Thursday, January 29, 2009

Linoprints with Watercolour


Linoprint with Watercolour

I've been experimenting with adding colour to my linocut prints. I've gone for a Japanese woodcut-like approach on the rooftop cat above. Quite pleased with that one.

Have you noticed how many cats seem to be finding their way into my art? I do hope our dogs haven't noticed, Dermott, particularly!.

I much prefer the quince without the colour (which you can see in my previous post). I will experiment with gouache for a stronger colour effect but first I would like to find a vegetarian alternative to Ox Gall which hopefully gives gouache a smoother finish. Any suggestions you Gouache Experts?

There is a marvellous interview with Sherrie York on Printsy: Printmakers on Etsy today. Sherrie's linocut prints and her generous and informative blog Brush and Barren have inspired me in my latest adventure. When you see the evolution of her work you will understand why.

13 comments:

Anita said...

Lovely! Particularly the first one. Just enough colour and not too much.

vivien said...

mmmm that is reallly successful! love those touches of colour

Joan said...

I really like the first one of the roof with the color added, but agree that the quince looks better in just black & white.

Anonymous said...

If the roof-top cat was for sale I'd want first dibs!
And maybe you should put it out of Dermott's chomp-range...

Dermott said...

Too late. It's now available at a discounted price on account of the cat's missing from the print, replaced by chomp marks, and not a little bit of sticky Dermott drool.

Robyn Sinclair said...

Anita - Many thanks. It's hard to get such pale watercolour washes to show up. I really need a better scanner because sometimes photographs just don't do it.

Vivien - Glad you like it. I'm back into Shirley Trevena's books today. I think I'm about to have another bash at watercolours.

Joan - You are absolutely right. In fact I shouldn't have posted the coloured quince at all because I really don't like it. However I thought it may be of interest in terms of what works and what absolutely doesn't work.

Dinah - That is so lovely! I've taken the first step to setting up an Etsy shop, but haven't managed to get over the hump of setting up the money side of things.

If Dermott's not careful he could find himself up for auctiion on Ebay!

Joan Sandford-Cook said...

Robyn - the added colour to the quince I feel would have worked better if you had kept the amount less so that some of the shapes were still in b+w - just like you did with the lovely chimney pots. .. but I certainly dont think it absolutely doesnt work. Thanks for sharing it even though you felt you werent happy with it.

Dermott said...

E-bay? There wouldn't be enough money in the world. More so now credit crunch-wise. I read the "Financial Times". I'm not an utter Boofhead.

caseytoussaint said...

I actually like both of these in color, Robyn, but the rooftop cat is my favorite!
You make me want to try printmaking, but right now I'm already so bogged down in trying to learn oils - which I'm hopeless at, by the way!

Anonymous said...

The rooftop cat is wonderful. I have never coloured my prints. At TAFE we weren't allowed to, because it all had to be done by print-making techniques. Now I only do viscosity printed collographs, so they're colourful enough already. But I'm going to do solar plates in March.

Robyn Sinclair said...

I'd love to learn to do solar plates.

It's quite hard for me to decided to add colour to my prints - I really love the black and white. Once I'm back in the print studio I'm hoping to do some etchings with colour.

Elizabeth said...

I have been looking for an alternative to oxgall too -- I am going to try a synthetic oxgall made my Mir (available via Alvin and Amazon) and see how that works!

Robyn Sinclair said...

Elizabeth - Great tip, thank you. I'll look for that next time.

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