Beach Near Ullapool Reduction Linocut Print

So the day has gone quite well print wise and I managed to complete my print.

I chipped away much of the lino connecting the pebbles to emphasise the crescents of orange seaweed, then printed in a rusty orange colour.  I added extender to make the orange a little less opaque as I had done with the blue.  I used torn paper to mask areas of the plate that I did not want to print in an effort to keep the print as clean as possible.

Next I chipped more of the seaweed area so that when I printed the richer red colour patches of the lighter rust brown colour would show through.  Once again I used a mask made from torn paper to preserve a crispness to the print.  I really like the way I can 'draw' the pebble shapes and layer one slightly different sized pebble shape over another to give a feeling of depth and a more complex effect.  It reminds me of certain effects I get with a dip pen and India ink.  It's something I want to explore further in another linocut.

Finally I cut even further into the red areas of the seaweed and printed a darker colour mixed from red and black again adding a little extender, once again using a simple paper mask to protect areas of the print I wanted to keep clean.  I wanted to add some darker areas towards the bottom of the print to turn the bottom of the print into the foreground, as I had done in my Cairn print.

Many linocuts I have looked at over the past few months, although lovely, have a very flat graphic appearance and although I appreciate the graphic nature of this medium, and one which comes more naturally to me than a more painterly approach, I would also like to try to do something more painterly with the linocut.

One thing I have really enjoyed while exploring the creation of linocuts is using colour more in my work.  I have always been someone who draws more than someone who paints, and I feel that with the linocut I have found an approach that allows me to use colour in a graphic way.  And maybe push the use of colour further away from the graphic towards the painterly through use of pattern and revelation of one layer beneath another.