Linocut of Pinehaven Road

This is a linocut hand-carved stamp that I have been working on for ages now, finally finished.  It is done with sepia-coloured block printing ink and a rubber brayer. I´m not sure whether I´m pleased with the actual printing. On the one hand, I like the texture and the roughness of it. I wasn´t wanting it to be precise and exact. However, the road is meant to be pure colour. I may have to look at diluting the block printing ink and using a foam brayer.

Anyway, here are the various steps it went through.

One of the original sketches above. No people planned in the picture.


The final sketch, with the outlines blackened with a 6B pencil, ready for transferring in reverse to the linoleum.

Above: the linoleum with the design transferred from the paper. I´ve just started to do the cutting and am wondering whether this is all such a good idea after all. The cutting of the stamp took me months. There is only a very small window of time each day where the natural light on our kitchen table is perfect for cutting AND my baby is asleep.

Above: the first draft of the stamp. I felt the picture was too dark. The trees needed to stand out more - you can´t really see them swaying in the wind. The grass was too dark. The sidewalks needed to be white and the people needed to stand out more.

Below: is the final print with these changes made. I think the lines of the white spaces of the asphalt below the hall, and the white sidewalks kind of draws the eye in towards the road, and then follows the road. That´s kind of a confused line for the eye to follow maybe. But, on the other hand, it is a windy day, with the trees being blown this way and that. Maybe having the eye follow a this-way-and-that line could be a good thing? Mmmm. It may have been better to leave the asphalt square as it was. Bit late now...

I´d initially planned doing a series of six of these, of various scenes around Pinehaven / Silverstream. I´m not too sure whether I´ll do this. The whole project really took a very, very long time.