Over 50 years ago an 18 year old Barton lad, with an almost empty portfolio and “a head full of nonsense”, left the town to go to art college. After a very varied career, but in those fifty years never losing his artistic drive, that lad has returned to his home town with an exhibition of his original prints at The Ropewalk opening on January 14 and running until March 19.

Produced over the last 10 years or so and consisting mainly of linocuts and screenprints (and often a combination of these two methods) Colin’s prints are all hand made by him in genuinely original limited editions. The subjects are those of the countryside and its wildlife – the birds and animals that Colin spent a lot of his life working with and for. Several also incorporate words and extracts from the poetry he also writes about the same subjects.

Some of his work from that period is in several private and public collections (including Manchester City Art Gallery and the Royal College of Art). He then worked as a master printer, editioning original screen prints for some big name artists whilst teaching printmaking and graphic design and later as a graphic designer and commercial screen printer, eventually becoming head of printmaking at Colchester School of Art.

Though luck and a willingness to take on new challenges, this aspect of Colin’s life eventually brought about a major career shift; as he then went on to work for over 25 years in education and training in game and wildlife management finally becoming Head of Land and Animal Management for the University of Cumbria.

But throughout that time he continued to illustrate and design publications and experiment with the rapidly changing technologies in graphic digital media; and it had always been his plan to one day go back to being a full time artist. So about 12 years ago, along with his wife Heather (who was already a successful landscape painter), he took the opportunity of an offer of voluntary severance from the university to set up a full-time artist studio and print workshop at Craigshaw Barns in SW Scotland – and he has never looked back.

Colin is first and foremost a printmaker. He remembers enjoying enormously making linocuts and other prints with his teacher Wally Cook at the Grammar School, but it was during his second year at art school, when he discovered the amazing potential of then new and exciting techniques of things like photo-stencil screen printing, that he began to develop an approach to image making that he has to this day.

Although Colin’s focus is most often ‘traditional’ wildlife themes, informed by his own direct experience and practical knowledge, he hopes to bring a slightly different approach to the subjects – if possible going beyond the purely decorative. And, like most other printmakers, Colin is always keen to stress that his prints are never reproductions of other media, but always truly originals – with qualities and in editions controlled by the very nature of their making.

An exciting development lately has seen Colin have published two Alphabet Books,  one of British Wildlife and the other of British Birds, each page of the books containing a small linocut image with its accompanying four-line verse for every letter of the alphabet. The idea being to identify, if you can, the species in the printed image; perhaps using the verse as a clue!

All 52 original mini prints produced for the books will be framed and on display as part of the exhibition, along with all of their original lino printing blocks. And during two separate planned weeks of ‘residency’ at The Ropewalk, when Colin will be working with some of his printmaking equipment actually in the gallery, visitors of all ages will be encouraged to chose their favourite image from the books and with Colin’s help print their own free copy from the block to take home with them!