Electronic submission, student lives in USA

• An impressive submission of work in which you have not been afraid to challenge yourself

• Good engagement with tasks and a readiness to engage in technical exploration of materials very evident

• Purposeful, focussed play will be helpful to future development

• Blog is very thorough. Use your artist research to pursue an increasing understanding of your own visual motivations.

Assessment potential

I understand your aim is to go for the Painting Degree and that you plan to submit your work for assessment at the end of this course. From the work you have shown in this assignment, providing you commit yourself to the course, I believe you have the potential to succeed at assessment. In order to meet all the assessment criteria, there are certain areas you will need to focus on, which I will outline in my feedback.  

Feedback on assignment

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

Project 5 Linocut mark making

You have begun to build a useful vocabulary of marks and an understanding of your tools. No exploration of black on white at this stage.

Project 6 Single colour linocut

Corner of room interior view: A lovely and challenging choice of subject-matter that has enabled you to produce a print of exciting black and white contrast and pattern. An impressive early effort, well done.

Still life: Another good composition. The simple colour scheme works well and the carrying of the colour into the upper part of the print has allowed you to unify the image. The sub-group of pencils and eraser all sitting neatly together is a delight.

Project 7 Multi-block linoprint

Again your challenged yourself with complex subject matter, causing difficulties as noted in your blog. But the final, corrected, print is great. The contrasts of scale, of textured mark-making and the composition all work together to create an interesting image that in my view looks very competent, in no small way due to your dogged determination to succeed.

The landscape sketch made on the spot before you started to freeze in the cold is a super little thing too. It conveys a lot by minimal means.

I agree with your ‘Concluding reflections’. Particularly, that your lino blocks all need to be exactly the same size; and that a clear, worked-out colour image would be a great help. When you are cutting a block, you need to know exactly what is going to go where.

The project brief asks for colour explorations. This could have been an opportunity to “push your limits”, something which seemed to elude you, according to your blog. It may be helpful to think of this as ‘purposeful play’. For example, you could try reversing light/dark tonal relationships. Or try exploiting colour theory, say by using harmonising or contrasting colours rather than more realistic colours. What about very deliberate mis-registering and upside down printing? How about applying colour roughly with a brush? How about printing two different prints onto each other? Some back drawing? Yes, ugly things will happen; but hopefully something interesting will turn up too. The important thing is to recognise when something note-worthy has happened, and then exploit these happy accidents in future work. Another way you can approach experimentation is suggested below.

Poinsettia experiments: I feel these would have benefitted from a clearer direction or goal – perhaps something you’ve seen when doing artist research. If you have a destination in mind, your experiments will be more purposeful.

Sketchbooks

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity

It is difficult to comment as your electronic submission did not include an extensive survey of your sketchbook. There appeared to be less activity than in Assignment 1, though this may not actually be the case. You clearly have an ability to draw and this has supported your print work. I was pleased to see evidence of the use of a range of media in both colour and black and white.

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Context

Your blog is very thorough and well written. The Gallery section is enormously helpful in allowing an easily accessible view of your artwork itself. At Level 1 you could write less than you do; but this is a personal preference and if extensive writing helps you, please continue.

As before, your content covers visual and technical matters, research and reflection. There is discussion of how your researched artists may, or may not, influence your own practice. This is really good to see and will help you to better understand your own visual concerns and motivations.

I am pleased that you are so active in your artist research and gallery-going. Keep it up!

Suggested reading/viewing

Context

Looking at the work you have produced in this assignment, there seems to be a strong interest in texture over other possible visual concerns such as colour (for its own sake) or decorative effects, e.g. as seen in the Bawden’s work.

These printmakers may interest you. They work in a representational fashion and use texture, which are things that ‘chime’ with your assignment work:

http://www.peterluty.com/Original-Prints.html

http://www.jenniferjokhoo.com/

The next artist is a wood-engraver, but worth a look because again there is much use of texture, but this time more ‘poetry’ in the realism:

http://www.rowleygallery.com/Artist-Howard-Phipps.aspx

Many of your own researched artists use texture in a very deliberate way too, e.g. Clare Romano. It may be well worth paying particular attention to this aspect in further research.

Pointers for the next assignment

Next assignment: This requires you to make a multicolour linoprint using the reduction method. This technique can be tricky to understand. Please read the assignment guidance carefully, all the way through before you start work.

Additionally, I’ll provide my own explanation here of reduction linoprinting in the hope it helps your understanding:

Only one block is used to print all the colours. The big thing to realise is that any material removed from the block can no longer print, and this is the key to the method:

• First remove from the block any areas that need to allow the printing paper to show through, e.g. highlights, whites of eyes.

• Then print the lightest colour first (it is usual to print in a light-to-dark sequence, as the darker colours better cover the preceding lighter colours). Don’t think about background and foreground – it doesn’t work like that and will only confuse matters. Make sure to print ALL the paper for your edition run, plus an allowance for test sheets, proofs and spares etc.

• Remove the lino that needs to stay the first colour. This is the key to the whole process – it’s all about preventing over-printing on where you want that colour to remain.

• Print the second colour, again bearing in mind the light-to-dark sequence. You should now be seeing sheets with areas of unprinted paper, areas of your first colour safely preserved, and the new colour.

• Remove the lino that is to remain the second colour, so that it too cannot be overprinted.

• Print the third colour. Continue as above if there are still more colours to print.

• Finally, remove the lino that is to remain the last colour you printed.       This should leave you with a block consisting only of what is to be your black outline. Ink up and print this.

All being well, you should now have an edition of multi-colour prints with black outlines.

Reconsidering my sketches, in particular the interior view made with ball pen, I realized that the hatching somehow worked against the three-dimensionality of the object, for example the wooden parts of the armchair. Oftentimes the hatching is too rough and disturbs the visual effect rather than supporting the composition. So there’s definitely scope for improvement.

