Grooving away with a new series of Linocut Diamonds. Always fun to get unplugged & revisit disciplines from the past. The last time I carved a block was 1999. It’s even more fun & relaxing now 20 years later.
Never gets old. I love this part of the process even more than the final printing. Def inspired to go XL with next chapter of these.
This project reminded me of some super-sized ideas I’ve had on my to-do list for years that I plan to experiment with in the next months. 1) Big drawings like this at low tide on the beach. 2) Big drawings like this after a healthy snowstorm with a shovel on empty parking lots. 3) New series of locally foraged organic material compositions, kinda like the stuff I made at Summit back in ‘14 but bigger & 3d.
Linocut Diamond # 1. I printed quite a few tests of these & the ones that feel the most interesting to me are the slightly grainy results. I imagine my serious printmaker friends would urge me to keep going for the elusive perfect impression, without the noise. But that pursuit is such a big part of my work in other disciplines I actually prefer seeing evidence of the block textures in these. There are plenty more APs that are either under-inked, shifted, or completely flooded, and each of these is kinda fun to look at too. I guess I’m just easy to please at the start of a learning curve.
Linocut Diamond # 2. I enjoyed playing with different frequency stripes to hint at a greyscale value spectrum when viewed from a distance. This technique obviously works better at a larger scale & a further viewing point, but it does work on these 8”x8” jams too. Wanna try? Hold your phone as far away as you can & squint your eyes a bit : )
Linocut Diamond # 3. Blending these symmetrical blueprints with randomized highlights & multi-directional stripes helps to keep the eye moving around the design. Hopefully giving each one some of the dimensional energy that a diamond has when it catches a sun ray ricochet.
