By Catherine Larner
The intricate, stylised linocut designs of wildlife, rivers and landscapes created by the artist and printmaker Angela Harding are instantly recognisable.
First used widely in greetings cards and magazine illustrations, the images have also featured as distinctive book covers. There was the iconic image for ‘The Salt Path’ by Raynor Winn, the series of PD James crime novels and recently the cover for ‘Blossomise, the new book by poet laureate Simon Armitage, and the illustrated version of ‘Wilding’ by Isabella Tree.
Increasingly Angela’s beautiful artwork has been used for other products too – calendars, jigsaws, notebooks, bags and homeware.
Angela Harding Courtesy Joanne Crawford
This autumn, Angela has released a new book telling us something about how she came to enjoy her huge success and the places that still mean so much to her both personally and professionally, inspiring her work.
High on her list is Woodbridge, and the rivers and coastline of Suffolk and Norfolk where she and her husband, Mark, spend most summers in their 24ft sailing boat.
‘It’s our wooden caravan on the water,’ she says. ‘Mark is a cabinet maker so he can manage the endless varnishing and we’ve taken it all over the place, to Shetland, France and the Channel Islands. But we agree that our favourite place is the Deben because it’s so beautiful and calming and quiet. We love being there.’
They bought their first boat in 2004 soon after they met. Neither of them had any sailing experience but they loved watching boats at Rutland Water near their home, so when one came up for sale, Mark bought it, took a single sailing lesson ‘and then just sort of made it up from there really,’ he says. ‘YouTube videos were good.’
It was a Bradwell 18 and they parked it on the drive of their cottage in Rutland. It was possibly a rash decision. ‘We didn’t have a bed but we had a boat,’ says Mark. ‘And we didn’t really have the time to use it. Every year I towed it up to Norfolk and for some years would only get a couple of days out on it.’
They moored the boat at Blakeney, and for the next three years never left the harbour. But with a stretch of four or five miles in length and half a mile wide, it was a good training ground, and the couple also ensured that they practised an evacuation plan for when they took their four young children on board.
Years later, when the youngest of their children left home for college, and Mark had taken early retirement, he decided the time was right to get serious about sailing. ‘It’s one of those things that you just have to get on with or you’ll never do it,’ he says. ‘I knew wooden boats were too much work, but I thought I’d have one for a couple of years to get it out of my system.’
So, one weekend in 2014 Mark bought a wooden boat, Windsong of Leigh, a Finesse 24 cutter rigged with three sails. It had been built by Alan Platt, a boatbuilder and shipwright based in Thundersley, Essex, in 1976.
Windsong courtesy Angela Harding
‘She was in great original condition,’ says Mark. ‘None of the previous owners had messed around with her and had kept her maintained to a very high standard. And I think the original specifications for the boat were just right – she’s got porthole windows rather than long ones. And I suspect she looks exactly like she did when she left the yard.’
They put together a Nelson table in the cabin so Angela can comfortably work on her commissions while on the boat. Here, with a tiny chisel in her hand, she meticulously and methodically scores the surface of a sheet of lino, making marks first this way, then that. Her design of a landscape or animal portrait is sketched in outline and she cuts and pares away to create an intricate relief which is then inked and hand printed.
Nelson Table courtesy Angela Harding
It requires the utmost concentration as the slightest slip can ruin hours of work. But life on the boat without email, screens or phone interruptions means that she can give herself over entirely to her art, with endless cups of tea from Mark as he fiddles with jobs on the boat.
‘I love the romance of being on the boat,’ says Angela. ‘The experience of just being on the water, seeing the birds properly and forgetting all the rubbish that gets in between you and what you love to do.
‘For initiating ideas and working on blocks, I don’t need big facilities. On board, the calm and the quiet inspires me and with the early mornings and the evenings, you feel like you’re using the whole of the day. So the boat is perfect.’
Many of her pictures are inspired by her annual visits to the Suffolk coast and rivers. Two Curlews on the Deben, Southwold Swan and Barn Owls at Orford are among her most popular pictures.
Her new book focuses on her times on the boat beside the sea and is called ‘Still Waters and Wild Waves’. It features over 50 of her original illustrations of dramatic seascapes and reflective rivers in both lino print and also watercolour images. There is also beautiful photography of Angela at work and viewing the scenery which inspires her. In recent years she’s enjoyed watching birds and whales during a residency in Shetland, and spent time at the Knepp Estate working on images for the ‘Wilding’ book with Isabella Tree.
Angela will be visiting Woodbridge on the afternoon of Sunday 1 December to talk about her book and show images of her life and work on the big screen of The Riverside Cinema. She is a warm, generous and entertaining speaker so this is sure to be an uplifting and inspiring event. A perfect opportunity to mark the first day of advent!
Sunday 1 December, 3pm.
Tickets are £25 including a signed copy of the book (RRP £25). One additional ticket may be purchased for £12 without the book.
Go to www.theriverside.co.uk or call 01394 382174
Catherine Larner
Catherine Larner is a freelance journalist and presenter who runs book groups and events in Woodbridge. She has spent many years rowing and sculling with Deben Rowing Club though now focuses on coxing, enabling other people to enjoy the river. She is member of the RDA.