There is a particular satisfaction in watching a lino block come away from the press with the first proof of a peregrine in a stoop, or a merlin perched tight against a winter hedge. That satisfaction does not, unfortunately, pay for the ink. If you make wildlife prints and want them to be seen beyond your own studio wall, you will eventually need to think about galleries — not as gatekeepers, but as long-term partners in getting the work in front of people who will live with it.

This is the practical side of a printmaking life: the portfolios, the approaches, the numbers, and the rhythm that keeps the work coming when the rejection emails do too.

Begin with a body of work, not a collection of pictures

Before any gallery conversation, you need something coherent. A gallery director can tell within twenty seconds whether you have a subject you actually care about or a scrapbook of unrelated ideas. With British wildlife and falconry heritage, the material is rich, but it also demands discipline. Decide what your territory is. Is it birds of prey in flight? The quiet domesticity of hawks on the fist — jesses, bells, the worn leather of a well-used gauntlet? Or the wider landscape that falconry depends on: moorland edges, hedgerows, the last light on a field boundary?

A strong portfolio for a gallery usually holds together as a group of twelve to twenty images, with:

• consistent printing standards and paper stock, so the work reads as one voice;
• a clear editioning system — numbered, titled, signed, with the edition size stated honestly;
• a mix of scales, from small affordable pieces to one or two larger statement prints;
• at least three pieces that are unmistakably yours, the ones only you would make.

Keep a written record of each edition as you pull it. Nothing damages a growing reputation faster than an edition of thirty that quietly becomes forty.

Approaching galleries without burning goodwill

Research first. Build a list of perhaps twenty venues within a realistic distance — regional galleries, mixed exhibitions spaces, arts centres with a serious print room, and the occasional specialist dealer in sporting or natural history art. Visit them as a customer before you visit them as an artist. Look at how work is hung, whether prints are framed behind glass or sold unframed in a browser, and what price points actually move.

When you approach, be brief and specific. A short email with a one-page introduction, four or five good images, and a clear statement of what you make and why it suits that particular room will do far more than a lengthy biography. Mention your edition sizes and your retail prices plainly. Never turn up unannounced on a busy Saturday; Tuesday or Wednesday mornings are kinder to everyone.

Then wait. If you have heard nothing after three weeks, one polite follow-up is reasonable. A second is not. Keep a simple log of who you contacted, when, and what they said. Over two or three years that log becomes one of your most valuable studio documents.

Pricing work that galleries can actually sell

Pricing is where most printmakers either undersell themselves or price themselves out of a conversation. Work backwards from the retail price. If a framed limited edition print sells for £280 and the gallery takes a commission of forty to fifty per cent, you are receiving somewhere between £140 and £168 — before materials, framing, and your time. That has to be acceptable to you.

A few practical rules:

• Set one retail price per edition and hold it consistently across every venue. Galleries talk to each other.
• Keep unframed and framed options, with a clear difference that reflects real costs.
• Review prices once a year, on new editions, not mid-edition.
• Ask whether terms are sale-or-return or wholesale, and get the arrangement in writing, however informally.

A gallery taking half the retail price is not taking half your work. It is paying for walls, insurance, heated rooms, a mailing list, and someone to talk warmly about your peregrine to a customer who has never bought an original print before.

Keeping momentum across the quiet months

Gallery calendars run on a long lead time. Christmas stock is chosen in the summer; spring shows are planned the previous autumn. That means the work you make now is often for a season that has not yet arrived, and the temptation to stop making during a slow patch is real.

Protect the studio hours. A fixed drawing practice — even twenty minutes of field sketching at the local hawk walk, or studies from a bird on the fist — keeps the eye honest and the reference library fresh. Falconry heritage rewards close observation: the weight of a hood, the way a glove softens with use, the angle of a bird's head when it hears something you cannot.

Batch your printing. Cut blocks through the winter, proof in concentrated sessions, and reserve the quieter weeks for editioning and paperwork. When a gallery enquiry arrives, you want work ready to send, not work you have to make.

Building relationships rather than chasing sales

The printmakers who last in galleries are rarely the ones with the most dramatic debut. They are the ones who deliver on time, whose editions are exactly as described, who answer emails, and whose work develops steadily enough that a collector can follow it for a decade. That is a slow, unglamorous, deeply rewarding career — and it starts with the next block on the bench.