‘Postcards’ Designs – Designing Linocuts

I have been working on some new designs based around those old fashioned postcards from towns popular in the early last century, where there is the overlay of a drawing creating a ‘window’ with the photography of the place behind it. So the idea is to use a ‘picture frame’ of black and white ‘pattern’ with the hand coloured linocut tucked in behind it.

If you follow me on twitter – by clicking the follow button in the left margin or https://twitter.com/#!/LynWeir – you will have been updated as to the progress of the Banksias – Banksia menziesii – design.

Basically I started with a drawing.

Progress through using black felt marker pens and a white correction pen to create the finished design.

I work this way for several reasons:

1. I enjoy the process of pencil on paper drawing – many other linocut artists work directly onto the lino but I love drawing and so I choose to do all my initial designing using pencil and paper.

2. I like to see the design taking shape using black felt marker markers and white correction pens so I can resolve the many design issues first rather than on the lino.

3. I have difficulty currently with carving the lino (due to shoulder issues) and the thought of carving and having to re-carve because of mistakes is not appealing given the pain that I often have carving. I was warned a long time ago about carpel tunnel syndrome for woodcut/linocut artists and have managed to avoid this problem but did not anticipate a ‘worn out’ shoulder.

4. I like to develop the ‘template’ I can reference when carving so I make less ‘mistakes’ of carving the wrong area out!

Another method I sometime use when designing is to scan the final design or print and use photoshop to work around issues with design and colour. I used it for my ‘Regeneration’ linocut.

There is more information on this on my Linocut Tutorial website Handcolouring testing – ‘Regeneration’ – Waratahs Linocut Part 1 and Handcolouring testing – ‘Regeneration’ – Waratahs Linocut Part 2.

In this currrent ‘Postcards’ series I have developed 4 designs so far – Banksias, Waratahs, Lasiandras & Pendas and Sturt Desert Peas. I must say thankyou to Bronwen over at Snails Eye View for her tweet about Lasiandras & Pendas creating the inspiration of purple & yellow!

I am still deciding on 2 more so it will be a set of six. Here are the roughly photoshopped coloured designs ready for carving.