When I first looked at Rembrandt’s etchings, I was a bit irritated because their tones were so subtle and no linework was visible. I thought this may have been a consequence of the printmaking technique or due to low resolution images that did not reproduce well enough to make the hatching appear. But then I found several prints where the hatching lines were clearly visible. Sometimes, I found the hatching quite chaotic and almost as disturbing as my own, for example “The Entombment” (left). In other prints, the hatching was extremely subtle and in perfect harmony with the image, as in the portrait of Jan Lutma (right).

I learned that Rembrandt was the printmaker who used tinted plates to create tonal effects in addition to hatching and cross hatching. The Negresse print is an excellent example for this. The overall effect is completely different to earlier, pure etchings like the portrait of the artist’s mother.

Now I don’t think I could lean on the technique for linoprinting, but it might be inspirational for etching later on. The aspect to take away for now is try to become more sensitive to how I create tone when using a linear drawing medium. I recently made a little tonal study in my sketchbook with Jet black pencil. It was done with hatching and cross hatching. The technique worked well for the middle and dark tones, but not for the light tones. When I try to create light tones with a single hatching layer, the lines are very prominent. Maybe it would have worked better with a mixture of hard, medium and soft pencil, with hard pencils for cross-hatching the lighter tones.

References

Thematic essay with images at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rembp/hd_rembp.htm#thumbnails

Preparations

First step was a drawing of my poinsettia plant in my A5 sketchbook. I chose an unusual perspective by placing the pot on the floor and looking on top of the plant, so that I would obtain a pattern of red leaves before a background of green leaves. I wanted a small format so decided to draw only a single poinsettia branch. I think the slightly distorted image with the emphasis on diagonals is a result from choosing this perspective.

The next steps were making an outline of the drawing with black China marker on transparent paper. Then I transferred this drawing onto the linoplates by retracing the backside of the transparent. I repeated the contour outline on the face side to have enough China marker pigment before the second and third transfer.

Then I cut all three plates, and this took me a whole day, with pauses. I tried using the bench hook, but it doesn’t work for me. I prefer a slide-stop rubber mesh mat placed under the lino. This is very versatile because I can turn the plate around all the time at arbitrary angles. I secure it with my weight on the left arm and cut away from myself with the right hand. Nevertheless I found it physically and mentally demanding to keep cutting until all the material outside my desired shapes was gone.

I proofed only the final plate with a graphite rubbing and made some minor corrections afterwards where the cutting had not been clean enough.

I retained a slight objection against the method of cutting so much away of each plate, because it felt so wasteful. But I realized that my image required at least two plates. I couldn’t have done the red and the green leaves with the reduction method, because my inks are transparent and I’d have mud colour instead of a second clean colour. I don’t know if it might have worked with opaque inks but I don’t think it’s generally a good idea to print strong colours on top of each other when the aim is to obtain a clean colour result. The other objection I had was that my flower was not anchored to a fixed image rectangle, but floated “somewhere” on the page.

This was a matter of the composition. Originally I had intended to create an image border of about 4 mm thickness on the black plate, and I wanted to have the leaves peek out of that frame. This was influenced by my research on contemporary printmakers Anne Lewis and Ian Phillips, who both used broken up image rectangles with elements of the composition reaching out. But while working on my poinsettias, I did not find a satisfying solution where to place that frame. Experimenting with a drawn frame made it look “artificially square”, and I found the border destroyed the organic flow of the leave shapes. So I decided to stay with my borderless design.

I also realized that my design would become too large to be used as a Christmas card, but I thought I might place inside an A4 envelope, and went ahead.

To place my linoplate on the paper, I invented a new registration system. Again, my pre-cut linoplates were varying in size and were not at all perfect rectangles, and I wanted to be independent from this. So I made cut marks into the sides of my plate, 2 on each, which I used to draw a grid on a sheet of paper.

I then taped my grid paper well aligned onto a sheet of my printing paper. The lower sheet served as a guide for the printing paper, and the grid paper served to register the linoplate.

First series

The first series was printed on a selection of different papers. My idea was to make a starting series of 5 on my standard printmaking paper and then proceed with 2 prints on each other kind of papers. I wanted to try which paper worked best first, and then choose one paper to make a little edition. My paper selection was:

Starting prints: Fabriano Accademia 160 gsm soft white, medium tooth, A3

White rice paper, approx. 50 gsm, 9.5 x 13 ” (22.9 x 33 cm)
Bright white inkjet paper, approx. 100 gsm, 11 x 17” (27.9 x 43.2 cm)
American Master’s Printmaking paper, medium, 250 gsm Cotton, 11 x 14 inches (27.9 x 35.6 cm)

Final mini series of 5: Soft white sulfite drawing paper, approx 120 gsm, smooth side, 12 x 18” (30.5 x 45.7 cm)

I liked the white sulfite paper best, but I found the differences between paper types were not that important – with the exception of the rice paper which was very thin and the colours tended to bleed a bit. There are also slight variations in colours resulting from the choice of paper, but I think the differences are so minimal that they cannot be seen in the online reproduction.

After the second series, I wanted to experiment a bit. I had in mind that in part three there are projects where several techniques were to be combined and I was just curious to try this out for my poinsettia. I also found that my prints were very traditional and wanted to attempt something different.

Second series

I had not an exact plan how to proceed, but several ideas like using textured and painted monoprints and stencils to combine with the linocut. I prepared transparents from the black plate single colour print which would help to register the linoplate and added grid lines onto the sheets. I also cut a positive mask from a pvc sheet (rather than from paper) because I could clean and reuse it.

For the second series I chose white all-purpose paper (acid free), using its smooth side. The format was large, roughly A2 (22 x 15” / 56 x 38 cm), and about the largest size I can run through my press.

