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Two Tree Studies

Two photographs I took earlier this year, both have been waiting in my head to become prints. The Loe, Porthleven, Cornwall and a tree lined path on Clapham Common. From November and July.

Two quite different images I wanted to figure out how, to translate them into prints.

The Loe seemed as if it would be quite straight forward, in that it was a nice black detail to cut and print over the water and sky.

Clapham seemed all light and impressionistic and I wasn't quite sure how I was going to tackle it.

One I thought would be tight and controlled and the other loose and more accidental. 

I thought it would be fun to do them at the same time. I planned them both out on my lino with a sharpie before I started to cut.

I love experimenting with clouds and for The Loe I wanted a scribbled look, so I scribbled them on in white crayon and cut my marks. I found in both these images I was happy for my pen drawing lines to come through with the ink onto the paper, as it helped to me to know where things were for cutting the next layers. 

 First layer of The Loe cut, inked and printed

Happy with my scribbles I added another layer and cut away all the pale water.

Then I started on my Clapham trees, after a closer look at the image I decided, there was no white to keep on the paper so I began by printing two background colours.

ink on lino, and printed.

 

While those were drying I went back to cutting more water out from The Loe print.

My plan was to cut all the tree detail and print the black as my last colour.

But as I was printing this layer I thought it would be nice if the light in the water stretched further round to the left and was there a way I could break up the black mass of banking by adding another layer of cutting. With this in mind during printing my black ink became a dark grey to allow me be able to put a black on top next time round.

When I lightened the original photograph there were thin branches and leaves in the foreground so I cut that detail in to the lino to print the black over as a last layer.

 

Back to Clapham and my first layer of cuts, which I tried to keep fairly rough edged. I printed two colours again to build up the shadows on the grass and the paths.

ink on lino and printed onto paper.

I cut and printed another layer of a darker green before cutting the path away and printing the lilac below. 

This layer printed on it's own makes a lovely snowy image, I have a few of these so I'll get them up soon. 

I added another layer of a darker lilac, and then my final layer was a dark green. 

 I've called it Summer Shadows, Clapham Common and it's for sale here

 

Maritime Pines, The Loe with the solid black 

and an edition of 6 with the added detail 

 

 

 


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