I'm a fine art printmaker and work primarily in relief printmaking - wood engraving and linocut. To me, linocut is a perfect medium, which combines a thorough planning and methodical labour-intensive process with an element of a complete surprise - you really don't get to see the final result until you've drawn your picture on lino, then carved it, then inked it and rolled it out on paper. I also like the fact that linocut allows for pretty much endless possibilities of experimenting with colours, always with subtly different and often exciting results. 

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      A little bit about the process:

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 All of my prints are designed, cut, inked and hand printed by myself using a bamboo barren and the back of a wooden spoon and, as of recently, a custom-built printing press.

 

Most of my linocuts are multi-coloured and there are different ways to achieve that. Sometimes, I cut a separate lino plate for each colour and then carefully register them and print on top of each other to achieve the colour I want.

I also often use a "reduction technique", developed by Picasso as a way of making a multi-layered linocut from a single block. The block is carved and then printed in the first colour, it is then cleaned, carved again and printed in the second colour and so on. At each stage of the process the size of the printing area is reduced, hence the name. With this cutting method, the block of lino is destroyed in the process so the edition can never be reprinted.   

 

If you'd like to find more about how I make my linocuts, please see The Blog or check my Instagram page for hundreds of videos and photos of the printmaking process.   

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      I am a proud member of Edinburgh Printmakers.