Despite being possibly the absolute epitome of a ‘landlubber’ (I feel seasick when I’m on a peddlo!) and being born and bred in as land-locked a place as you can imagine (Sheffield, England), there is something about the figureheads found on the front of old ships, that fascinates me. There seems to be a certain mythology associated with them, and apparently the ship’s crew used to take extremely good care of them, feeling that they embodied the spirit of a ship. The image that I came up with, actually started life as a figure that I ‘saw’ being made by the branches of an oak tree, that I knew I wanted to do something with. The recent visit to Whitby gave me the idea to do something more in keeping with maritime mythology than a woodland figure, and the position of the ‘figure’ in the tree lent itself to being placed as a ship’s figurehead. I wanted to keep it simple to keep me sane whilst planning and working on a multi-block, multi-colour print at the same time.