I used a 30 x 40 cm perspex plate for inking and further developed the registration system to match my setting. On a sheet of printing paper, I measured a 4 cm frame around the perspex. I placed it in the upper half of the sheet with the intention of cutting away the excess paper on the lower edge after printing.

I taped the correctly oriented A4 copy from the transparent below the perspex plate to guide my inking of the plate. A black outline on the registration sheet served to register the plate. For printing, I outlined the printing sheet with the registration sheet.

I started with a textured plate approach. I placed a piece of burlap on the inked perspex plate, ran it through the press, pulled away the burlap and then printed off the textured plate. I used a positive mask to retain white paper in shape of the flower.

The texture of the burlap came through nicely. I took a ghost print as well and a print from the inked side of the positive mask. Later, I developed this series with backdrawing and impressions from the linoplate.

The burlap approach had been to warm up for more experimentation. I had a vague image idea in mind – a dark blue background with glowing yellow patches, and within the blue background, longer edges that separated areas of different blue tones. I abandoned the texture and the mask approach because I found it too similar to what I had done in Part 1 of the course. Instead, I tried to work towards that faint image idea combining linocut with multicolour inked plate and painted monotype.

All the above prints involve three basic elements: A multicolour background, the painted poinsettia, and a linoprint off the originally black plate. Besides variations in how I inked the background, I also varied the quality of the linoprint impression. The first print was still in black, but handpulled and I liked the withered effect of the less saturated impression which worked well with the faint colours of the painted monotype and the background.

The second linoprint was made with the press on top of the painted monotype, which created a much darker and crisper impression, but let the linoprint pop out and not integrate well with the other elements. I decided to change the colour for the linoprint to dark blue, and to stay with hand printing, but use a brayer for a stronger impression from the linoplate. I think the blue colour and the slightly withered quality integrated the linoprint well with the background.

I experimented with the idea of blocks of different blue tones in the background but found it only moderately successful.

The print I like best from the series was actually reworked after an alignment error. Originally it had a black faint linoprint which I wanted to improve by adding a stronger blue impression on top, but then the second layer came out misaligned, which created a blurred image displeasant to look at. In an attempt to resolve the problem, I used white gouache to overpaint the misaligned elements. This worked technically to eliminate the blur and resulted in an interesting visual effect.

Tracing the influences: Surprise, surprise

I did not get back to my earlier research on Warhol and the poinsettias before starting my series, because I had a very clear image in memory and wanted to develop my own approach rather than copying Warhol’s style. The mental image was very strong. I saw a bushy plant with top leaves in dark red with dark green foliage below. There were strong black contours which set up all shapes against a white background. The style went towards Roy Liechtenstein / Comic book illustration, very graphical but not oversimplified.

The big surprise came when I actually looked at my research and the images I had retained as reminders. They were completely different from what I had memorized. These are the images I selected to study Andy Warhol’s poinsettias:

I started an image search, but did not find anything even moderately comparable to the mental images that had guided the development of the original linocut. I asked myself whether I had dreamt my own version of Warhol’s poinsettias or where else the image memory had come from. The discovery felt very strange because all the time I tried to avoid making an exact copy of my mental image but wanted to retain those qualities I liked, clarity and simplified shapes. Had I known that I had developed my own imagery already, I could have followed without hesitation rather than avoiding it.

But reflecting on the qualities of my mental image helped me to finally track down the second important influence. It must have been the print “White Hellebore” by Anne Lewis. There are also the leaf points going outside the image borders, which I originally wanted to do as well.

Now it’s as if I had mentally combined Andy Warhol, Anne Lewis and my own phantasies plus some intended deviation from my mental ideal into the first version of the poinsettia print.

Looking at the hellebore print again, I appreciate what the background behind the flowers does. Instead of isolating the central flowers like I did, I could have included some background to fill the image. This would have avoided the need to cut so much away of my plate and having to deal with the inevitable marks from lino in empty areas.

Combining linocut with other techniques.

The second series took up techniques from Part 1 of the course and also served to develop new ideas. I wanted to combine linocut with other approaches, and found the main difficulty was the graphical quality of the linocut which overpowers softer and more impressionistic styles. I tried to adapt the linocut style so that it would integrate with the other techniques, which resulted in a completely different overall impression, compared to the first series. The prints are much less “obviously seasonal” through the different colours chosen.

Overall I’d conclude that linocut is difficult to combine with the more painterly style of monotypes and backdrawing. It works for me if the linocut is “toned down” by making fainter, withered impressions. It amounts to reducing the extreme graphical effects inherent to linocut. Linocut might work better together with more graphical printing techniques like etching which could be introduced for linear elements that are too fine to be made using linoleum.

I think I’m somewhat purist and tend to prefer a “one technique only” approach. I’d rather explore the limits of one particular technique and find solutions for restrictions within the given technology. This has only recently been undermined by the mixed media exercises in the watercolour course (and I liked it), and by now I’m somewhat more willing to experiment with mixed approaches, as in the final poinsettia print where I added paint on top of the print.

There were some more ideas what I could do with my poinsettia subject, for example adding  collage to printed surface or doing multiple prints of the poinsettia over an even larger surface. But for now, I’ll finish and see that I’ll proceed with the course.

Where to go from here?

With the relief that my mental image seemed to have been “my own”, not a memory of someone else’s work, I thought I might as well try whether I can get a little closer to what I originally imagined. I made a painting from memory in my A5 sketchbook, using black ink (for the initial outlines) and gouache for the colours and overpainting the outlines.

The red and green hues are much closer to what I had in mind, also the strong contrasts between red, green, black, white. The shapes and the style of this one are about halfway between the red and green linocut and my mental image. In my imagination, the shapes are more edgy, more dynamic, less flowing and rounded.

