Leaning Hawthorn – Red Sky

Jean Royle created this original Christmas card design in the late 1980s and many versions were produced from the original lino block. In this example Jean has printed the image of the tree  in black  over a sunset sky and added  hand painted details to the tree and foreground with water colour. She has created an atmospheric  image with these simple additions. There is a sense of expansive space  created by the distant black hills silhouetted against the evening sky even though the actual card measures only 5″ x 3½“.  The preliminary roughs for this design are taken from her sketchbook and are shown below.