Journey: Line Drawing and Linoprinting Local Landmarks

I created a black line drawing and linoprints of cottages from my regular walk! For the print, I used three different ink colours: orange, 'Prussian blue', and black.

A few nights ago, I took a photo of these cottages with the idea I’d use it as a subject to create a line drawing from. I printed out the picture and traced it, and drew the outlines in my UniBall Pin! (Picture incoming).

I realised I could create a linoprint of the cottages, so I got an A4 piece of EasyCut and traced the cottages over it. I carved the outlines, and carved out highlights and areas I wanted to leave white, like the white paint on the cottages.

I ended up with black, orange, and dark blue prints. I already knew I wanted to use dark blue, but I wanted to experiment with different colours. After some thinking, I decided to mix myself some orange paint like the sunset. Overall though, my favourite colour was Prussian blue because it reminded me of my nightly twilight walks during the first lockdown. It was amazing how the first print really took me back to that time.

With the orange, the first two prints didn’t work out as planned. I somehow kept finding black ink mixed in, and the roller I used (or my technique) meant I didn’t distribute the paint effectively. If I get the chance to make more prints of this cottage in this project, I’d like to do some more orange prints. I’d like to see if I could try making a marbled colour effect too.

I left some chatter in the white of the cottage to give texture, and it worked well. I figured that if it didn’t work, I would just carve it out and do a new print. I did consider making this as a reduction print, but the first print was so good that I didn’t want to change it!

After my first print, I realised that the image is flipped. I’ve done linoprints before, so I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten that! Luckily, it doesn’t impact the effect of the picture, and although it might be slightly annoying to me, it doesn’t change the impact and meaning of the print!