I’m still not truly convinced about the origins of the mental image, but don’t know where else to search. Maybe someday I’ll come across that particular image and must then realize that it was indeed a memory, not my phantasy – or maybe not. What I find interesting is how painting helped me to express internal imagery, even if it’s not completely corresponding. It also feels a bit like “developing an idea” and “pushing the limits”. Maybe I should continue and develop another linocut from the painting. Or maybe try another painting first to work towards the more edgy character of my mental image, before getting back to linocutting.

I’ll see. It’s always difficult to decide whether I can afford the time to pursue some personal interests or if I should rather get on with the course.

Task 1 (Project 5): Test cut linoprints

I made a few impressions from my test cuts in black and purple. I used a student set of linocutting tools with 5 different blades, plus some unconventional tools like scissors and a screw, and varied the marks by changing how I applied the tools. The details are described in the associated Project 5 Blog post http://ocaprintmaking1.blueconcretemoon.com/?p=718

The results of my test cuts are not extremely exciting, but I think I learned quite a lot from this exercise because I chose a systematic approach which permitted to compare the basic effects of each tool.

Task 2 (Project 6)

I made an edition of 10 of my first linocut for this course and the quality came out fairly even after the initial prints, I guess this is because I used a press. The amount of ink on the brayer is important – too much seems to clutter the details. Not enough and the print becomes faint or spotty. It’s a matter of practice to get that right.

For the blog I’m including one of the first (weaker) prints and one of the later which are better. It is quite representive of the others. Slight variations aren’t visible in the electronic images. Preparatory work, details of the process and my reflections are described in the blog, http://ocaprintmaking1.blueconcretemoon.com/?p=738

After the first linocut of the interior view I developed a second linocut, a still life. While working on it I thought it would benefit from a second colour, so I went ahead to make a second linoplate to print the background desk in a warm brown colour. The development of the print is described here http://ocaprintmaking1.blueconcretemoon.com/?p=775

Task 3 (Project 7)

This project was a huge learning process. It was no linear progression but characterized by lots of trial and error with different inks and paper types, and in the end my attempts at improving the alignment of the elements on the plates resulted in erroneous cuts in each colour. As a result, I have some example prints from each series of attempts, but not an edition of quality prints.

Also, the seascape view I chose was a difficult subject. After finishing, I thought about trying out  a different approach to the subject, building on what I had seen during my research on other printmakers, but I seemed to be confined within my own limits of perception and ability, and felt very stuck. I’m not sure what to make out of it. Maybe for now it’s better to proceed with the course and try something different to get going again.

OCA students are constantly encouraged to “push their limits” and I felt this might have been a situation where I needed to do just that. But when I tried, I did not know how to do it, as described here http://ocaprintmaking1.blueconcretemoon.com/?p=950. I felt I was just repeating myself or trying half-hearted variation. Working from a photo may have been a factor because the singular viewpoint and constant nature of the image tended to create boredom after a while.

Despite not being 100% happy with the outcome, I still feel that the project was hugely beneficial. I felt that I made most of the possible errors that are possible when working with multiple plates. So hopefully I’m now well prepared for more multiblock monoprints.

For the assignment, I’m including one print from each experimental series, plus those from the last series which are closest to the visual effect I wanted to achieve, despite some problems with alignment. The project with supporting work is described here http://ocaprintmaking1.blueconcretemoon.com/?p=783

1) Schmincke Inks
2) Speedball inks
3) Akua inks before corrections were made on the plates

     
4) Akua inks after corrections (single colour prints and final three-colour print)

Sketchbook work

During work on part 2, all my sketchbook work was directly related to the printing projects. Unfortunately as the cold winter weather came up, I abandoned my habit of taking the sketchbook out with me on my lunch break to draw a bit. With my busy schedule, I did not manage to develop a substitute habit. I regret this and hope I’ll get back to regular sketchbook work in part 3.

Checking my work against the assessment criteria

 • Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills – materials, techniques, observational skills,
visual awareness, design and compositional skills

I’ve been making linocuts earlier in my life so I was acquainted with the basic technique of relief printing and cutting the lino. Nevertheless I learnt loads in this project, in particular the systematic approach to multiblock printing, and many technical tips and tricks. I think the technical part worked quite well overall. Aspects to improve are the cleanliness of my cutting, for example obtaining clean shapes without accidental double contours.

I’d also like to improve my cutting of larger areas that are not supposed to be printed. Initially I liked the pattern from my tools which printed in these areas, but as they are similar in each consecutive subject and appear unwanted, I’d rather find a way of eliminating them or integrating them better into the composition.

I feel that my visual awareness is improving, both from looking closely at my own work but also from studying artist prints. What could be improved is how this translates into my drawings and sketchbook work and later into the final prints.

• Quality of Outcome – content, application of knowledge, presentation of work in a coherent
manner, discernment, conceptualisation of thoughts, communication of ideas

Actually I’m quite happy with the quality of outcome and feel that I’m able to apply knowledge gained from studying the course materials. I do make errors but I reflect on them and try to improve the issue in subsequent work. Registration of prints overall works well and I also manage to produce prints with clean paper borders. I’m beginning to feel more confident about expressing thoughts and ideas on the blog.

• Demonstration of Creativity – imagination, experimentation, invention, development of a
personal voice

I feel that I’m making progress in developing a personal voice or style in my prints, but I think the creativity and experimentation aspect was underdeveloped in this part of the course. It may have to do with the relatively narrow boundaries of the projects which did not prompt further experimentation.

• Context – reflection, research, critical thinking (learning log)

In my research and reflective thinking I’m trying to take on board tutor feedback that it’s important to find the relationship between other artists works and what I’m doing. It’s not easy though. I feel like these two activities, researching and practice, are conducted with a different mindset. When I’m researching, I’m a bit like a sponge and would like to take in everything irrespective of the immediate usability for a particular project.

