VAL JOHNSON-BELL

I visited Namibia as a tourist about 10 years ago and the orange-red sand dunes of Sossusvlei were one of the most memorable sights we saw there. It was dawn, still fresh and cool, the sun was not yet risen but already bright, and the resulting shadows were deep and intense. This experience has stayed in my mind, so that when we were given a project “Shadows” in my Advanced Japanese Woodcut class, this image of sand dunes immediately came to mind. A big challenge for me was to get the intensity of colour into the print. The redness of the sand is due to the high iron content. The whole process of making the print brought back happy memories - very welcome in this time of lockdown.