Cast Ashore — a novelette in 15 chapters
Cast Ashore: Chapter 10
Angels and Demons
Bleary-eyed and tousle-haired, Kaja gets up at sunrise. I can hear her on the phone, cajoling some reluctant staff to come in early and take receipt of the morning’s deliveries.
She goes to open up the store.
Twenty minutes later, she’s back, having left her surprised assistants to fend for themselves: ‘I told them, “I’ll be at Les’s place. You’ll be fine. Don’t call me.” You should have seen their faces!’ She undresses, snuggles back into bed at my side, sighs happily and sleeps until midday, snoring gently in my ear.
To me, it’s the song of angels.
That afternoon, basking in Kaja’s afterglow, I get busy in the studio. I need a series of mezzotints for the exhibition. It’s my favourite printing technique, producing gorgeous, rich contrasts of light and shade.
One of the things that charms me about printmaking is the cumulative experimentation. Paint an oil or a watercolour — of a tree, let’s say — and you’ve got a painting of a tree. Whoop-de-do.
Create a printing plate of the same tree and you’ve got a springboard for endless experimentation. You can fiddle with tonal variation, texture, colour, levels of detail, thickness and…
