A Bit of Light Relief

Sometimes after some concerted work in one area it is good to try something else.  A change is as good as a rest they say, so recently I have been doing a bit of relief printing.  A set of small lino cuts.  With these I was looking to explore some different colours, a more subtle palette than from the recent screen prints.  There was no set plan, I just started with some light tones and worked progressively darker.  

Some were in a sort of salmon pink, mixed from crimson, golden yellow and burnt sienna and varying levels of white.  Then a green range mixed from prussian blue, raw umber and white, and finally a steel blue tone, again using the prussian blue and white but with a touch of black and crimson.

In the screen prints I have been mixing the colour primarily through an optical approach by translucent layers.  This work involves mixing the colours directly so is quite a different challenge.  Each of the prints consists of a solid colour background, from a piece of uncut lino, and then a second colour on top from a cut plate.  I have been mixing the prints with pale and dark background, and prints with different tones of the same colour as well as different colours.

This has given me quite a bit to think about colour wise as well as the development of the images themselves.  A set of the prints are now on the wall at the studio.

Recent lino cuts on the studio wall