By contrast, when I’m working on a print, I don’t want to look at how others have done it, but just give it a go and follow my own inclinations and make my own errors.

With time, I’d like to develop an organic relationship to other printmakers’ works. I don’t like the idea of imitating one particular artist’s style or technique just to tick off a box. Currently it feels like the seeds have been planted and now there’s some patience and good maintenance required to make the seeds grow.

I postponed the decision and completed several research tasks. Each of them gave more nurture to the idea of getting back to my topic, developing it further towards the direction that I had identified in my research: Clean up the motif and make it less fussy in the foreground. I was quite sure that this was the way to go, but I was wary to have another go through the somewhat laborious process of making the design and then consecutive transfer and cutting of three separate linoplates. The problem was that I get bored when I repeat myself. So I had the idea of doing things differently.

I started by making another A4 drawing from my photo. I think the drawing is better as the original one and the inclusion of coloured pencils works nicely. But the problem with the drawing is that it is essentially the same approach as the first version which I used for the original linocutting.

Using this drawing, I might produce an improved version of the first print with better alignment and maybe somewhat cleaner shapes, but it would essentially be a repetition and that was not what I wanted.

The next day, I made a second drawing about half the size to see whether changing the scale would help me to develop a different approach. I produced another nice drawing, but I don’t think the resulting print would be essentially different from the original version. I then produced a pencil sketch of the scene from memory, hoping that this might help to reduce clutter. But somehow, none of my attempts convinced me and I felt quite disheartened.

Trying to understand why I felt so stuck with my subject, I remembered the phrase of “pushing one’s limits”. I think with this subject I’m at a point where I would have to push the limits, but I’m essentially clueless how to do this. It may sound obvious but I had to realize that if I did not change the approach, the result would not be different. Only I had no idea in which direction to go from here.

I guess the experience is quite important because it’s exactly the moment where creativity and experimentation come into play, where I should be leaving the “comfort zone” and try out something new. I feel it’s important but I also feel I’m not in the state of doing it now. I’ll try to keep it in the back of my mind and get back to the subject.

I could be addressing one of the most important things for my development as an artist.

Nevertheless I want to explore sculpture, so I decided to do it on my own, as time permits, to supplement my OCA studies. I’ve already learnt quite a lot how to approach an art topic that’s interesting, and I intend to loosely follow this one “the OCA way” by writing a blog, doing research on suggested artists, and using project prompts to develop a personal practice as well. I researched academic course syllabi online and found interesting project prompts which I’m going to use to get me started.

The first project I chose is to make a paper sculpture. The project was designed for beginners to sculpture and the only requirements are a minimum size (16 x 16 x 16 inches, which is about 40 cubic centimeters) and that the sculpture should have an interior and an exterior. The task was designed to get students working in 3-dimensions, and it was presented with some paper sculptures from various artists as inspirations.

Now one of these artist was Andreas Kocks (German, contemporary). I chose him for a closer look because I was quite impressed by the sculptures. The first images I saw were those of sculptures that resembled huge-sized splashes of black ink, cut out and mounted to form a three dimensional landscape on the wall. Similar sculptures were made as cut out shapes that were bent inwards or outwards, so they’d create shadows or highlights on the sculpture’s surface.

Now there’s no immediate connection between sculpture and printmaking in general or between these sculptures and the linocut printmaking technique specifically. But while looking at the sculptures, I did search for a connection or a way to translate the idea from sculpture into printmaking.

Monoprinting came to mind: If ink was splashed onto a printing plate and a print pulled from the surface, this would create a “splash print”, shaped by a chance effects in the same way as the original splash of the ink on the plate. By contrast, I could splash some ink on a linoplate and then cut around the splash shapes for a relief print. This print would have a completely different effect, probably a bit like “frozen water” and similar to water depictions in the linocuts by Ian Phillips.

It’s an interesting idea. I might take it up some time in the future.

Resources

Andreas Kocks, Paper sculptures http://pennstatesculpture.blogspot.com/2012/08/andreas-kocks-paper-project.html

Andreas Kocks artist website http://www.andreaskocks.com/index.html

The linocuts of Ian Phillips show similar qualities to what I liked in Anne Lewis’ linocuts. There’s a graphical cleanliness to them which I admire and that I’d like to achieve in my own works as well.

The dog on a carpet has a lovely fur texture, where brown shades look through the black overprint. Another lovely detail is the white on the paw and the light fur in the neck, where the paper comes through. The landscape to the right I like the tonal gradations within the turquoise/blue/black colour. Both prints open the standard image rectangle to an outline influence by the subject’s forms, which is a great compositional element that I’d like to try out in my own work as well.

These two depictions of water use a different technique which effectively conveys the character of the surface. The left shows the breaking up of waves at the shore, the right shows a quietly moving surface with its reflections. I wonder how the clean linework was achieved in the right print because I’m finding it very difficult to cut fine relief lines into linoleum.

Another interesting detail is the printmaker’s sign which also appears in the next two prints. It’s really a nice detail and I can imagine to develop something similar for my prints as well.

The waterfall print shows another different water subject, “moving water” this time. The depiction of water came up in my watercolour module and I really like how Ian Phillips treats this subjects and conveys the essence of the particular situation. I also like the texture and shapes of the bushes behind the large rocks. The dark purple colour in the linework that creates these bushes returns in the rocks and the darker background trees, and I think this is an important factor contributing to the coherence of the elements in the composition.

The last print I selected for a close look was shown in the section ‘studies’. I really wondered about the distinction between ‘studies’ and proper prints, and the place these studies have in the linocut reduction process. By the time there’s so much carved away that only the black elements of the ducks remain, a new plate must be started if a complete print is to be developed. But I love the lightness, transparency and unfinished, casual style of this linocut.

What can I learn from these prints?

