The North Norfolk Triptych

Angela Harding’s new prints, loosely a triptych, show off the best of both Angela as an illustrator and Dan as a printer. The prints each work alone. Or, should you be treating yourself to all three, they will give you a grand display - full of imagination, birds and natural beauty. This set has been more than a year in the making. The pandemic interfered, of course. But Angela's work for Penfold is some of her most personal work. As such it tends to move along a little slower and is more iterative in the printing. Most of the proofing has been done by post and most of the conversations were on zoom. And not all talk was about the prints. With two people who spend a lot of time working on their own, an occasional gossip is cathartic and necessary: "There is quite a lot of time spent chatting, which is really nice as there is a lot of alone time with this job."

Angela works and lives in a small village called (appropriately) Wing, in Rutland. Her studio overlooks her long garden that gives 'really good' bird. So much so, a Country Life journalist remarked it was like 'an avian motorway' in there. Birds and dogs are unapologetically Angela's thing and they loom large in most of her work. These new Penfold prints are no exception. The backdrop in them is the Norfolk coast, though, rather than Rutland. It's a place where Angela spends a lot of time sailing with her husband Mark, in their handsome Finesse 24 boat. And where she sometimes gathers her family together, in a large rented house. 

To work on the Penfold prints, she went away on her own to Norfolk, 'to really concentrate'. As a professional artist Angela has lots of work and projects ticking over at any one time: prints, books, advent calendars, as well as licensed images to keep her eye on. But working on Penfold prints is a bit of time out of time: "What I do with Dan is completely me. It's my colour palette. It's the quality of the paper. The production of an idea from the beginning to the end. It feels like being an artist as well as being an illustrator. It's going back to my roots really, of being a printmaker in a print studio. But with a very empathetic person to work with.”

Jane Audas

Jane Audas is a writer, journalist, and curator. She has written for magazines such as The World of Interiors, The Art Society Magazine and Crafts magazine. She currently writing the first volume of Art Supplies for UPPERCASE magazine.