Postcards from Prague

Am just back from a short break in Prague, took a few photos so you may see some Czech swirling landscapes or linocuts over the next couple of months ;) Only managed 3 postcards while I was there, so apologies if you didn’t get one this time around…seems like a good excuse for me to take longer holidays doesn’t it :)

Pen and wash again, but a lot more detail than the last Welsh ones. Two from the hotel garden where I was staying and one from a small café. The Café one has a bit of a Prague feel to it but the other two could be in the Med. Will aim to get much more of a Czech flavour into anything I develop from the photos and general experience later on :) Be warned there maybe a flying nun linocut on the way ;)

Finished...some...

Here’s a final print, I’ve finished about half of them today, need to wait for the second colours to dry before finishing the other half.

I’m really pleased with the way they’ve come out. I think I’ve struck a good balance between a clean print and one that allows the nature of lino to show through, so all the prints have a nice individual feel to them.

Print of second cut

Finished the second cut today and did a quick print on the yellow prints…looks promising so far…

Marking up for second cut...

Have marked up the colour block for its second cut. Will start on that now…

First print...

First print today, couldn’t mix the exact colours I played with on the computer last night but got a couple of nice variations…Yellow, which I’m not sure about, might be a bit dull now it’s dried. Flesh tone, Sage Green(ish) and a Peach colour that I really liked and went a bit mad with when I was mixing…so I now have 33 pieces of paper with some kind of background colour on…we’ll whittle those down as we progress…not really enough space in here for this many prints, far too many cats wanting to sit on things. I shall have to look for a bigger house with space for all the things I need…

Some colour ideas...

Finished the first layer of carving on the colour block tonight and then started playing around with some colour ideas on the computer…I think I’ll try and print 6 of each and hope for 18-20 good prints in total…

Cutting second block

Did some work on this tonight, marked out the areas to be reserved for ‘dark brown’ (these are outlined in black). Then marked the areas to be cut as white (these are marked in white…PLUS the swirling ripples coming from the boat)…since photographing this I’ve cut the ripples from the boat…then I started on the fish, but following a few ciders found I couldn’t focus on the lino, so thought I’d better stop cutting before I buggered it up. Drunk at the moment, so probably a good time to stop typing, but, really enjoying this one…it’s an image that means a great deal to me and I ‘think’ it’s coming together in a way that works as a piece of ‘art’ in it’s own right, which is an all too rare a combination…well, we’ll find out if that’s true when the final image appears…

2nd lino block...

I’ve made a couple of minor adjustments to the black outline block (bottom right), printed that onto paper (top left) and then quickly printed the ink from that paper onto a second lino block (bottom left), this will now become the colour block...

Test print...

Cut the first block today, here’s a quick test print. The next job will be to get the colour block marked up…

lino...

Here’s the first lino block all drawn up and ready for cutting.

A couple of sketches...

Here are the designs for lino/painting. The second one still has a fair bit of drawing to be done, placing trees in the background and working up the figure, but the first one is all sorted from a layout point of view. I’m going to start with this one and do it as a linocut first, so the next stage will be to define some interesting outlines, currently all lines are the same thickness and it just looks like a cartoon. I want to go for something similar to the Golden Key painting with the lines, adding more lines as texture within the figures themselves, these I’ll cut into the colour on the bodies. Haven’t decided how many colours to print in yet, either two or three (one of which will be the black outline) If it’s three I’m going to do the colours on a separate lino block using a ‘Jigsaw’ method. You carve the block and then cut out the areas of different colour, inking the parts separately you reassemble them (like a jigsaw) before printing from them…the theory sounds good, though I can see it getting messy ;)

Welsh Postcards

Am finally back from my travels in the Welsh mountains. Weather as you might expect, so had plenty of reading and drawing time. I did a couple of figurative designs for lino cuts or paintings (haven’t decided which yet…possibly both…) will post those soon, but for now, here are the postcards from this adventure, simple pen and wash this time, just trying to capture things as quickly as possible 4-5 minutes each and then onwards :)

Welsh Postcards 2

Welsh Postcards 3

Fishing boats in Boscastle harbour - Finished

Finished the fishing boats.