After looking for an hour or so at all the prints presented on Ian Phillips’ website, I had a brief feeling of saturation, as if the prints, despite their admirable technique and execution, became somewhat predictable and less exciting. I checked back to my own multi-block print to compare whether there was the same feeling (after having looked so often at them before), but no. With some days distance and a fresh eye, I found that my messy technique had added something mysterious to the print that made them less immediate to grasp. They are not as clean and precise and maybe that’s what keeps me interested when looking at them. But it may also be a personal thing, simply because it was me who made them.

I’m more than aware how much I can learn by studying other artists’ prints and there are many aspects I adore in the prints by Ian Phillips. In addition to this, his website is extremely well structured and easy to navigate. He presents a tutorial on reduction linocut which contains helpful tips for the process. For example, he uses photoshop to enlarge his original drawings to the final print size, and creates the final drawing based on a printout of the enlarged version.

Another good tip was to use China Markers to transfer the drawing onto the linoleum plate. China Markers are wax-based pens that draw well on smooth surfaces like glass or porcelain, but they can also be used on paper, as underdrawings in watercolours (water-repellent), or for details in oil pastel drawings. Now for image transfer, Ian Phillips traces the right side of his drawing with the marker, then reverses the paper and re-traces the backside, which transfers the pigment from the underside drawing onto the linoleum. This sounds interesting and it might help me to get over the irritation from a variety of different marks on the lino. China markers are available in different colours so I could also try to differentiate between the colours I’m going to use for a print.

Other ideas for my own work

– Ink a plate with two or more colours to achieve a gradation, or ink the plate only partially. I think this technique was used for the ‘Honeybourne Evening’ print with the blue-gray colour on the hill area. This looks as if the ink had been applied fully in the uper half of the plate and was faded out in the lower half, so that more of the red colour comes through in the foreground

– It might also be interesting to combine multiblock printing with the reduction method, for example using two plates in a sequence of different colours and different elements of the subject printed interchangingly. That’s certainly too complicated for me now, but might be interesting to experiment with in the future.

– again the breaking up of plain rectangle image boundaries. I like it a lot how Ian Phillips has applied this in the ‘Howl’ and ‘Honeybourne Evening’ prints. There are more landscape prints where he uses the technique and it looks really interesting.

Resources

Artist website http://www.reliefprint.co.uk/index.html

Edward Bawden, English (1903 – 1989)

The Floral Hall, Covent Garden (1967)

This is a print with many intricate details and fine lines. I wouldn’t have tried to do something like this with linoleum because I wouldn’t be able to cut out these lines with such accuracy. I think it’s a very interesting composition and unusual, subtle choice of colour.

Zoom image at http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/prints-multiples/edward-bawden-the-floral-hall-covent-garden-5588069-details.aspx

Smithfield  (Meat Market) (1967) Lithograph, originated from a Linocut

“This print of Smithfield Meat Market was one of a series of six prints of London markets commissioned by Curwen Prints. The others were Billingsgate, Borough, Covent Garden (2) and Leadenhall. The prints were originated as linocuts which were then made into lithograph plates by Stanley Jones. The main edition was of seventy-five copies of each. In preparing material for the series, Bawden would travel down to London from Great Bardfield very early in the morning with the local butcher. Bawden’s long-term interest in the structural detail of large-span working buildings, evident in his depictions of railway station and other structures, is also expressed in these prints, juxtaposed against the human activity and the market produce.” [The Fry Art Gallery]

This print is actually a lithograph, not a linocut, which I realized only later. I think the black was not the best choice on top of the other paler colours, because it stands out too heavily and does not integrate well with the other image elements. A dark gray would probably have worked better.

For the use of colour, I see a similar method in treating figure, line and background as what I noticed in the linoprints by Anne Lewis in an earlier post (LINK). A particular colour sometimes is a line, sometimes is it used as a shape, and sometimes it’s the background to something else (negative space). These principles are used in the roof structure but also in the center for the people in the scene. The print is undated, but I’d locate it close to the tradition of German expressionism with its bold style.

Braintree Station (1960)

Another linocut with a mind-boggling amount of finely cut detail. The composition uses a central perspective which resembles ‘naive paintings’.

Road to Thaxted (1956)

This is the earliest print from those I selected, and looks like the least controlled composition in a positive way. The treatment of lines and shapes is somewhat looser than in the later compositions of architectural structures. Interesting is that there are several misalignments, maybe deliberate, which work extremely well, for example the blue of the man on the bicycle or the white in the flowers to the lower right. Also interesting the use of texture to create tonal values, for example under the bench with the milk bowls. This reminds me of the techniques used in etching.

Resources

Overview of works by Edward Bawden at the Fry Art Gallery website:  http://www.fryartgallery.org/the-collection/search-viewer/580/artist/6/Edward-Bawden-CBE-RA

Richard Bawden, English (born 1936)

Many subjects around the house: cats, interior views. I chose among the few outside views to make a comparison to prints by father Edward. But there were so few that I included other subjects as well. Unfortunately, I found no dates for the prints by Richard Bawden. Also, the reproduction images were in low resolution which makes it difficult to study technical details and learn from them.

Wivenhoe Waterfront, Linocut

From what I can see, a print with an enormous amount of eactly cut detail: The stone walls and houses with all the tiny brick linework, the planks of the boats, the texture on the water. All the linework for the boat’s sails. I could never do this and I wouldn’t want to in a relief technique, I think. I’m also surprised by the number of different colours in this print and wonder whether there was a separate plate for each colour or whether selective inking was used as well.

Seargent Pepper and Symphonic Rock Royal Albert Hall (White)

Another print with a huge amount of finely cut detail and geometrical patterns. The treatment of the blue light rays across the entire scene is interesting

Saltglaze Jugs, Linocut: I like this print for its subject

Daffodils, Linocut:

A print that has very few dark elements, which I find unusual for linocuts. The main element is the colourful striped tablecloth. The vase of flowers casts a shadow on the table surface which is nicely indicated by a light gray layer which mutes the underlying colours.

