I didn’t create this print in an attempt to make something I anticipated would sell. Admittedly, I did try this a couple of times early in my artistic career and I found that it didn’t work for me creatively. Nevertheless, ‘The Giant’s Ring’ remains my most popular print—by a long way. When I say ‘print’, I mean ‘fine art print’, or, to be explicit: a handmade linocut print on Fabriano Rosaspina cotton paper.

The print was inspired by the local megalithic landmark of the same name on the outskirts of Belfast. I had not visited the site much until Barney, our now 6-year-old lurcher / Bedlington / Irish Wheaten / cross, joined our family. I used to meet a friend there to walk our dogs and he was always 20-30 minutes late. One day, while waiting, sitting near the iconic sycamore tree on the raised bank that surrounds the dolmen, I imagined how the site would look from above, and how a composition might combine a perspective and aerial view simultaneously; the path leading from one gate to the opposite side of the site in the aerial view, forming the horizon line of the perspective view, and so on. Barney of course would have to make an appearance, tearing across the grass, just for the hell of it. Once I put pen to paper, the composition came quite easily, and The Giant’s Ring was ready to be transferred to lino, be carved, inked and printed.

Another thing I used to do, when I first started printmaking, was to print my entire editions in one go. If I had capped an edition at e.g., 30 prints, then I would print all of the 30 prints before moving on to my next artwork. This is the reason I still have boxes of unsold prints sitting around my studio from ten years ago! My relief and intaglio prints tend to be primarily in one colour, black so it’s easy for me to print, for example, five to ten prints from an edition, and to come back at a later stage and print more, according to demand, until the edition is complete.

Because of a recent request for the print, which I’d marked ‘out of stock’ on my website, I decided to print more of the edition, so now it’s ‘back in stock’.

You can find The Giant’s Ring in my online shop.