Hello
You might have picked up that I have a regrettable habit of making things hard for myself. My latest reduction linoprint is a subject that doesn’t obviously lend itself to the graphic shapes of a relief print, so after chewing on it for a week I decided the only way to tackle it was to do what I normally do, but do it backwards (though fortunately not in heels).
I first visited Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia back in 2002 when I was a watercolourist. Recording the scene then was EASY, though I didn’t appreciate it at the time. Watercolour is ideal for gentle blending and shading. After my return trip this year I was faced with the challenge of creating the scene in linoprint. Well OK I wasn’t really faced with the challenge, I mean I could have just ignored it and done another of my familiar woodland prints instead. But may I refer you to the opening sentence about making things hard for myself.
The really sticky problem was working out how to create the shadow blending down from the top of the lighthouse. In a watercolour painting you would typically add this last, but I was going to have to do it before anything else because the shadow needed to go over the whole lighthouse and once I started cutting anything away it would be too late. Also I needed to print the lighthouse without having first cut away the areas around it, because I couldn’t print (and then cut away) the background until I’d done the lighthouse, but I didn’t want the colour on the lighthouse going on the background. Confused? I certainly was…
This is how I tackled it. First I used a blended roll on a small roller. This means I picked up ink on one side of the roller only. Repeatedly rolling the roller back and forth on the slab blends the ink away on the un-inked side so you don’t have a harsh stripe. I applied this to the top of the lighthouse so that the shadow would fall away downwards. In the photo below it looks like there is hardly any ink on the tower of the lighthouse, but believe me it is there as you will see shortly.
But now look, there’s grey ink all over the sky! So it was time to cut out a careful mask (I use tracing paper) to stop that transferring onto the paper. First of all I took the added precaution of removing most of the excess with cotton buds and kitchen paper. This is not strictly necessary but it stops the mask getting too gunged up with ink - and no-one wants a gungy mask. That’s asking for everything to get very sticky and messy very quickly.
And here’s the result. An awful lot of work for a tiny bit of printing measuring about 3cm from top to bottom….
The next layer was the first layer of sky. I’d carved a few bits of the top section that I wanted to stay that darkest grey and the overlying layer of very pale and transparent blue knocked other parts back to a lighter grey. Some parts will eventually be printed over again with red.
The image below is where I have got to after another two layers of transparent grey on the lighthouse (more masking) and then a second layer of sky. There’s a bit more to do on the lighthouse and then I’ll be working on the sea and rocks. Stay tuned if you are interested in seeing it develop.
The Colour of Magic
I live right next to the University of York so was fortunate to have the landscaped and largely deserted campus available for my statutory daily walks during lockdown, and it is still our default circuit when we just want to get out of the house for an hour. I remembered the other day that I made this 45 second video three winters ago and I thought you might like to see it in all its wobbly glory. I did think of filming it again more carefully for this newsletter, holding my breath to avoid the heavy breathing soundtrack, but the problem is the place is now heaving with people (well students anyway, which is almost the same thing).
The point of the video, as will become apparent as you watch it, is the colour changing on the upper walls as you pass them. I love that there is no necessity for this; someone simply decided to do it just because they could and to make the world a little brighter.
When I posted this on Threads the other day, commenting that the only possible explanation is actual magic, I of course got helpful and patient replies explaining to silly little me that it’s not. Those are not my people.
Last orders please
We are getting close to That Time and unlike some large online retailers I’m afraid I do not have same-day couriers picking up items from my 24/7 fulfilment centre. So if you would like to buy an original print, or even more than one, or some greetings cards with my images, then my last recommended order dates are:
Standard delivery - Friday 15th December
First class post (upgrade at checkout) - Monday 18th December
I will be CLOSING the shop for orders first thing in the morning on Tuesday 19th December. I will reopen….oh some time after Christmas….probably about the 27th.
Now I must get back to that Peggy’s Cove print which I hope I will have finished and ready to show you in a couple of weeks.
Until next time, thanks for reading.
Jane
I thought it was just me who had a natural talent for making fun activities into work, or something worse. Climbing Mount Everest. It’s like is see some Lino and think ‘that looks fun, how can I ruin the experience for myself’. Your lighthouse looks lovely though, for all the masking