Linocut Printmaking in London, SE1

I'd always fancied trying my hand at linocut printmaking, so having dabbled with screenprinting earlier in the year, I thought I'd give it a go. The bold marks you can get seem to fit well with my current style of work (all those tasty black outlines!). I enrolled on a 3-day course across a weekend (so pretty intense having the time all in one go). The course took place at The Art Academy, off Borough High Street, London SE1, and the small group of us was tutored by Nick Morley (inspiring and with a nice dry sense of humour).

Southwark 1 (linocut)

The Search for the Missing Dragon (linocut)

Borough Market Illustrations - 1

Here's the first of the Borough Market illustrations: Borough Market Veg 1 that I was researching the other day (see post). Using reference photos taken with my phone, I constructed a composition in Photoshop then worked from that. It saves having to stick a scary camera lens into people's faces whilst they work/sell/eat in London SE1. After that, a lot of colourful monoprinting ensued (using dry paper), followed by an addition of all the contrasty detail, afterwards, in ink with a pen. There are four more of these to come (Bread, Veg 2, Juice and Fish) but I'll share those when they are all complete.

Borough Market Ideas Give Away

I popped along to Borough Market, SE1 last week to see if I could get some ideas for some new art work. I'm very keen to develop my monoprinting further. I think the marks you can make with ink are really interesting. The trip was fruitful - I'm currently producing five pieces based on what I saw down in The Borough: coloured monoprints with black ink details drawn over the top. Hopefully they will evoke something of the hustle and smells you can get down there - seemingly every day of the week, but I know that's not 100% true. Borough Market is closed sometimes. Here are some photos that I took along the way, but the work itself will be much more produce/stall focussed. Coming soon.

Printing in mono

I've been trying out some monoprinting at home, to see what results it might produce.

Monoprint. Blue printing ink (diluted, neat and wiped). Printed on damp 220 gsm paper.

This is what I did:

• Monoprinting basically involves painting (with water soluble printing inks) on a water resistant surface (I've used glass).

• I placed a printout of a photo of mine (taken in Borough, London SE1) underneath the glass, to give me something to paint over as inspiration.

• Using either: neat ink, slightly diluted ink, ink that I scratch into, or ink that I apply then wipe off - I created my image.

• I then place either a dry piece of paper onto the inked glass (or a piece that's been soaking for a few minutes in water but with any surface water wiped off before printing).

• With a small roller (normally used for linocut printing) you give the back of the paper a few good rolls.

• Carefully lift up the paper and voila! Your print.

• Monoprinting is so called, because each print is unique, a one off. You can try to get two or three prints from one 'inking' but they will each look significantly different to your first (but still interesting if you're lucky).

Transpontine

I've recently discovered a good blog, based around all things S.E. London, called Transpontine. I had to look up what the word meant (sorry!) but was happy to find it aptly means:

1. Of, pertaining to, or situated on the far side of a bridge.

2. Of, or pertaining to the sensational melodramas presented on the south side of the Thames in the 19th century or earlier.

They were kind enough to run a little piece about my work. Which was nice.

http://transpont.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/matt-bannister-crystal-palace-dinosaurs.html