Cat's Eye Carving

Something different.

Last year, I had a print brought into me.

It had great sentimental value and my visitor asked me if I could re-colour it.

This beautiful print was called Fisher folk, originally painted by Rita Cotter. She used to illustrate nursery rhymes in the 1980s.

Once I had take the print out of it’s frame, it became obvious that I wouldn’t be able to use my watercolours as the paper was not only textured, it had a slightly shiny surface.

I discussed with my customer the colours that we could identify and looked at images of original paintings online, to make sure that I used a similar colour scheme.

By using an assortment of coloured pencils, I set about adding colour back to this lovely print.

Something that I noticed Rita Cotter did, was to outline everything with a fineliner pen, and most of the shoes are black.

I experimented and found the right nib size, but it was also important to read the nursery rhymes, the 2 fishermen in the middle at the bottom are the same man and the 4 boys in the bottom right are the same boys, so they couldn’t have different colours.

My customer was thrilled when she saw it, and like her mother before her, she will be giving it to her son on the birth of her first grandchild.

This is a picture of it back in it’s frame, I tried to prevent reflections on the glass, but I couldn’t. So please don’t worry, that’s not a crack in the glass, merely a reflection.

If you have something that you would like repaired or made good again, please feel free to discuss.

And if I can’t do it, I will help you find someone who can.