Everyone draws shells. It feels like a beginner project and something that every hand holding a pencil has to have a go at. I know many of my friends have drawn some wonderful examples, but not me.
It’s a demonstration of my progress that I now feel ready to give it another try. My attempt at the very beginning of my studies was a dismal failure and my shells looked just like scotch eggs!!
Over the last week I’ve studied various shells and really looked in detail at how to create dimension using tonal variation. I then took each of the drawings and translated them into single black and white images, with no other tones, in the hope of creating solid outcomes for single colour lino prints.
It has been a very valuable use of my time. One of my main criteria for this course (set by myself, for myself) is to improve my eye as it relates to translating what I see into printable images.
Simplifying the images was fairly easy after the time spent examining and recording them as realistically as I could. I found I could quickly see areas that could be picked out as high and low lights.
As I wasn’t sure what to do with the images once ready I started to play with composition. ‘Shatter’ is an effect that I’ve always enjoyed but never produced myself. I think it looks excellent, but not for lino printing: too fragmented, too many small fine details and a danger of losing definition as the lino crumbles.
I decided against using positive/negative and split effects as it takes away from the drawn image. Repetition felt too static and lifeless. The shoe (previous linocut) was static so I’d like some movement here. I started looking at water and ripple effects.
Having a water scene in mind I photographed the pool surface while the wind was blowing the tree branches. The sunlight has caught the reflection of the branches and leaves creating undulating lines advancing and receding as they sway back and forth. So I resurrected the above water drawing I did some years ago. Always worth keeping past sketchbooks!
Using some photocopies and some new drawings I placed my shells in position and will cut them first before adding my water linework, by pencil directly on to the lino, in a similar fashion to the drawing above, middle right-hand side of the page.
TactualTextiles 