Artist's volunteers are having a whale of a time; An impressive giant has been taking shape in one of the region's spectacular venues, as David Whetstone reports.

Byline: David W h e t sto n

PEOPLE have had a whale of a time assisting artist Julian Meredith in the creation of a giant new artwork in the Great Hall of Newcastle's Discovery Museum.

Not only have they been able to try their hand at woodblock printing, but they have had the chance to work alongside a man whose uncompromising approach has inspired many.

Our own Thomas Bewick was a pioneer of the woodblock print in the late 18th Century and his minute and intricate artworks can be seen at the Laing Art Gallery until October 3. Julian Meredith, who is based in Herefordshire but has worked in the North East a lot over the years, operates at the other end of the scale, making outdoor artworks that have been displayed on hillsides and harbour walls.

Laid out like railway sleepers on the floor of the Great Hall are 24 large planks, as you can see in the main photograph on these pages. S

Across them, from tip to tail, lies the outline of a blue whale, its dimensions equal to those of the specimen in the Natural History Museum in London.

While the area within the outline - effectively the whale's body - has been left untouched, with the markings of the saw still clear, the ends of each plank have been smoothed.

Each of these planks is a woodblock, the equivalent of Bewick's tiny specimens - although, as Julian points out, the Northumbrian didn't have the benefit of a lorry.

Julian takes one plank at a time, covers it with black ink and then lays a long textile strip across it. The image is transferred to the cloth which is then suspended from the ceiling of the Great Hall.

There should be 25 planks on the floor but one of them, as we speak, is on the stage at the end of the hall, undergoing a process which takes several hours.

As one layer of thickly applied ink is absorbed into the wood, another is rolled on until the plank is ready to receive the pale textile cover.

Julian won't complete the transfer of the image on the planks onto the textile strips before his residency - as part of the Northern Print Biennale - finishes at the end of next week, but the creative process is as important to him as the finished product.

"The plank is like a fossil and the print is like a spirit and taking one off the other is a major part of what I do, although this is not what people see," he says.

"The finished product is important but that's only half of it. The rest involves a lot of hard, physical work and that's why I'm doing this, to show the physical part as well as just the finished print."

Julian, who had an exhibition at Red Box Gallery in Newcastle three years ago, is not one for the quick fix. The planks we see before us come from a felled elm tree that he bought near Alnwick, one of a batch of four, some 10 years ago when he was working in Northumberland.

This particular tree has now returned to the region to be used in the creation of this whale-sized print that might have to wait another decade to be completed.

On the floor beside the giant blue whale work-in-progress lies a smaller whale, its outline on cloth filled in with the fish shapes, delineated in a muddy gouache, contributed by visitors over the past few weeks. After a dip in a dye bath back home in Herefordshire, the cloth will show a shoal of darting white fish against the blue background of the whale. It is likely to be the only permanent reminder of Julian's successful residency.

Also on show in the Great Hall are prints made on paper directly from the bodies of dead creatures found near his rural home. There are swans, otters and a deer which, says Julian, was later consumed. "We carved it up and ate it at a party. It filled about 50 people". TR

This method of artistic expression, which you might find gruesome, is the clearest example of the artist's lack of sentimentality. Explaining his method, he says: "For me, because it hasn't gone through the human brain, it makes it even wilder and truer to life. Particularly with animals, when people are painting or drawing them, they become romantic, soppy and sentimental."

If Bewick ever strayed towards sentimentality, Julian says it's excusable because he was a pioneer. Beatrix Potter he also lets off the hook, saying: "I quite like her stuff. The lighting is real and I think she uses the animals in a good way to tell a story."

Julian's giant blue whale was being dismantled for a conference this weekend but it will be put together again - possibly in a different configuration - next week. His residency ends on Friday but you can still pop in and lend a hand on Monday, Wednesday or Friday, from 10.30am to 12.30pm or 2-4pm. Admission to Discovery Museum is free.

You can find out more about Julian Meredith from his website, www.julianmeredith.co.uk

CAPTION(S):

UNCOMPROMISING Julian Meredith with details of the prints taken from the woodblocks which hang from the ceiling. PAINSTAKING Julian Meredith with his giant blue whale woodblock print made from an Alnwick elm tree and, above, applying another layer of black ink to one of the elm planks.