Resources

Selected Artworks at Bircham Gallery http://www.birchamgallery.co.uk/catalogue/artist/Richard:Bawden/
Selected prints at Art Angels Gallery: http://www.art-angels.co.uk/cat/richard-bawden
Linda Richardson presenting selected linocuts by Richard Bawden: http://www.lindarichardson.co.uk/index.php/a-z-artists/richard-bawden/linocuts

Concluding remarks

All in all, the prints by these two printmakers are “not my cup of tea”. While I do like them for the images and compositions, it’s not the style of printmaking I’m aiming for. The question ‘what can you learn from them’ is therefore difficult to answer. Things to take away might rather be in the vein of how to do things differently – I’d try to avoid making prints with such intricate, lace-like textures and instead would aim for a more generous  and reductive style.

I’m still undecided whether to have another go at the seaside view, but having done more research confirmed the suspicions I had regarding the need for more clarity in my designs. It may have been this issue that led me to select Anne Lewis and Peter Catherall for a closer look. Both artists specialize on linocut and their style is clean and graphical. I think this is the direction towards which I’d like to develop in future linocut work.

Anne Lewis, Wales (born 1962)

These linocuts were made using the reduction method, where a single plate is used and consecutively cut away over a series of impressions from lighter to darker colours. Anne Lewis explains the process nicely on her blog. I guess the method requires lots and lots of practice to develop the necessary feel for the right colours and how to cut. Lewis has a background in illustration. I guess it’s this kind of training that helps to “clean up” a drawing and make it a good source for a coloured linocut.

I’m just so impressed by the quality of her work – the wide view of her landscape compositions, with the paper white providing accentuated highlights. The prints show very effective colour contrasts.

There’s a particular Photoshop software filter, I think it’s called ‘Colour separation’, which does approximately what is needed to go from a complex real view to a simplified abstraction that will work as a multicolour linocut. I might experiment with that on my source photos to see how it looks like. It’s a bit of a two-sided coin though because I don’t want to reduce linocutting to a mere execution of a digitally prepared image. I think there’s more to a good linocut than just applying a technical procedure.

For now the one thing I know that this is the style I had vaguely in mind when talking about cleaning up my multiblock print of the seaside view: Simplify the shapes, try to obtain clarity and clean up fussy textures.

Storm approaching, Birling Gap (2014), 7 colour linocut, Edition of 20, 30cm x 20cm
Late September, Tenby Harbour (2013), 13 colour linocut, Edition of 20, 41.5cm x 29.5cm
Capel Carmel, Conwy (undated), 5 colour linocut (3 blocks), Edition of 20, 17.5 x 18cm
Towards Trearddur from Porth y Corwgl (2013), 12 colour linocut, Edition of 15, 29 x 15cm

Anne Lewis focuses on landscape, but there are also other subjects like animals and plants. I’m including two examples which I found particularly interesting. The ‘White Hellebore’ is very interesting because of the shapes that go outside of the image square, this adds to the livelyness of the print. It is such an accomplished work, I’m struck by the beauty… There is so much variety in the use of colour and line. For example, the black acts in multiple ways

– there are black lines on white or coloured grounds
– there are black shapes into which lines are carved and the colour shows through
– there are areas where the black is just a background, not a particular shape (negative space)

The narcissi, by contrast, are somewhat more difficult to read, and I think it is because not enough dark contrast was used to separate the flower from its background. It’s nevertheless a beautiful print and I found it very interesting to see a preparatory sketch as well.

White hellebore (undated), 3 colour linocut, Edition of 16, 13cm x 15cm (to petal and leaf tips)
Narcissi (undated), 5 colour linocut, Edition of 16, 28 x 8cm

Anne Lewis Artist website http://www.annlewis.co.uk
Anne Lewis at Martin Tinney Gallery http://www.artwales.com/artists-detail-mtg-en.php?artistID=71
Reference article by Nick Morley http://linocutboy.com/ann-lewis-linocut-artist/

Paul Catherall, England (born 1967)

Paul Catherall is a London based artist. City structures are a major subject in his prints. I wouldn’t have believed his prints were linocuts, I’d rather have thought their were screenprints. The style is even more extreme in its clarity and graphic approach. The artist stated

“It’s about a “quality that’s fairly abstract, where elements are missing and your eye does your work for you”, he says. “I’m exploring what to leave out rather than what to leave in, and getting the negative shapes to do the work.” [from an article at Creative Review website]

I think this is at the heart of what attracted me to these works. The abstract quality and the reduction to essential shapes is just stunning.

The architectural views of London are already great, but I was off my feet to see the prints of New York. Left: Empire State Building and Brooklyn Bridge. Right: The prints of high rises and other structures represent so much of what I see every day.

I’m quite sure that these works are based on photographs, because there are extreme perspective distortions which are typical for standard (zoom) lens cameras. By contrast, when drawing from a real view, the human eye and brain together automatically correct these distortions. It is of course possible that Catherall used a viewfinder for drawing which artificially imposes a little square on the scene and might stop the brain from “pulling the verticals straight”.

What I find most impressive and would like to adopt from these prints is the treatment of shadows to indicate the shape of the actual object.

