Wagtails - lino cut print

A new mini-print to add to my growing selection of bird lino prints - Wagtails These birds are always a joy to watch and I have a pair living just in front of my house so I had to draw them. The sketches have evolved into this little lino print, with the Wagtails bobbing and rushing around, ever busy as in real life! This lino block printed really well too, and it was a satisying print to start editioning with all those little birds being revealed each time. In my online shop just HERE if you would like to see any more details...

New Lino Print - Otter Feast

A new lino print of a trio of hungry otters - well not that hungry as they have a pile of fish to eat. I have only ever seen an otter footprint, never a glimpse of the elusive creature although apparently they do live right here in waterways of Bristol, urban otters! This was a fun little lino print to carve, especially the little pile of fish bones - somehow the perfect subject matter for lino. I have added the Otter Feast to my online shop HERE if you are interested in any more info about it (size, paper etc) so pop over and have a look.

Beetle lino prints

For the last couple of years I have been drawing in our local Museums Natural History department whenever I get the chance.   The collections there are huge, varied and really inspiring.  Drawing the birds is my usual habit, but recently the curator had beetles out and I couldn't resist spending an afternoon drawing those too.

I found them tricky, I am no expert on beetle anatomy and they have so many parts - legs, antennae, etc that have to be in the right place.  My drawings would never be any use as an identifying guide but I had so much fun making them and learnt a lot too.

I couldn't resist making some lino prints from the drawings - keeping the slightly misplaced legs and wobbly lines where they were in my original drawing and using the scientific labels as part of the design.

Carving the lino block was tricky as I couldn't mis-cut anything - all those letters and legs!  It worked though, all in place and so in this picture you can see me peeling back the paper from one of the first prints I burnished from the block - success.

Hopefully this will become part of a small series of lino prints as it was great to work on.

Owl lino prints

I have been busy proofing a lino block of owls, drawn from the Natural Science collection at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.  They have an amazingly interesting and varied collection of specimens and it has been a real privilege to be allowed into the stores to draw them.

This block took a while to carve as I wanted to keep the 'drawn' feel of the original whilst turning it into a lino print - all the lines and no tone, a bit of a leap of faith that all the cutting out would pay off, but I am pleased with how it has come out.  Next stage is to print it in gold on lovely black Stonehenge paper which will change how it looks all over again...

Everybody at the table - lino print frenzy!

Due to having a long list of other things to do I have managed to get quite a few new lino prints started this month...the other things can go away :)

This one is now proofed and ready to go - I've called it 'Everybody at the table' and especially enjoyed cutting out tiny little guinea pigs.  We don't always keep ours on the table.

Here is the print in my little Etsy shop if you want to take a look.