Artist Research - Linocut and Woodcut

Angie Lewin

All the examples by her I have included in this blogpost are woodcuts but she also uses linocut printing and other analogue methods of printmaking and painting. I was inspired by her clear interest in nature and when I read more about her, I found out she studied horticulture as well as art and design. I felt there was a strong connection here with Agatha Christie because she too was well educated about poisons and used this information in a creative way. I am trying to educate myself about plants and poisons by reading about meanings and uses of plants and also visually studying them to work out what are the most prominent and recognisable parts of the plant. I really like how her work strays from a typical representation of a flower, it is very shape based and the plants are shown as being a lot more structured than they would be in nature. This might be an approach I could adopt to make the designing and cutting of my linos a little easier but still allowing the plants to have high visual impact. I think her colour palettes are really neutral and subtle, the images are colourful enough to catch your eye but in no way overwhelming. 

Mark Hearld

I have come across Hearld's work before but have focussed more on his collage work so looking at his print based work showed me a different side to him. I think his compositions are really strong and his limited colour palette is particularly relevant to this brief. I have been doubting whether certain colours would look okay with black ink on white stock but looking at his prints has made me realise that most colours will work. I wouldn't have said that a pale blue was particularly relevant to a farmyard scene but the image works as a whole. Similar to Angie Lewin's work, Hearld simplifies the shapes of his plant life a lot, some foliage is reduced right down to a series of sweeping lines and this is effective. 

Ralph Kiggell

I have never come across Ralph Kiggell's work before but his primary process is woodcut printing and his subject matter links closely with mine for this project. I love how his woodcut prints work alongside his textured backgrounds. The scale of them appear really impressive just from photos so I imagine in real life that these images would be stunning. I think the scale of his work has allowed him to include a lot more detail than the other two printmakers I have looked at and the textural quality of his final images make them seem even more detailed because of the marks left on the paper. On his website he talks about how he prints by hand to get across 'sensitivity and unpredictability' which I think is really nice to hear. I might try printing some of my lino prints by hand before using the press to see what difference this will make.