and some more fish - though stylised

Digital play with the lino below

lino cut

digital experiment

I've been working with a couple of students doing linoprints and decided to have a play myself - it's not something I do very often as I prefer collagraphs as they are more painterly.

Before it gets messy I thought I'd scan the lino into the computer and then of course couldn't resist playing with the image in Photoshop. I think I can do more with this.

Over the weekend I hope to make time to have a go at printing it in oil paints. I'm not so interested in straight roll up prints but may do some later. I like the potential of colour changes with using oils and the brush marks and textures that happen.

It might work to have a shoal of them, or a line of 3 or 5 - lots of room for experimenting.

Sam's book is progressing well but recent illustrations haven't been water so I haven't shown them here. I thought it was high time that I appeared with some water related work :>)

collage experiments

High Tide. Vivien Blackburn. Collage/mixed media in a little moleskine

Sometimes it's nice to 'play' as Jeanette is doing with her lovely fish - trying out something different, experimenting, getting away from what you normally do and discovering new ways of working, new marks to make, new visual language that can feed into more finished work.

These are some of the collages that I've been playing with in sketchbooks - the idea for first one was triggered by some lovely marbled wrapping paper that Lindsay had sent with something - it just needed to be used :>) It wouldn't be light fast enough to use in a 'finished' work but it's great for experimenting in sketchbooks. I also used fragments of brown paper and the brown tape you seal the backs of frames with, for the rocks. Then a mix of media for the rest including cp's and oil pastel.

I cut up and pieced the marbled paper to give the swirl and perspective of the waves and then scribbled and altered, covered or enhanced areas to try to get that swirl of waves crashing on sand and rocks.

Waves on smooth rocks. Vivien Blackburn. Collage, hand marbled paper and mixed media

The second one, Waves on Smooth Rocks, has been shown on my blog but I've reworked it so that it now looks rather different and I think reads much better. The paper in this one IS lightfast because it's some I made myself - yet another thing I want to try again when I can. I'm going to have a go at the shaving foam method that I've been told about.

Lino print on tracing paper (right hand page) worked into and continued onto opposite page, Vivien Blackburn, linoprint/mixed media

In the last one, the right hand page is one of the series of linoprints I've been working on. It was printed onto tracing paper - I was experimenting with various papers. Then it was worked into with coloured pencils, mainly Polychromos and Lyra, and the image extended onto the facing page,

This one makes me think of the mood in a Samuel Palmer painting, I don't know about you?

All of these have given me ideas for larger works and make me consider incorporating collage into finished work.

another linoprinting experiment

experimenting with oil paint and coloured pencil, Vivien Blackburn

Another linoprinting experiment for me, again printed using oil paint (prussian blue) and finished with coloured pencils in purples, turquoise, blues, viridian and brown.

I'm realising I actually really like the more painterly feel of inking the plates this way, and the way that no 2 prints will ever be the same. Real printmakers will gasp in horror at this! the point of linoprints is to be able to produce lots of images that are the same!

I used the colours to enhance the mystery of the darker areas (that was the intention anyway :>) ) and bring out the light of the moon.

It would be interesting to do a print using chine colle* to provide the colours (that last e should have an acute accent but I forget how to get to accents). This would work better with a press though.

This is simply done on cartridge paper - I must also dig out some of the lovely Fabriano Rosapina printmaking paper lurking in my plan chest :>)

* chine colle (with accent) is simply collaged elements that are printed over.

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

The title of this post is from the Dr Seuss book of the same name and it kept running through my head as I did this printing process. But aside from having fish and colours in it, it has little to do with this post.

The aquatic theme still finds its way into my work and here into Watermarks. This stylized fish was from an old piece that I had done years ago and now translated into a lino print.

I've been looking longingly at lino printing for awhile and decided that it was about time to plunge in. The full process from design to print can be read on my blog, Illustrated Life and today I have played around with some more colours and papers to see what I could come up with.

My next experiment will be to add other colour or texture to the pieces after they have dried. Right now they are being printed on 9 x 6 sheets of anything from plain old sketch paper to Somerset and this black smooth paper which I can't remember the name of.

So what have I learned from this so far?

1. Choose your design carefully. It needs to be something that translates easily to lines and value blocks. I'm sure you can create something as complicated as you like, but I think that less is often more.

2. Think 10 times and cut once! Deciding on what will be printed with ink and what will be cut away can be a challenge as you're working in reverse, almost a negative effect. I found some thumbnail sketches trying out various values works well to give me a good idea of what looks good or not.

3. Have the right tools - or close to it. In my need for instant gratification, I accessed most of the tools I wanted locally but not all of them. While my final prints didn't turn out too badly, some finer gouges and a baren would have helped, as well as access to a broader selection of lino blocks. Thank heaven for mailorder!

4. Research. Despite my need for instant gratification, I did take time over the past week to do a lot of reading on lino printing and watched a lot of videos on the process. It really makes a difference to me to have both written words to reference and the visuals of watching someone actually completing the process.

artists books

I fell for this leather bound sketchbook with hand made paper inside, and scruffy deckle edges - it just looked so appealing - I was hunting for Christmas presents for others at the time but who could resist it? :>D

I love it and rather than use it as a sketchbook I plan to make it an artists book - with finished pieces rather than a my normal sketchbook mix of anything and everything. It's 7x5 inches and I found it on ebay uk if anyone fancies one.

That little leather thong winds round and effortlessly catches against the stitching, holding the book closed and protecting the pages with that wrap around flap :>)


The first page in a book is always slightly daunting and I decided to experment with a lino I'd cut.

I hadn't got the proper inks handy to try it out. I suspect they will be dried out anyway, it's so long since I used them.

So, I painted some luscious pearlescent lavender acrylic ink over the lino printing block and printed quickly - it was fairly successful. The larger areas didn't have a consistent coverage but it printed quite a lot of it.

I then worked on it with pastel pencils, biro and gel pens.

The lino was stylised and quite graphic - you can see it on my blog here. Working into it created something different. I love that pearlescent acrylic ink - one of my Christmas presents :>)

This is going to be an ongoing project, adding small paintings to it regularly on a water theme.

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UPDATE: As a result of the comments on this post, I've now created two posts on my blog which are about lino printing and how this lino print was produced.

• Linoprinting - with a bit of virtual linoprinting ... details the process for producing this print
• linoprinting 2 highlights some excellent and useful comments -with some very useful tips - from the first post.