Paul Bloomer is a contemporary British artist living and working in the Shetland Islands.
This web site is at pre-launch stage, please contact me to be notified of the official launch, and get a limited edition postcard featuring one of my art pieces. Contact details...
I seem to have a natural affinity with woodcuts that is probably born out of my love of drawing, mark making and strong design.
The demands of cutting a block require imaginative mark making solutions
to specific spatial problems. Cutting directly into a woodblock requires
clarity
of vision because a woodblock is unforgiving of mistakes.
I work on large sheets of MDF and begin with a charcoal drawing drawn directly on the block. This stage is the most difficult and takes days, months or years. I do not even consider cutting until every area of the block is accounted for. This allows me to focus entirely on the cutting because all the big pictorial decisions have all ready been made with charcoal.
Unclear ideas are cut into sharp visual focus with the medium of woodcut.
The etched line has a magic all of its own and is impossible to replicate
by any other means. It is akin to alchemy when surrounded by chemicals and
paraphernalia the skilled etcher can turn a copper plate into visual gold.
I learned to etch at the Royal Academy Schools by watching Norman Ackroyd
do magic with Nitric Acid and metal.
I have produced two main series of etchings to date. The Blackcountry folio that was made in the etching room of the Royal Academy and the Shetland folio that was made on a beach on the west side of the island.
Click on individual prints to find out more about how they were made and
the inspiration behind them.
These prints are available for sale individually or as a folio in limited
editions.
