Adventures with Lino Printing

This is just a quick post to share some little lino prints that I made using this lovely kit that my partner bought me for Christmas.

I'd been meaning to have a go at lino printing for years, having often admired other people's work, and it was great fun to finally get stuck in.  

For my first go I carved an image based on one of my own paintings from years ago, and ran off a few prints.  

For the second image, I tried something new. I had the idea that planning out my design using white chalk on black paper would feel as close as possible to the creative process of lino-carving - (i.e. if I can get it to work using white chalk, then it ought to work as a carved out piece of lino... yes?)

As it turned out, the theory was quite right and I'd recommend it. However I did make a few clumsy cutting errors in this one that stopped the final image from being quite as successful as I'd hoped. Lino is nothing if not unforgiving!

 

Now I have the bug - I just need to find the time to do some more... 

Adventures with ProMarker Pens

This post is dedicated to my discovery of some great little pens that are a joy to draw with and can be layered almost like watercolour paint.

These Letraset Promarkers come in 1001 colours and are really marketed at graphic and comic-book artists, but a local painter named Stephanie Wilkinson showed me how you can use them with high grade watercolour paper to get quite a different result.

It was in her workshop that I did this sample piece, using a style that she refers to as ‘pattern painting’.

Unlike graphic paper, which gives you a flat, comic finish, the watercolour paper sucks the ink straight out of the nib, giving a deeply saturated and almost painterly effect. Admittedly you get through twice as many pens this way, but I guess that's the price for such a vivid finish.

You can also layer them and, because they flow so well, I've found them very enjoyable to draw with. It's also a much more casual affair than getting out my paints and easel and so on, meaning that time-poor people like me can enjoy doing impromptu little sketches far more often than before.

After my session with Stephanie I had fun banging out this series of informal little sketches at home, mainly to amuse my animal-mad son. I'm sure I'll be playing with these pens some more, when the urge next hits...