Wednesday 9 September 2009

The Jester in Print - and moving forward

Now, I will show you this print already, even though it is not yet finished. I want to hand colour it, but the ink is extremely slow drying so I will have to wait patiently for it to dry completely before I wash watercolour over it.

Even in just black and white it is not too bad I think, although i am still not completely happy with my linocuts yet. It is not easy to get the more gentle sinuous line that I like. Because of course the very character of linocut is generally more crude and immediate.

So i have to explore it further to see if I can use the nature of the medium as it is or try to bend it to suit my own needs. Of course you will probably gather that I favour the latter course of action. I love a challenge. I know it can be done, because I have seen linocuts that are far more subtle than mine so far. The act of adding hand painting to the print will of course help to soften the angular, roughcut lines. But I want to be able to control the cutting better from the outset. I suppose more practice is required.

Scale is another factor. In a very small print it is hard to cut the lines fine enough, so I have moved up a notch - this print is approximately A3 in size and has allowed me more detail, but I think I will have to perhaps invest in a professional cutting tool at some point in the not too distant future. But of course, you know what I am going to say now - it will have to wait until we get to Spain! Mañana, mañana. But in this instance I know that tomorrow will come and that all good things come to those who wait.

I have one more piece of lino with me and have the opportunity to make one more A3 sized print (also another in A4, but as I am running out of paper also that might not happen) and as we speak I am working through some sketches of ideas for this final Norwegian print. Let us hope that everything I have learned so far about linocut printing will come together for me then.

The really good news is that the scaffolding is, right this moment being taken down! I cannot wait.

It has been up for near enough two months now and I had not fully considered how it would affect our view from the windows and how much light it would block from the apartment. Not that we had any say in the matter of course, as we are only tenants here and as such have no say in decisions of that type. Anyway, even if we owned the building we would also have to endure the scaffolding if we wished to get any work done.

I think that once the scaffolding comes off we will all be fully able to appreciate how much better the apartment block will look though. So far the new paint looks pretty good and the building is starting to look very smart.

I have pulled up the blinds in the front of the house to let the sunshine stream in now as it hasn't for all these weeks. It really lifts the spirits.

Of course the summer has now really slipped away - today it is quite cool. We are definitely into Autumn now with leaves beginning to turn brown and yellow and chestnuts ripening and beginning to fall, great brown conkers ready for a fight. I have been here almost a full year - I came on the 25th of September so this was pretty much what i arrived to. What an adventure it has been, in so many ways. Finding out about a new country and a new way of living and learning how to live with my Victor as well, which has been like any relationship in the early stages; good for the most part, but with a few moments of doubts and misunderstandings too. But we have weathered the storms and we have kept moving forward, which is of course what it is all about really.

And like this year, my work has kept on moving forward and I look back and see how much I have achieved during that time and I have to be pleased with my progress. i think also that if you were to look back over the work i have done and posted on this site you will see a development and an improvement - and that is what it is all about. Moving forward

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