I saw a group of swans chasing each other on the Mill Pond near Pembroke castle. One rescued another from the violent attentions of a third swan. Third swan floated away looking reasonably dignified. Then the first two stroked their necks together and caressed in a heart shape.
From my scruffy sketches and some blurry photos I cut a lino block. I wasn’t pleased with it, put it aside and didn’t see it again for about five years.
Made some test prints, it’s not that bad really.
Two small lino blocks (10 x 10cm and 10 x 8cm). I found a battered piece of Japanese paper to test them on, maybe the creases will smooth out later.
A small print (A6 postcard) that involved a lot of cutting. The background wasn’t planned but cutting lines into lino gets quite mesmerising.
Linocut 10 x 8cm, linseed oil ink on paper. A fairy light behind the picture for a brighter fire.
Happy Midwinter!
While looking for card to print on, I found a long-lost piece of brown lino with a baby carved in a star. My favourite son is 21 so maybe this block has been in a box since we moved away from Birmingham in 1998.
The patterns around the star are made from the zigzagging movements when trying to hack into old lino. I’ll see how it prints later…
A screenshot from early August 2018. I added this photo of a linocut to google maps as a visual celebration of misunderstandings. At the time, the gallery was showing “‘Dim ond geiriau ydi iaith’ (Language is only words)”, with the theme of word and image. My “No Need to Understand Everything” print sort of fits in with that idea, but wouldn’t have fitted into that exhibition.
This link has an interesting explanation of the poem quoted above: https://bywaryfiweng.wordpress.com/llyn-in-verse-myrddin-ap-dafydd-91013/
Linocut printed on Japanese paper, 12 x 9cm approx.
Might cut some more light areas, so it’s still a work in progress…
Linocut (8 x 10cm-ish) printed with water-based ink. When opening a new tube of ink, a small amount of oily stuff leaks out before the colour. This print is a bit slimy but I like the effect so that’s something to dance about.
This morning I was cutting little dots into the lino sea foam while listening to live radio coverage of the Thai cave rescue. News updates while printing said that some of the boys were out of the cave.
I was working in an attic room under an open skylight. The ink was weird in the heat, the paper kept blowing around in the breeze. I had intended to rub a bit of yellow ink into the centre of the sun, like an intaglio. Maybe next time.