Artist website (Flash animation) http://www.paulcatherall.com
2012 Linocut Exhibition http://www.designweek.co.uk/whats-on/paul-catherall-2012-linocuts/3034880.article
Selected works overview http://www.art-angels.co.uk/cat/paul-catherall
Paul Catherall Artist Details at the London Transport Museum http://www.ltmcollection.org/posters/artist/artist.html?IXartist=Paul+Catherall
Reference article by Nick Morley http://linocutboy.com/paul-catherall-linocuts-of-london/
Creative Review Exhibition Article: http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2013/april/paul-catherall
Graphicine Article (large image reproductions) http://www.graphicine.com/?p=667

The visit to the CCP was a super nice experience. I received a very friendly welcome and was led around the exhibition and the printmaking studios by Paul DeRuvo, Printmaker at the center. Paul also let me watch him make a chine collé print for another artist’s edition, and showed me some of his own prints. Upstairs I met some artists who were working on their prints, discussing ideas among them. I just got a taste for what I’m missing heavily in my everyday life, where I’m working full-time in a totally unrelated IT job and pursue printmaking alone at home, guided via distance education.

The exhibition itself presented prints by Clare Romano and John Ross spanning their entire artist lives. There were many woodcuts and collagraphs and I spent quite some time looking at each from close and making notes in my sketchbook. I admired textures and other details that one cannot see when looking at prints online or as reproductions in books. I also took some photos of prints I found particularly interesting. It was a very inspiring day.

Prints from the exhibition

Unfortunately the prints were framed behind glass and the studio lights created lots of reflections, so I had to photograph at an angle and the image quality is mediocre. The pictures just serve as a reminder.

    
Clare Romano, Dalmatia (1969), Collagraph: I was interested in the heavily textured effects in this print. I imagined it might have been made using a heavy body paint laid out on a plate and then textured with a spatula. The print was probably made in layers: First the basic colours of red, brown and blue and then a black print from a textured plate with ink wiped off the surfaces so that it would remain only in the ridges. I don’t have enough background knowledge on collagraphs but it’s something I’d like to explore.

Clare Romano, Into the clefts (1960), Woodcut: This resonated with me because it reminded me of the topic ‘New York’, the big city that can get so overwhelming. While doing some preparative research for the visit, I had seen woodcuts of New York by Clare Romano and John Ross that had been made for a book about Manhattan Island. They were in a 1950-60s style and I had hoped to see some of the originals for that book in the exhibition. There weren’t any, but I was sensitized to the subject. What I like in this woodcut is the composition (left photo): When you walk through the streets of Manhattan, you can see a tiny bit of sky above high buildings and maybe a small vertical stripe between two high rises when you follow the street up to the horizon. It looks like an evening scene with neon lighting that becomes blurred as you move through the streets taking a cab or the bus (right photo, detail from center).

I started with the ‘New York’ subject in Part 1, making textured monotypes and experimental prints using masks, and think I will get back to this subject again.

     Clare Romano, East Side Structures (1952), Lithograph
Clare Romano, Along the Arno (1959), Woodcut

The lithograph was very similar to those I remembered from the Manhattan book: The colour choice of beige, brown and grey tones and the geometrical elements in the composition. The image is dominated by flat areas of colour and I guess this has to do with the litho technique. Within the colours there’s a subtle surface texture which I think results from the surface of the litho stone – and which works extremely well to convey the feel of the concrete buildings in that street view. Lithography apparently permits printing linear elements as well, which would be a pain to do with lino, never resulting in similarly clean surroundings. The overall effect with lino would be quite different, even if the same composition was used.

I love the woodcut print for its warm colours and the bold composition. Like the lithograph, this print is based on shape, not on texture. Interesting texture effects on the surfaces arise from light colours that were printed over darker colours. I just wonder whether the black lines were the result of a huge wooden plate where everything except the linear elements was cut away. I think I’d approach this differently and use a combination of woodcut relief with an intaglio method for the lines.

John Ross, Night Refinery (1964), Etching
John Ross, Harbor (1969), Etching

It is interesting to compare these etchings by John Ross with Clare Romano’s prints of built structures and see how the technique has an influence on the outcome. Although similar in colours, the overall impression of the etchings is very different from the woodcut and the lithograph. The Night Refinery etching seems to have been done on top of a brown coloured print on cream white paper. The white of the paper comes through in the round shapes which look like light bulbs in a nightly scene. There’s much greater emphasis on texture and line here, compared to lithograph and woodcut.

The Harbor etching is even more complicated. It might have been done in a single go from a plate that had etched lines and was then selectively inked with several different colours and only partially wiped clean. Similar effects might be obtained with a subtractive monotype technique, combined with backdrawing. I really like the subtlety of the colour effects here.

Canyons

Another subject that had been explored by both artists were landscape views of canyons. The four I selected were all collagraphs, using different materials for texturing the surfaces.

John Ross, Talus (1984), Collagraph
John Ross, Peak (1984), Collagraph
Clare Romano, Red Canyon (1983), Collagraph
Clare Romano, Silver Canyon (1984), Collagraph

Talus by John Ross and Red Canyon by Clare Romano used fabric to create texture, which can be seen from close. The other two collagraph plates were created differently, maybe some kind of gel or mass that could be manipulated with instruments. The Red Canyon seems to combine fabric and textured gel mass, whereas Talus builds on fabric alone.

In the meantime, I have completed my multiblock linoprint which features a landscape view with stones. It’s interesting to see how collagraph can be used to texture stone surfaces. It might be interesting to follow this up later, maybe combining the two techniques: Linocut for the definitions, collagraph for interesting textures. Not sure though whether linocut is at all compatible with a more impressionistic treatment of surfaces.

I have no idea how the multiple colours were printed. I remember that Paul DeRuvo mentioned the complexity of the process of inking these plates when he showed me around through the exhibition. Maybe a combination of selective inking with different colours and selective wiping plus several printed layers on top? I treated myself the printmaking book and also a book on collagraph, maybe I’ll be able to understand the process later on.

Resources

John Ross artist website: http://www.johnrossprintmaker.com/index.html
Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, CT: http://contemprints.org/
Paul DeRuvo artist website: http://paulderuvo.com