Friday 25 May 2012

Linocut

Well as I mentioned in last weeks blog my friend had shown me a beautiful illustrated book that she had just bought.  The book in question is The Alphabet of London by Christopher Brown.  Christopher Brown is a linocut artist who I had never heard of before though I feel I should have. Such stunning linocuts of the not so usual and usual well known landmarks and figure heads. People like Amy Winehouse, Charlie Chaplin and Mary Poppins pop up as well as a zoo keeper from London Zoo.  Sorry no images to show you of this beautiful book (mine hasn't arrived in the post yet) but this link should take you to Design Week newsletter page which gives a lovely write up to whet your appetite http://www.designweek.co.uk/blog/an-alphabet-of-london/3034107.article


















All this got me a little excited about doing my own linocuts.  I remember doing them at Art College and not being particularly good at it. I'm sure the linoleum that was provided at College was much tougher then because I have had a go and found it a lot easier than before.  The tracing of the image and cutting was all very straight forward but the printing was a little harder.  I didn't have printing ink so used Acrylic paint instead which didn't coat the lino well.  Julia came to the rescue with her pot of water soluble printing ink,  the result is above. Not perfect but a start.


Also as promised is Fish completed with water colour wash.


2 comments:

Julia said...

I love this linocut Laura... can't wait to see what you come up with next. Love the simplicity of just black and white and the roughness of the texture produced by this method... fabulous!
The fish with watercolour wash are rather wonderful too... love all that pond weed and algae... really feels like it has movement. Very aquatic.

Laura Bevan said...

Thanks Julia, it does look very green and murky doesn't it, just like my fishpond in the garden!