat,” she says, “the experience of just being on the water, seeing the birds properly and forgetting everything that gets between you and what you love to do. On board, the calm and the quiet inspires me and with the early mornings and the evenings, you feel like you’re using the whole of the day. The proximity to your environment, to what’s going on, is breathtaking.”
Moored on the Butley River in Suffolk, just inland from Orford Ness, and sitting on deck, she’ll watch seals basking on the mud and geese in formation overhead. A single wading bird can provide as much inspiration, she says, as a spectacular rare sighting.
WORKS BROUGHT TO BOOK
Two collections of Angela’s work, published in the past couple of years, have proved bestsellers. Both present stunning pictures, collated from public and private work and feature a short commentary from Angela explaining the memories and personal stories behind each image as well as an insight into the life and work of a printmaker.
The first book was called A Year Unfolding and explored the changing seasons. The second title, Wild Light, looked at the day and night and how we view nature in changing light. A third book, Still Waters and Wild Waves, focusing on the coast, sea and rivers will be published later this year.
